to the goods. (n) And if the consignee, having no warehouse of his own, asks him to keep the goods till he can conveniently send for them, the common carrier thenceforth holds the goods only as a warehouseman for hire, or a gratuitous bailee according as he may or may not be paid for his care and custody of them. (0) When the carriage is by water, the delivery at a wharf is not a delivery to the consignee, unless it is made so by the usage and practice of the port where the delivery takes place; but the master is bound to give the consignee notice of the arrival of the goods, and is not released from his responsibility for their safety until a reasonable time has elapsed after the giving of the notice for the consignee to come and fetch them. He can not escape from his liability as a common carrier by immediately landing the goods at a public wharf, without giving notice to the consignee, and giving him an opportunity of receiving them from the ship's side; and if he does so land them, and they are destroyed upon the wharf by an accidental fire before the consignee has had an opportunity of taking them away, the shipowners will be responsible for the loss. (p)1 669. Delivery of luggage at railway stations.-In the case of the carriage of passengers with luggage by railway, if it is the usual course for the luggage to be taken from the train by the company's servants and delivered to the passengers on the platform, the company is bound to deliver it there. And if the company choose to provide a more convenient mode of delivering luggage to passengers by employing porters to carry it across the platform to the vehicles by which it is to be taken away, their liability as common carriers continues until the porters have discharged their duty. (9) 670. Acceptance of goods and passengers to be carried beyond the limits of the ordinary destination.-When a common carrier takes into his care a parcel directed to a particular place, and (n) Heugh v. Lond. and North-West. Rwy.. L. R. 5 Exch. 51. (0) In re Webb, 8 Taunt. 449; 6 Moore, 500. See Shepherd v. Bristol and Exeter Rail. Co., L. R., 3 Exch. 189. (p) Bourne v. Gatliffe, 3 Sc. N. R. 1; 8 Ib. 604; 7 M. & Gr. 850. Syeds v. Hay, 4 T. R. 260. Wardell v. Mourillyan, 2 Esp. 693. (9) Richards v. Lond. and Brighton, &c., Rail, Co., 7 C. B. 839; 18 Law J., C. P. 251. Butcher v. Lond. and SouthWestern Rail. Co., 16 C. B. 13. 1 See note 1, ante. does not by positive agreement limit his responsibility to a part only of the distance, (r) that is prima facie evidence of an undertaking on his part to carry the parcel to the place to which it is directed, although the place may be beyond the limits within which he ordinarily professes to carry on his trade of a carrier. His responsibility, therefore, continues to the door of the address to which the goods are destined, and he can not release himself from such responsibility by transferring the goods to another carrier, or sending them by another conveyance. (s) If a railway company, for example, accepts goods for conveyance to a particular destination, beyond the limits of its own line of railroad, and the goods are lost whilst in the hands of another railway company, to whom they have been delivered to be forwarded on their journey, the first railway company is the party to be sued by the owner of the goods for the loss of them, () unless the company has by express contract limited its liability to loss and damage occurring on its own line of railway. (u) In the absence of special circumstances, the responsibility of a railway company in and about the conveyance of goods accepted by them for delivery at a particular destination is the same, whether their own line extends the whole distance or stops at an intermediate point, and the railway companies carrying the goods beyond the limits of the first line of railway are, in respect of the conveyance and delivery of such goods, to be regarded as the agents of the railway company which originally received the goods. (r) The same principle applies to the conveyance of passengers, (y) who are injured during the journey, although the negligence be that of the company over whose line the defendant company have running (r) That such a limitation is a reasonable one, see Aldridge v. Gt. Western Rail. Co., 33 Law