It is perhaps needless to say that a bank cannot buy and sell merchandise,1 but it may under peculiar circumstances have a single transaction of purchase,2 and it may take charge of a, shipment of goods in order to credit the amount on a bill which it holds,3 and if goods are taken as collateral the bank may ship and sell them.4 But a bank by merely collecting a draft attached to a bill of lading, where the collection is made in order to credit a depositor, does not become liable as the seller of the goods,5 although in such eases the bank has the power to take a bill of lading as collateral security.6 The bank, it seems, would. not be held upon a representation as to what was being forwarded by the drawer of a draft which the bank was collecting.7 National banks being endowed with general banking powers have the right to do whatever is necessary to preserve their claims. Thus, such a bank may take an elevator stored with grain in payment of its claim.8 It may take and enforce a chattel mortgage in order to secure a previously existing debt.9 It may secure itself on an existing indebtedness by taking an assignment from contractors with a city of money due or to become due to the contractors.10 It has power to engage in the business of dealing in government securities,11 and will be liable for a failure to perform its contracts in regard thereto.12 But a national bank has'no power to make a donation to a manufacturing plant to prevent it from removing its plant from the city where the bank is located.13 It cannot make a valid agreement to procure insurance for a certain person, but it would, of course, be liable in quasi-contract for the benefit received.14 But where the trans-• action can fairly be said to be connected with a banking operation, the courts are liberal in permitting it. Thus a bank, where it has acquired property lawfully taken, may do what is necessary to make the property productive.15 It may contract in order to prevent its own building from being injuriously affected by the erection of another building.16 It may receive personal property in exchange for its real estate.17 It may assign or sell its own judgment,18 or transfer it in payment of its own debt.19 It may take almost any species of property as collateral security unless forbidden to do so,20 and in holding escrows, or in transactions analogous thereto, may hold securities to obtain the performance of the agreement.21 A bank may sell all its securities to another bank in consideration of the latter assuming all its liabilities.22 In Kansas the supreme court found it necessary to decide that a national bank could agree to pa)' interest on a city deposit.23 The power of an ordinary chartered bank to maintain a savings department seems not to have been made the subject of adjudication. But since the receiving of deposits is a banking transaction, and since the maintenance of a savings department is merely one method of receiving deposits, there ought to be no doubt in the mind of any judge that such a proceeding is within the corporate power of either a national or a state chartered bank.

Bank v. Smith, 77 Fed. R. 129, accord.

10 Matthews v. Skinner, 62 Mo. 329; First Nat. Bank v. Nat. Ex. Bank, 92 U. S. 122.

11 First Nat. Bank v. Nat. Ex. Bank, 92 U. S. 122; s. c, 39 Md. 600.

12 Canfield v. State Nat. Bank, Fed. Cas. No. 2382; Shoemaker v. National Mechanics' Bank, 1 Hughes, 101.

13 See cases cited in note 11. See also Farmers' Bank v. Detroit R. R. Co., 17 Wis. 383.

1 Bates v. State Bank, 2 Ala. 451. The act of a cashier in agreeing to make loans for a person, heing ultra vires, the bank is not liable even though the cashier and president agree to defraud the customer, where the bank is not benefited. Grow v. Cockrill, 63 Ark. 418.

2 Sackett's Harbor Bank v. Lewis Co. Bank, 11 Barb. 213.

3 Bates v. State Bank, 2 Ala, 451.

4 Commercial Bank v. Nolan, 7 How. (Miss.) 508. If the bank sells it may give a warranty of its title. Talman v. Rochester Bank, 18 Barb. 123.

5 Fourth Nat. Bank v. Mayer, 89 Ga. 108. See Addendum.

6 Freeman v. Bank, 3 Wills. Civ. Cas., sec. 339.

7 Littleton v. People's Bank," 63 N. W. R 666. This is a very close case and might just as well have been decided otherwise. The real ground of the decision ought to have been either that the representation was not one of fact or that the plaintiff did not rely upon it.

8 German Nat. Bank v. Meadow-croft, 4 Bradw. 630.

9 Gaar v. Centralia Bank, 20 Bradw. 611; Spafford v. First Nat Bank, 37 Iowa, 181.

10 First Nat Bank v. Ottawa, 43 Kan. 294. Or a bank may take an assignment of any account to protect itself (Bank of North America v. Tamblyn, 7 Mo. App. 570); or a judgment Harwood v. Ramsey, 15 S. & R 31.

11 Van Leuven v. First Nat Bank, 54 N. Y. 671; Leach v. Hale, 81 Iowa, 69; Yerkes v. National Bank, 69 N. Y. 382.

12 See cases cited in last note; but compare First Nat. Bank v. Hoch, 89 Pa. 24.

13 McCory v. Chambers, 48 Il1App. 445.

14 Dresser v. Traders' Nat Bank, 165 Mass. 120. The bank should have been held liable on the contract under the doctrine stated in section 33, ante.

15 Reynolds v. Simpson, 74 Ga. 454.