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or incumbrancer, but by an attaching creditor, who attached for a debt contracted before the giving of the mortgage. It is therefore necessary to determine the meaning of the word “creditors” in this statute. It is important that there should be kept in mind a distinction between the right of a general creditor to insist that an unfiled chattel mortgage is void and the ability to enforce this right. While an unfiled chattel mortgage may be void as to a general creditor, he cannot avail himself of the statute until he has armed himself with attachment or execution and levied on the property, or has in some other way secured a lien thereon. Before he has seized the property covered by the chattel mortgage, or secured some lien thereon, he is in no position to raise the question that the mortgage is void as to him. Bank v. Bates,7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 679; Kitchen v. Lowery, (N.Y. App.) 27 N. E. Rep. 357, Thompson v. Van Vechten, 27 N.Y. 568; Dempsey v. Pforzheimer, (Mich.) 49 N. W. Rep. 465. The statute does not, however, require that he should be armed with process or have a lien on the property to entitle him to come within the category of “creditors,” as to whom the unfiled instrument is a nullity. The mortgage is not void as to creditors who have seized the property, or who hold process under which they can seize it. This is not the language of the statute. The mortgage is void as creditors, and nothing is said in the statute about the necessity of a creditor's having secured a lien on the mortgaged property. The fact that the creditor cannot assail the mortgage until he has seized the property is of no moment in determining whether he belongs to the class of persons as to whom the mortgage is void. Whether he belongs to that class is one question; whether he is in a position to derive benefit from belonging to that class is another, and entirely different question. The two inquiries are distinct, and each is’ independent of the other. When he arms himself with process, and seizes the mortgaged property, the court will then inquire whether he is a “creditor,” within the meaning of the statute which declares void the mortgage as against “creditors.” The facts which determine this point are