attachment will be the recording of the lien, so that the circumstance that gives him the right cuts of the remedy.” The absence of any express qualification of the word “creditors” is not significant of an intent to use that word in its broadest sense, unlimited by the spirit of the statute. It has frequently been held that a registration or a recording law affords no protection to purchasers or mortgagees who take with notice of the unfiled or unrecorded instrument, or who part with no value on the strength of the silence of the record, although there is nothing in the statute to qualify the words “purchasers or mortgagees;” such as the phrases “in good faith,” or “for value,” or “without notice.” The manifest spirit of the law makes the employment of any such language unnecessary. Allen v. McCalla, 25 Iowa, 464; Le Neve v. Le Neve, 2 Lead. Cas. Eq. 182-184, and cases in note; Tolbert v. Horten, (Minn.) 18 N. W. Rep. 647, 650; Dyer v. Thorstad, (Minn.) 29 N. W. Rep. 345. The only interpretation which can be placed on the word “creditors” to prevent decisions which will give to general creditors protection when morally they are not entitled to it, and withhold that protection when in justice it should be extended to them,—the only construction which will give to them the same measure of protection, and no more, as is accorded to creditors who take security on the property,—is the construction which regards the general creditor as standing, for the purposes of this statute, in just the same position he would have occupid had he taken security when his debt was incurred, or his position was altered to-his detriment, with the single exception, of course, that he cannot be regarded as standing in that position when his debt was incurred before the unfiled mortgage was given. In such a case, having no lien, as he would have had had he taken security, he can claim no priorty of lien by virtue of a prior mortgage; and, having trusted the debtor before any default in filing the subsequent mortgage existed, he has no claim to protection as a creditor. If subsequently, while the mortgage is withheld from record, such creditor, without notice thereof, alters his position to his disadvantage, he is entitled to
