PLEDGE

In the law of ballment. A ballment of goods to a creditor as securit,- for some debt or engagement. A -bailment or delivery of goods by a debtor to his creditor, to be kept till the debt be discharged. Story, Bailm. § 7; Civ. Code· La. art. 3133; 2 Kent, Comm. 577; Stearns v. Marsh, 4 Denio (N. Y.) 229, 47 Am. Dec. 248; Sheridan v. Presas, 18 Misc._ Rep. 180, 41 N. Y. Supp. 451; Bank of. Rochester v. Jones, 4 N. Y. 50'l, 55 Am. Dec. 290; IDastman v. Avery, 23 Me. 250; Belden v. Perkins, 78 Ill. 452; Wll•. cox v. Jackson, 7 Colo. 521, 4 Pac. 966; Gloucester Bank v. Worcester, 10 Pick. (Ma .) 531; Lilienthal v. Ballou, 125 Cal. L'l3, 57 Pac. 897. Pledge ls n deposit of personal property by way ot security for the performance of another act. Civ. Code Cal. § 2986. The specific article delivered to the cred• it or In security is also called a ''pledge" or "pawn." There is a clear distinction between mortgages 11nd pledges. In a pledge the legal title remains in the pledgor; in a mortgage it pa es to the mortgagee. In a mortgage the mortgagee need not have po e ion; in a pledge the pledgee must have po e ion, though it be only c n· structive. In a mortgage, at common law, the property on non-payment of the debt pa e11 wholly to the mortgagee; in a pledge the prop, erty is sold, and only so much of the proceeds as will pay his debt pa es to the pledgee, A mortgage is a conditional conveyance of property, which becomes absolute unle redeemed at a specified time. A pledge is not strictly a conveyance at all, nor need any day of r_edemQtfon be appointed for it. A mortgagee can sell ap.d deliver the thing.mortgaged, subject only to the right of redemption. A pledgee cannot sell and deliver his pawn until the debt is due and payment denied. Bouvier. There are two varieties of the contract of -pledge known to the law of. Louisiana, viz.,. pawn and antichresls; the former relating to chattel securities, the latter to landed seeurltles. See Clv. Code La. art. 3101; an+l see those titles. -Pledges of prosecution. In old English law. No person could prosecute a civil action without having in the first stage of it two.~r more persons as pledges of prosecution; and· If judgment was given against the plaintiff, or.lie deserted bis suit, both be and his pledges were liable to amercement to the -king pro falso clamore. In the course of time, however, th~st1 -pledges were. disuse_d, and the -names offfctitious persons substituted for them, two id.E!ill persons, John Doe and Richard Roe, h9:'9'in« become ' the, common · pledges of -every emtor;. a.nd now th.e,use of such pledges ia alto get he i:- [s. 911]