Law of Usury.

Action against drawer and indorser may be joint or several. -Any person having a right to demand any sum of money upon a foreign protested bill of exchange as aforesaid, may commence and prosecute an action for principal, damages, interest, and charges of protest, against the drawers or indorsers, jointly or severally, or against either of them separately, and judgment will be given for such principal, damages, and charges, and interest upon such principal at the rate aforesaid, to the time of such judgment, together with costs of suit.

Damages and interest on inland bills.-When any inland bill of exchange is drawn or indorsed within this state, for the payment of any sum of money without the same, and such bill is protested for non-acceptance or non-payment, the drawer or indorser will be subject to the payment of five per cent. damages thereon, and charges of protest, and the bill will carry an interest of six per cent. per annum from the date of the protest.

3. Law of Usury.

Rate of interest established.-The lawful rate of interest in this state is six per cent. (a)

Usury being pleaded, the court may admit the parties as witnesses: judgment, how entered: certain usages excepted from these provisions.-If suit be commenced on any specialty, contract, promise, or assurance, made in this state after the passing of this act, and the defendant specially plead that higher interest than the rate aforesaid was taken, or thereby secured or agreed for, the court will admit the defendant as a witness, on issue joined in such suit, and also the plaintiff on his own motion: and if such agreement be found usurious, the plaintiff will have judg ment for the principal sum of money, or real value of the goods, wares, or other commodity as aforesaid, with legal interest thereon, with costs: nothing herein contained extending to the letting of cattle, or other like usages among farmers, or to maritime contracts among merchants, as bottomry, insurance, or course of exchange, as has been heretofore accustomed.

(a) R. S. 286.

Frauds.-Limited Partnerships.

4. Frauds.

Actions not to be brought in certain cases, unless on promises in writing.—No action may be brought whereby to charge any executor or administrator on his special promise to answer any debt or damage out of his own estate, or whereby to charge the defendant upon his special promise to answer for the debt, default or miscarriage of another person or to charge any person upon any agreement made on consideration of marriage: or on any contract for the sale of lands, tenements, or hereditaments, or the making of any lease thereof for a longer time than one year: or upon any agreement which is not to be performed within one year from the making thereof, unless the promise or agreement on which such action is brought, or some note or memorandum thereof is in writing, and signed by the party to be charged therewith, or some other person lawfully authorized. (a)

Fraudulent conveyances, &c., to be void.-Every gift, grant, or conveyance of lands, tenements, hereditaments, goods or chattels, or of any rent, interest, or profit out of the same, by writing or otherwise, and every note, bill, bond, contract, suit, judgment or execution, had or made or contrived, of fraud, covin, collusion, or guile, to the intent or purpose to delay, hinder, or defraud creditors, or to deceive or defraud those who may purchase bona fide the same estate, real or personal, will be deemed, as against the person or persons, his, her, or their legal representatives or assigns, whose rights or interests, by such devices and practices as aforesaid, are or might be, injured, delayed or defrauded, utterly void.

5. Limited Partnerships.

The laws of Rhode Island on this subject are the same with those of Massachusetts, with the following exceptions: (b)

The sections in reference to the equity power of the Supreme Court, and the presumption of assent of creditors to a partnership assignment, are not found in the laws of Rhode Island.

Principals and Agents.

The certificate required to be made by all the parties to a limited partnership must be acknowledged by said parties before some justice of the peace or public notary, and filed in the office of the clerk of the town in which the principal place of business of the partnership is situated, and recorded by such clerk in a book kept for that purpose. If the partnership have places of business in different towns, the certificate must be filed and recorded in like manner in the office of the clerk of every such

town.

The partners must publish a copy of the certificate for six successive weeks immediately after the registry thereof, in at least two newspapers printed in this state: the partnership to be deemed general in case such publication be not made.

In case of the insolvency of any limited partnership, no special partner will, under any circumstances, be allowed to claim as a creditor till the legal claims of all the other creditors of the partnership shall be satisfied.

No dissolution of a limited partnership will take place, except by operation of law, before the time specified in the certificate before mentioned, unless notice of such dissolution be recorded in the clerk's office, where the original certificate, or the certificate of renewal or continuation of the partnership was recorded, and in every other clerk's office where a copy of such certificate was recorded, and unless such notice be published for six successive weeks in at least two newspapers printed in this state.

