The strictest rule in favor of the citizen is applied in this class of cases. Courts have gone quite far in verbal refinements in order to mitigate penalties. The cases mentioned in the note below are more properly cases of statutory construction, but they show a very dextrous manipulation of banking statutes.1 Coupon notes, where the coupons were payable to bearer, were held not to be, when issued, an act of banking.2 Negotiable bonds, as the case seems to represent them, issued by a railroad, were governed by the same rule.3 The receipt of money on deposit was considered no violation of a charter prohibiting banking, although it seems that the deposits were treated as bank deposits.4 Under a statute making bank stockholders personally liable for the debts of the bank, the stockholders were held not liable for debts arising from a business of negotiating and guaranteeing mortgages.5

3 State v. Reed, 125 Mo. 43. The court in its opinion refers to Mer. Bank v. New York, 121 U. S. 138, as holding that a corporation with such powers was not a bank. But the illegality of the act ought not to have been permitted to be set up by the defendant The case is therefore wrongly decided.

4 People v. River Raisin Co., 12 Mich. 389. There was a demurrer to the replication. The replication was held bad, but, the plea being bad, judgment went against the defendant. The plea was considered bad because it neither denied nor confessed and avoided the exercise of banking powers. But the plea did set out just what the corporation was doing under its charter. Hence the opinion, though vague and rambling, must be taken to hold that the charter did not permit the issuance of circulating notes.

1 Bristol v. Barker, Anth. N. P. 235; S, C, 14 Johns. 204; People v. Brewster, 4 Wend. 498. Compare People v. Bartow, 6 Cow. 290; People v. Doty, 80 N. Y. 225.

2 Barry v. Merch. Ex. Co., 1 Sandf-Ch.280.