Statutory landlord's lien

The provisions of the bankruptcy act, preventing an insolvent from giving or the creditor from securing preferences for preexisting debts, apply not only to mortgages and transfers voluntarily made by the debtor, but also to those preferences which are obtained through legal proceedings ... But the statute was not intended to lessen rights which already existed, nor to defeat those inchoate liens given by statute, of which all creditors were bound to take notice, and subject to which they are presumed to have contracted when they dealt with the insolvent.