UNPAID PURCHASE MONEY DUE ON ARTICLES OF AGREEMENT.

In the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.--January, 1860. Before Judge THOMPSON. Springer vs. Walters. Error to the Common Pleas of Fayette County.

Unpaid purchase money due on articles of agreement, or to become due within seven years, is not such a reprize as an inquest should consider, in determining whether the estate of the vendee will rent for the debt, interest, and costs of the execution beyond all reprizes in seven years. CALVIN SPRINGER, plaintiff in error and below, had judgment against JONAH WALTERS for $321 49, the only judgment against defendant. A fi. fa. issued thereon was levied on the defendant's equitable estate under articles of agreement, in a tract of 109 acres of land. On inquisition and condemnation, and approval thereof, sec. reg. a vend. ex. issued.

Defendant filed exceptions to the inquisition. because the jury took into consideration, as a lien, an alleged balance of purchase money, due under articles of agreement between defendant and one JOHN M. MOORE for the purchase of said tract of land. It appeared that the land would have extended had not this balance been considered a reprize.

The opinion of the court was delivered at Philadelphia.

THOMPSON, J.-The learned judge of the Common Pleas was of opinion, that unpaid purchase money, due on articles between vendor and vendee, was not such a lien as is proper to be laid before a sheriff's inquest, to determine whether the rental of the debtor's estate levied on, wil, in seven years, be sufficient, beyond all reprizes, to pay the debt, interest, and costs sought to be collected by the execution. We think in that opinion he was right.

From the passage of the act of 1705, which introduced our present system of extent of lands for debt, up to 1836, is embraced a period of 133 years, and from that time to the present, a period of twenty-three years more. During all that time the books contain no trace of such practice.

It seems to me, that our present system necessarily excludes, by a fair interpretation of its terms, such a practice. The 4th sec. of the act of 1840 provides, "that on application of any creditor, the court may make an order, in case of an extent, describing the manner in which the money arising from the half yearly instalments shall be distributed among the different lien creditors, accord ing to the priority of their liens, in the same manner and with like effect as in case of distribution of money arising from sheriff's sales.

The liens here referred to are generally record liens, and certainly everybody knows, that when the vendee's interest alone is sold on execution, that the pur chase money due the vendor is not paid out of the proceeds. The court never directs his lien for the purchase money to be paid, because it is not a lien on the equitable estate but on the legal, by virtue of the title. When the vendor sells upon a judgment for purchase maney, then he is paid according to his priority of lien on the land, both the legal and equitable estates being sold. It is only in this case he becomes a distributee, and this is by reason of his judgment on the entire estate.

The principle of distribution of the proceeds of the equitable estate is the same, whether in sales, or by extent of the land and order of court, by the act cited. In neither case can the vendee's lien be affected, or be entitled to any money in the distribution on account of the legal title. How, then, is his claim to be considered a reprize? Practice, I think, shows that it is not, and the principle of the thing is as stated, that it is not a reprize against the equitable estate, because not a lien against it. The vendor having the security of the legal title in his own hands, the law allows him to use it in accordance with its terms, when he pleases. It does not force him to take satisfaction out of the equitable estate, and compel him to convey the legal. The interest of the vendor, under articles, is a distinct interest from the legal title; it can be bound as such and sold as such, without interfering with the legal estate. This is the constant practice. Inasmuch, therefore, as the vendor's claim cannot come in on the purchase money, I cannot see why it should be made the means of sending to sale property, the proceeds of which could not be applied to its extinguishment.

It would operate hardly, too, other considerations out of the case, on the vendee, to allow a small judgment to draw its aid, the purchase money due or pay. able within seven years, and condemn the land. It would change the entire system of land sales, by articles of agreement, at once, for a poor man, if there were debts against him, would be almost sure to be sold out, by introducing the purchase money due the vendor as a means of preventing an extent, although neither vendor nor vendee would be benefited, but more likely injured by it; and hence a different system would most likely be resorted to. Again as purchase money due on articles does not stand on the same footing, as to conclusiveness, as debts of record, the amount due would necessarily become a subject of inquiry before the jury. So, too, equities are sometimes required to be adjusted before the exact amount to become due could be ascertained. Such matters would be wholly foreign to the duties of the sheriff's jury, and totally unmanageable by them. These considerations serve to demonstrate the impracticability and impropriety of considering such claims in such a place. Debts in such form are not reprizes within the meaning of the statute. They are mostly record liens of some kind or other, and annuities, rent charges, and the like. Miller vs. Campbell, 1 J. 417, and Near vs. Watts, 8 W. 319, seem to treat them as such. For these reasons, the decision of the court in setting aside the inquest, is affirmed.

