Ward Hunt

“ It is only when making sales and purchases is his business, his trade, his profession, his means of getting his living, or of making his fortune, that he becomes a broker within the meaning of the statute. Nor is it believed that a sale, by one doing a banking business only, of a security received by him for the repayment of a legitimate loan, would make him a broker, and subject to the tax. ”

“ In this manner, brokers technically, and bankers doing the business of brokers, were made liable to the duty. If the right to tax bankers upon sales made for themselves rested on the seventy-ninth section alone, a plausible argument could be made in the plaintiffs' favor, arising from the words 'except such as hold a license as a banker;' but when we read in sect. 99, 'that all brokers, and bankers doing business as brokers,' shall be subject to the tax, and consider the statutory definition of a broker, the plausibility of the argument ceases. ”

“ By the same section, subd. 9, a broker is defined to be one whose business it is to negotiate purchases or sales of stocks, exchange, bullion, coined money, bank-notes, promissory notes, or other securities, for himself or for others. Ordinarily, the term 'broker' is applied to one acting for others; but the part of the definition which speaks of purchases and sales for himself is equally important as that which speaks of sales and purchases for others. ”