Some derive this word from the French broier, "to grind;" others from brocarder, "to cavil, or higggle;" and others again from a trader broken, and that from the Saxon broc, "misfortune."

A broker is an agent or intermediate person appointed for transacting special business on account of another, but differing somewhat from an ordinary factor in functions and responsibility. Of this class there are various descriptions, exercising employment without the smallest analogy, though all are brought under the general name of brokers; and of these the principal are, exchange-brokers, whose province is to ascertain the rates and relation of exchange between countries; stock-brokers, who negotiate transactions in the public-funds; insurance-brokers, who effect insurances on lives or property; and pawn-brokers, who advance money on goods, on the condition of being allowed to sell the goods, if the sum advanced is not repaid with interest, within a limited time. See Agent, Insurance, and Sale.

Separating pawn-brokers, and those dealers in old wares Bromberg who are called brokers, as both distinct from the class to whom the term in its broader acceptation applies, the broker is an agent for both parties, the buyer and the seller; and for the general principles of jurisprudence applicable to his position, reference may be made to the word Agent. It is a marked peculiarity, however, of the broker as an agent, that his quality of agency is not only palpable in the face of the transaction, but he is agent for both parties, and therefore those subtle niceties of law which arise out of the agent acting as principal, cannot apply to this class of agencies. The function of the broker is indeed a very simple one, and easily separates itself from the usual intricacies of the law of sale and of agency. It is his proper function to find buyers and sellers, and to bring them together that they may transact with each other. Hence the rise of such a class in any department of business, is an indication of its great increase. In small towns, and in narrow and peculiar departments of business, the buyers and the sellers know each other, and need not be at the expense of employing a third party. But where both bodies are numerous, and the individual members of each find enough to occupy their attention in the production of their commodity, or its purchase and distribution, there is economy in the establishment of a distinct class who bring the buyer and the seller together. The late enlargement of the railway system has created a peculiar and extensive system of brokerage transactions. They are affected by the statutory regulations applicable to railway companies; and all kinds of joint-stock brokerage are more or less affected by the late legislation as to joint-stock companies in England and Ireland (see 7th and 8th Vict., c. 110). The brokers for the purchase and sale of goods within the city of London are a body with peculiar privileges, and acting under special licensing regulations, some of which date back to the reign of Henry VIII.

(J. H. B.—N.)