COMMERCIAL CHRONICLE AND REVIEW.

GREAT PROSPECTS-MARKETS ABROAD-CROPS-NO EAGERNESS TO PURCHASE-EXPORTS MORE FREE -EXPORT OF SURPLUS GIVES BETTER PRICE FOR HOME SALES-ABILITY OF THE WEST TO PAYGOOD CROPS AND SALES ARE MONEY-BANK SOPHISTRIES-THE STATE OF THE WEST-FREIGHTS -TONNAGE-RAILROADS-GRAIN-THE SOUTH-COTTON-CORN-NEW YORK AND NEW ORLEANSVALUE OF COTTON CROP-THE MARKETS OF EUROPE-FREE CORN AND FREE SHIPS IN FRANCERISE IN FREIGHTS TO LIVERPOOL-RISE IN STOCKS-HIGHER VALUE FOR SHIPS-SECURITIES—AGRICULTURE MONEY RATES OF-DECLINE-NEW LOANS-STERLING BILLS-SMALL DEMAND EXPORT OF SPECIE-GOLD DOLLARS-ASSAY-OFFICE-UNITED STATES MINT-NEW ORLEANS MINT-GOLD FOR EUROPE.

THE crop year opens with the highest promise of abundance in quantity, of all food and raw materials, and of fair prices for them at home and abroad. The aspects of the markets in Europe now for breadstuffs is such as to induce the belief of much higher prices than have ruled in the past year. The quantity of the crops, on the other hand, is reported so large that a very great demand would be required to make much impression upon it. The circumstances are, therefore, not such as to induce the investment of much capital in produce for a rise. This is a fortunate circumstance, since the export of the surplus will not be delayed by any attempt at holding, or a fictitious rise in the prices. The surplus moves freely to market at current prices, and thus pours out of the country to the relief of that which remains. The freights on the lakes and Western waters have risen rapidly under the influx of grain, and the rise in freight has come off the price of wheat at the other end of the route. Under these circumstances the great demand for money that usually takes place when there is prospect of a rapid rise in prices under an export demand is not experienced; but, on the other hand, the regular flow of produce eastward, in payment of bills and discharge of debts, causes a great abundance of money. The produce of the West is money in fact. It is the medium in which her debts are discharged. The shipment of grain to the eastward forms the basis of the bills that are in demand for remittance in discharge for debts and the payment of goods, and those

bills are money. Many of the theorist on banking are profound upon the ratio of specie to liabilities, the proportion of specie on hand, and the amount of discounts; but all these are solved in the one important question :-has the debtor section got the means of paying? When the crops have failed, all the theories that can be formed, and all the legal provisions that can be entered on the statute books, will not help the creditor or reduce the balance on the wrong side of the ledger. The bank that holds a long line of paper made by persons whose means depended upon a crop that never ripened, cannot be helped by theorizing on the proportion of specie it ought to have held to its liabilities; on the other hand, if the crop matures well and sells satisfactory, the line of discounts will be met whether there is specie or not on hand. The demand for loans at such times will by no means equal the means of the institution. This is the case this year. The West, which in 1857, was suddenly by panic deprived of the means that for so many years had been liberally poured into it for railroads and land speculations, and lost its crops at the same time, struggled hard to pay in the two years that followed. The effort was to get capital back from the West at all hazards. Neither land nor railroads, in which so much money had been placed, could be exported East, and the crops were small, while no export demand existed to make the surplus available. The railroads had no freights, and the tonnage of the lakes being almost idle, a good deal left for the ocean service, and all the interests were much depressed. The recovery has now come. The utmost wishes of the agriculturists are met in the abundant crops, and the tonnage of the lakes was never more profitably employed than now, while every railroad shows growing recovery under the volume of grain that passes eastward. The receipts of grain at Chicago and Milwaukee are as follows from January to September :-

