Ch.  2)  HOLDER    IN    DUE    COURSE.  449

Instruments  (section  197),  says:  "The  bona  fide  holder  for  value,
who  has  received  the  paper  in  the  usual  course  of  business,  is  unaf-
fected by  the  fact  that  it  originated  in  an  illegal  consideration,  without
any  distinction  between  cases  of  illegality  founded  in  moral  crime  or
turpitude,  which  are  termed  mala  in  se,  and  those  founded  in  positive
statutory  prohibition,  which  are  termed  mala  prohibita.  The  law  ex-
tends this  peculiar  protection  to  negotiable  instruments,  because  it
would  seriously  embarrass  mercantile  transactions  to  expose  the  trader
to  the  consequences  of  having  a  bill  or  note  passed  to  him  impeached
for  some  covert  defect.  There  is,  however,  one  exception  to  this  rule
— that  when  a  statute,  expressly  or  by  necessary  implication,  declares
the  instrument  absolutely  void,  it  gathers  no  vitality  by  its  circulation
in  respect  to  the  parties  executing  it."

In  the  case  of  Sondheim  v.  Gilbert,  117  Ind.  71,  18  N.  E.  687,  5  L.