6. Principals and Agents.

Person in whose name merchandise is shipped, deemed the owner, &c. consignee to have lien thereon for advances, unless notified who is the true owner.-Every person in whose name merchandise is shipped will be deemed the true owner thereof, so as to entitle the consignee thereof to a lien thereon for moneys advanced or negotiable security given by such consignee, to or, for the use of such owner: provided such consignee shall not have notice by bill of lading or otherwise, at or before the advancing of any money or security by him, or at or before the receiving such money or security by the person in whose name

Principals and Agents.

the shipment has been made, that such person is not the bona fide owner thereof.

Person intrusted with goods for sale, &c., deemed the owner: may-sell or pledge them in case, &c.-Any person intrusted with and in possession of goods delivered to him for the purposes of Isale, and any person intrusted with and in possession of any bill of lading, receipt, or certificate of a warehouse keeper or inspector, or any warrant or order for the delivery of goods, will be deemed to be the true owner of such goods, or of the goods mentioned and described in such documents respectively, so far as to give the same validity, force, and effect, to any contracts thereafter entered into by him with any person for the sale or disposition of the same, or for the deposit or pledge thereof, as a security for any money or other property advanced, or any negotiable instrument or other obligation in writing given upon the faith of such goods, or of such several documents, or either of them, as if the same contract had been so made by the bona fide owner of such goods: provided that the person so contracted with shall not have notice, by such document or otherwise, that the person so intrusted as aforesaid is not the bona fide owner.

Person accepting such merchandise in deposit, &c., will acquire no other right than the agent had therein.-Any person accepting or taking any such merchandise, goods, or document, in deposit or pledge from any such agent as a security for any antecedent debt or demand, will not acquire thereby or enforce any right or interest in or to such goods, merchandise, or document, other than was possessed or might have been enforced by such agent at the time of such deposit or pledge.

Any person may purchase of an agent: sale and purchase valid, unless notified that the agent is not authorized to sell.—Any person may contract with an agent intrusted with goods, or to whom the same may be consigned, for the purchase of such goods, and receive the same and pay for them to such agent; and such contract and payment will be binding and good against the owner of such goods, notwithstanding the purchaser shall have notice that the person making such contract, or in whose behalf the same is made, is an agent: provided that such contract and payment be made in the usual and ordinary course of business, and that

Principals and Agents.

such purchaser shall not, when such contract is entered into or such payment made, have notice that such agent is not authorized to sell said goods or to receive said money.

Owner of goods may recover them from his agent before sold, &c. may demand of purchaser sum agreed to be paid for them, recover them if pledged, &c.—Nothing herein contained will be deemed to prevent the true owner of any such goods shipped, intrusted, or deposited as aforesaid, from demanding and recovering the same from his factor or agent, before the same shall have been so sold, deposited, or pledged, nor to prevent such owner from demanding and receiving from any such purchaser the sum agreed to be paid for the purchase of such goods, subject to any right of set-off on the part of such purchaser against such agent or factor: not to prevent any such owner from demanding and recovering such goods from any person with whom the same may have been so deposited or pledged as a security for any money or other property advanced, or any negotiable security or obligation in writing given as aforesaid, upon repayment of such money or restoration of such other property, and satisfaction of such security or obligation in writing so advanced, together with such further sum as shall, with the amount so advanced by such depositary or pawnee, be equal to the money or other property and security or obligation in writing, if any, advanced by such agent or factor to such owner, or to the amount for which such agent or factor has a lien on the same goods: nor to prevent such owner from recovering from such depositary or pawnee any balance or sum of money remaining in his hands as the produce of the sale of such goods, after deducting thereout the amount of the money or other property or security in writing so advanced and the amount so set off and retained by such purchaser or paid by such owner on redeeming such goods, or in any manner allowed by him on recovering the same or the produce of the sale thereof, will be deemed and taken as so much paid by him to and for the use of such agent or factor.

Common carrier, &c., prohibited from selling or pledging.— Nothing in this act authorizes a common carrier, warehouse-keeper, or other person to whom merchandise or other property may be committed for transportation or storage only, to sell or pledge the

same.