J., C. P. 161. (s) Garnett v. Willan, 5 B. & Ald. 53. () Muschamp v. Lanc. and Preston Rail. Co., 8 M. & W. 421. Watson v. Ambergate Rail. Co., 15 Jur. 448. Collins v. Bristol and Exeter Rail. Co., II Exch. 790; 25 Law J., Exch. 185. Brist. and Exeter Rail. Co. v. Collins, 7 H. L. C. 234 Wilby v. West. Corn. Rail. Co., 2 H. & N. 709. Mytton v. Midland Rail. Co.. 4 H. & N. 615. Coxen v. Gt. Western Rail. Co., 5 H. & N. 274; 29 Law J., Exch. 165. Hayes v. South Western Rail. Co., 9 Ir. C. L. R. 474. (u) Fowles v. Gt. Western Rail. Co., 7 Exch. 699; 22 Law J., Exch, 76. Aldridge v. Gt. Western Rail. Co., supra. See Zunz v. South-East. Rwy., ante. (x) Crouch v. Gt. Western Rail. Co., 26 Law J., Exch. 345. Scothorn v. South Staff. Rail. Co., 8 Ex. 345. (y) Blake v. Gt. Western Rail. Co., 7 H. & N. 987; 31 Law J., Exch. 346. Buxton v. North-Eastern Rail. Co., L R., 3 Q. B. 549 powers, and not of the defendants themselves. (2) And it applies to the commencement of the journey as well as its termination. Where, therefore, the contract was to carry the plaintiff from the shore to a hulk, and there wait till a vessel came to carry him to his destination, and he was injured while on board the hulk, it was held that the defendants were responsible, though the hulk did not belong to them, and they had only acquired by agreement the right to use it for the purpose of embarking passengers on board their vessels. (a)1 By the 31 & 32 Vict. c. 119, it is provided (s. 14), that where a railway or canal company, or the lessees, owners, or managers of such company, by through booking, contract to carry any animals, luggage, or goods partly by railway and by sea or canal, a condition exempting the company from liability for any loss or damage arising during the carriage by sea from the act of God, the king's enemies, fire, accidents from machinery, boilers, or steam, and all other accidents of seas, rivers, and navigation of whatever kind, shall, if published in a conspicuous manner in the office where the through booking is effected, and legibly printed on the receipt or freight note, be valid as part of the contract between the consignor and the company. By the 34 and 35 Vict. c. 78, it is provided (s. 12), that where a railway company under a contract for carrying persons, animals, or goods by sea, procure the same to be carried in a vessel not belonging to the railway company, the railway company shall be answerable in damages, in respect of loss of life, or personal injury, or in respect of loss of or damage to animals or goods, in like manner, and to the same amount as the railway company would be answerable if the vessel had belonged to the railway company, provided that such loss of life, or personal injury, or loss, or damage to animals or goods, happens to the person, animals, or goods (as the case may be), during the carriage of the same in such vessel, the proof to the contrary to lie upon the railway company. (s) Thomas v. Rhymney Rwy. Co., L. R., 5 Q. B. 226; 6 Id. 266. (a) John v. Bacon, L. R., 5 C. P. 437. 'While the carrier may limit his liability to his own line, yet he is bound to deliver them with reasonable dispatch. R. R. Co. v. Mfg. Co., 16 Wall. (U. S.) 318; Chicago, &c. R. R. Co. v. Montford, 60 Ill. 175; Detroit, &c. R. R. Co. v. Farmers', &c. Bank, 20 Wis. 122. 671. Loss of passengers' luggage by railway companies.—Most of the Railway Acts provide that, without extra charge, it shall be lawful for every passenger by railway to take with him ordinary luggage or articles of clothing of a certain weight and dimensions, and that the company shall not be responsible for the safe carriage or custody of, or for any loss of or injury to, articles carried upon the railway with, or accompanying the person of, or belonging to, any passenger, or delivered for the purpose of being carried, other than such passenger's articles of clothing. But these enactments do not prevent railway companies from running excursion trains for passengers only, without luggage, (b) or from making a special contract that luggage, if carried by such a train, shall be at the passenger's own risk. (c) Articles of clothing or ordinary luggage, in an Act of Parliament, mean such things as a man generally requires and takes with him, and are ordinarily used by