This gives a value of nearly $15,000,000, or about $10,000,000 in excess over last year, from the extreme end of the lakes, at points where it has been gathered by the railroads from the large circle of country which concentrates at those points. The busy railroads have shown a considerable increase in revenues consequent upon the flow of grain. The Illinois Central has increased its freight receipts 50 per cent over last year, and it has become the great motor for corn, as well from the interior to Chicago as from the Upper Mississippi to the South. ern waters, where a large business is to be done in supplying the South with corn, for which, unhappily, this year she must depend upon the West to a considerable extent. This Southern demand is an opportune opening for the Western supplies. They are a corn-consuming people, and the quantities they must require will far exceed that of any foreign demand, and will equalize a little of the wealth which the South has accumulated in the last few years. The trade at New Orleans, as seen on another page, gives a most satisfactory result, as does that at all the Southern ports, Mobile and Charleston particularly. The exports from New Orleans and New York compare as follows:

The figures run very high from these two ports, exceeding by $34,000,000 those of the same period last year, while the imports are not in so large a proportion. The exports from New Orleans have been mostly increased by the large cotton crop, which has also swollen the exports of the other Southern ports. The value of the whole cotton crop of the country, 4,675,770 bales, at the New Orleans average per bale, will be $230,000,000, of which $191,806,555 will have been exported. On another page will be found the annual cotton statement of the New York Shipping List in full.

The French imperial government last year reimposed the duties on corn, which had for some years been suspended, to take date from the 1st September. This year the Moniteur, of August 23d, contained a decree removing the duty, by which this sliding scale has been altogether suspended. The decree enacts that grain imported by land or by sea, in French or foreign vessels, shall, wherever they may come from, only pay, up to the 30th of September, 1861, the minimum of duties fixed by the law of the 15th April, 1832; also, that vessels laden with grain and flour shall be exempt from tonnage dues; and, finally, that vessels so laden leaving any foreign port at any date previous to the said 30th September, 1861, shall only pay the said minimum, and shall be free from tonnage dues. The minimum referred to, is 25 cents the hectolitre, (about 2 bushels.) Consequently, while France in the years 1858 and 1859 sent more wheat-2,014,923 quarters and more flour-4,316,435 cwt.-to England than any other country, it will now seriously compete with Ergland in the purchase of grain in the foreign markets the provisional suspension of the French sliding scale affording the wanted facilities for such competition. The two main markets of supply which both England and France find themselves limited to are the United States and Southern Russia. In regard to the latter country, the news as to the state of the harvest is of the most contradictory character. On the one hand, it is asserted that the harvest is most plentiful; on the other, that heavy rains and high floods having damaged the crops in all parts of the Empire, the roads and corn-fields of the southern provinces had been greatly devastated by locusts, a scourge which made its first appearance in Bessarabia.

The prospect of a large demand for grain in free ships thus opens the door to a large employment of vessels, and such an employment will come very opportunely for an interest which has been so depressed as that of shipping in the last two years. The lake tonnage and the Western grain interest already feel the demand, and Atlantic freights have risen 40 per cent in sixty days; that is to say, flour to Liverpool was 2s. 6d. in July, and 4s. first week in September. All

that class of property has become active. The frontier of the West, and the restored facility of the railroads to procure good freights, has had an important influence upon the stock market. Most descriptions have undergone an important advance. The values of the leading stocks on the New York market were as follows:

These stocks represent nearly $150,000,000, and they indicate the advance in money value which has taken place in the whole. The effect of this is to make available an immense amount of property which has been comparatively dead during the past two or three years. The revival of value in these large interests causes a greater circulation of capital and promotes the apparent abundance of money. This subsides from the temporary rise that manifested itself in August:

The improved operations in the stock market caused some demand for money for the moment, but there was no permanent effect. There was nothing then to cause any demand for money or capital. A New York Central Park loan for $250,000, 6 per cent, redeemable in 1876, was taken at 3.14 per cent premium. The State of Ohio offers for a loan of $6,000,000, to meet a loan falling due, and the Secretary of the Treasury has issued proposals for $10,000,000 in a 5 per cent stock, payable in ten years, according to the act of Congress of June 23d, authorizing a loan for the redemption of the treasury notes outstanding.