DELAY BY FALL OF SNOW. 259 



Raihcay Company that carriers are hound to convey ivHh rcasonahk 

 eycj^jedilion, and if their course of business is inconsistent with that, it is 

 no answer to an action against them for damages arising from delay, 

 that they carried at the ordinary rate in which they conducted their 

 business. Here the potatoes were placed in the defendant's trucks on 

 a Tuesday afternoon, and ought in due course to have arrived at their 

 destination next day ; but did not do so till the Friday, as the line at 

 Wigan was, as was constantly the case, completely blocked up with 

 trucks, for lack of sufficient sidings, the consequence of which was that 

 the potatoes fermented and became rotten and worthless. 



However, according to Briddon v. The Great Northern Railway Com- 

 pany, a carrier of goods and cattle is only hound to carry in a reasonahle 

 time, wider m'dinary circumstances, and is not hound to use extraordinary 

 efforts or incur extra expense in order to surmount ohstructions caused hy 

 the act of God, as a fall of snow. It appeared that the plaintiff" in this 

 case had received a ticket at Huntingdon on the terms that the com- 

 pany were not to be liable for any loss or damage arising from any 

 cause whatever during the transit, and that the beasts were put into 

 two cattle-trucks, subsequently attached to a heavy goods train. The 

 line from Nottingham was the defendant's as far as Grantham, from 

 which there was a branch to Nottingham, and on the day in question 

 there was a heavy snowstorm, which obstructed the latter part of the 

 line. The goods train to which the two cattle-trucks were attached was 

 very long, and on arriving at a station on the line to Grantham the train 

 was shunted to a siding, and the engine detached to add to a passenger 

 train which went on its way with this additional power, rendered neces- 

 sary by a fall of snow on the line hcyond Grantham. The plaintiff, who 

 went in the same train with the beasts, remonstrated with the station- 

 master, telling him that the cattle market at Nottingham was the next 

 day. Notwithstanding this, the goods train with the two cattle-trucks 

 attached thereto, was detained at the station thu-ty hours, during all 

 which time the cattle were deprived of food, and they were not for- 

 warded until next day, too late to save the market. In the meantime 

 all the passenger trains were kept running as usual. To send on the 

 goods train would have required additional engines ; but it appeared 

 that there was an unlimited supply of engines at Peterborough. The 

 plaintiff's case was that the defendant's servants were bound to obtain 

 additional engines, if necessary, to forward the goods train, or to send on 

 the two cattle-trucks by themselves. For the defendants it was contended 

 that they were not obliged to take either course, nor to use any extra- 

 ordinary efforts to send on the goods train ; but that it was enough for 

 them to show that by reason of the snow the train could not be reasonably 



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