the absence of notice or knowledge of the criminal nature of the act of selling, any purchaser would be justified in proceeding upon the assumption that the mortgagor, in offering to sell and selling the property, was not in the act of committing a felony. Should a case arise where it appears that a purchaser buying mortgaged chattels knew and had actual knowledge at the time of his purchase that the mortgagor had no legal right to sell, and that the sale was, as to the mortgagor, a criminal act, a different question might be presented. In the supposed case it might become necessary to determine what effect such actual knowledge of the mortgagor's crime would have upon the question of demand as prerequisite to a suit by the mortgagee for the possession or the value of the chattels; but, as we have seen, no such question arises upon this record.
The question has frequently arisen in the courts whether a statute which makes a specific act criminal in the party who performs the forbidden act operates as a total prohibition of the act. It is now settled as a general rule that the act so impliedly prohibited will be treated as prima facie unlawful, and void as against the party who is subjected to the penalty. A statute in Minnesota made it penal to sell lots in a town plat before the plat was recorded. A lot was sold, and notes taken for the purchase money before the plat describing the lot was recorded. An action was brought upon the notes, and the maker sought to defend upon the ground that the act of selling was penal in the seller. After stating the general rule governing such cases substantially as above stated, the court says: "The imposing of a penalty does not necessarily give rise to an implication of an intention that, where an act is done which subjects a party to a penalty, the act itself should be void, and of no legal effect; and if it seems more probable from the subject and terms of the enactment, and from the consequences which will be anticipated, as likely to result from giving such an effect to the penal law that it was not the intention of the legislature to make the transaction void, but only to punish the offending party in the manner specified, the law should be so construed. Harris v. Runnels. 12 How. 79: Pangborn v. Westlake, 36 Iowa 546; Middleton v. Arnolds, 13 Grat. 489; Niemeyer v. Wright,