travelers, and may extend to a dressing-case, but not to title-deeds, law papers, and bank notes. (d) A railway company has no power to make a by-law abridging the rights of passengers in respect of their luggage; and, therefore, where the Great Western Railway Company made a by-law to the effect that they would "not be responsible for the care of luggage unless booked and paid for," it was held that the by-law was null and void. (e)' Railway companies are responsible for the acts and omissions of their porters in the management and delivery of passengers' luggage, and are responsible for its safe delivery into the hands of the passenger, or into those of his appointed agent or servant, on the termination of the journey. If it is the usual course to deliver the luggage of passengers at a particular part of the platform, the company is bound to deliver (b) Rumsey v. North-Eastern Rail. Co. 14 C. B., N. S. 461; 32 Law J., C. P. 244. (c) Stewart v. Lond. and North-West. Rail. Co., 33 Law J., Exch, 199. (d) Phelps v. Lond. and North-Western Rail. Co., 34 Law J., C. P. 259. (e) Williams v. Gt. Western Rail. Co. 10 Exch. 15. Gt. Western Rail. Co. v. Goodman, 12 C. B. 313; 21 Law J., C. P. 197 Munster v. South-Eastern Rail. Co., 4 C. B., N. S. 698; 27 Law J., C. P. 312. 1 Bean v. Green, 3 Fairfax (Me.) 422; Hollister v. Nowlen, 19 Wend. (N. Y.) 234; Jones v. Voorhees, 10 Ohio, 145; Clark v. Foxton, 21 Wend. (N. Y.) 153; Dwight v. Brewster, 1 Pick. (Mass.) 53; Camden Transportation Co. v. Belknap, 21 Id. 354; Powell v. Myers, 26 Id. 591; Cole v. Goodwin, 19 Id. 251. it there. If a railway porter, at the request of a passenger, calls a cab, and places the passenger's luggage on a cab, and there leaves. it, and comes away without having the means of identifying the vehicle, and the cab-driver goes off with the luggage before the passenger has taken his seat in the vehicle, the railway company will be responsible for the loss. (f) If the luggage of a passenger is, with the knowledge of the servants of the company and with their assent, placed in the carriage in which the passenger sits, the luggage is, in point of law, in the custody of the company, so as to render them responsible for its loss, unless the loss appears to have been occasioned by some misconduct or carelessness of the passenger himself in dealing with such luggage. (g)' 672. Loss of merchandise carried as luggage.-If a person packs merchandise in carpet-bags and portmanteaus, and passes it off upon a railway company as personal luggage which he is entitled to have carried gratis, he commits a fraud upon the company, and can not recover for the loss of it; but if the company have express notice that what the passenger takes with him is merchandise, and the company think fit to carry it without demanding any extra remuneration, they will be responsible for the loss of it. () 673. Limitation of the liability of shipowners.-The Merchant Shipping Acts limit the liability of shipowners in respect of loss of or damage to goods by fire, and in respect of the loss of gold, silver, watches, or jewels, by robbery or embezzlement, unless their value has been declared. (i) 674. Refusal of the consignee to receive the goods-Liability of the carrier as bailee.—If the consignee refuses to receive the goods, or can not be found, the carrier is not thereby exonerated from the duty of taking reasonable care of them, and doing what is reasonable in the matter for the benefit of (f) Butcher v. Lond. and South-West Rail. Co., 16 C. B. 13; 23 Law J., C. P. 131. Richards v. Lond., Brighton, and South Coast Rail. Co., 7 C. B. 839. (g) Gt. Northern Rail. Co. v. Shepherd, 9 Exch. 30; 21 Law J., Exch. 114. Robinson v. Dunmore, 2 B. & P. 416. Talley v. Gt. Western Rwy. L. R., 6 C. P. 44. Some of the special Acts of Parliament incorporating railway companies appear to contain the unreasonable pro vision, that every passenger traveling on the railway shall take his luggage at his own risk. Mytton v. Midiand Rail. Co., 4 H. & N. 621. (h) Gt. Northern Rail. Co. v. Shepherd, ut sup. Cahill v. Lond. and North-West. Rail. Co., 13 C. B., N. S. 818; 31 Law J., C. P. 271; 30 Ib. 289. Belfast and Ballymena Rail. Co. v. Keys, 9 H. L. Ca. 556. (i) See ante. Fisher v. Geddes, 15 La. Ann. III; Blossman v. Hooper, 16 Id. 160. |