CARPENTERS’ WORK. 
stated in single sums with the appropriate value 
set against each. Piles used in foundations are 
valued at per piece, or by cubic measure ; and, if 
their driving is contracted for, it is estimated by 
the foot run, according to their length, size, and 
the nature of the ground. Centring for arches 
is sometimes made and fixed by the square; but, 
in general, the engineer considers this as work 
of too nice a nature to be trusted to contractors, 
and he prefers executing it as day-work by the 
best hands. Wall-plates, lintels, and bond-timber 
are measured by the cubic foot, under the deno- 
mination of fir or oak in bond. All timber used 
in foundations, naked floors, ceilings, &c., should 
be measured in presence of the parties concerned, 
as soon as fixed ; because disputes frequently arise 
about the size and quality of timber after it is 
buried in the ground, or concealed by boarding 
or plastering, and these can only be arranged by 
undoing part of the finished work, occasioning 
delay, expense, and inconvenience. In measur- 
ing timber that is plained or wrought, the size 
of the piece before worked upon must be set 
down; also in pieces on which tenons or mitres 
have been cut, the length must be taken to the 
extreme end of the tenon or mitre, as these were 
as large as the rest of the stick before cut; and 
when the nett quantity of timber found in any 
regular work is measured and set down, a twen- 
tieth part of the gross quantity is usually added, 
to allow for inevitable waste, on account of the 
ends of all planks, boards and sticks being split, 
shakey, and unfit for use; on which account they 
are cut off, which is also the case with the sides 
of boards, and many other pieces. This allow- 
ance would not, however, compensate for circular 
work, such as the ribs or arch-moulds of centres, 
and the curbs for sinking wells, for these, though 
curved, are cut out of straight wood, and as the 
curved pieces that come off are cross-grained and 
useless, so the actual size of the piece of timber, 
before converted, is always charged for, instead 
of the nett quantity that occurs in the curved 
piece that is used. Journeymen carpenters and 
joiners are always expected to provide and fur- 
nish their own tools, the use of which is included 
in the price of their wages; but the bench they 
work at, and a grindstone for sharpening such 
_ tools, are provided by the employer, together with 
any tools that may be necessary for particular 
and uncommon operations. 
The measurement of joiners’ work, although in 
some respects more simple, inasmuch as it scarcely 
ever involves anything beyond lineal and super- 
ficial measure, becomes apparently intricate from 
the great variety of technical terms made use of 
in joinery to express the forms of things, or the 
articles made. Generally speaking, however, all 
doors, sashes, shutters, floors, stair steps, &c., 
with their architraves, surbases, jaumbs, soffits, 
and other articles made by the joiner, are mea- 
sured by the surface they present superficially, 
and are charged at so much the square foot; the 
CARRIER. 
price being regulated by their intricacy and 
finish, which will occupy more or less time. If 
work is enriched with many mouldings, and a | 
superficial price to include the whole cannot be 
agreed upon, it is a common practice to obtain a 
price, by measuring the ground-work as plain 
work, which is covered by well known prices, and 
then to add the extra mouldings and ornaments | 
at so much per foot, running measure, according 
to their length. The price per superficial foot of | 
joiners’ work is deduced from the quantity of | 
that kind of work which a good and competent 
workman, with every convenience around him, 
ought to do in an hour, a day, or any stated por- 
tion of time ; and in computing the value of such 
work the labour only is taken into account, with- 
out the value of the wood, or stuff consumed. 
This is called the price for labour only. But 
when the joiner provides stuff, its value must be | 
added to that of the workmanship, and it is then 
called the price for labour and materials —A/v- 
lington. 
CARRIER (Common). Persons whose busi- 
ness and employment is carrying goods for hire 
are called common carriers, as distinguished 
from those who agree to carry in any particular 
instances. Carriers are one species of bailees. 
The material question in the contract relates to 
the degree of care which the carrier is obliged to | 
By the civil law he is required to use | 
ordinary diligence, that is, the care and diligence | 
used by a man of common prudence in like cases. | 
The French code follows the civil law very near- | 
exercise. 
ly, being, however, a little more strict, as it 
makes the carrier answerable for the goods, ex- 
cept in cases of superior force, or inevitable | 
accident, or damage arising from the quality of 
the articles. Down to the time of Henry VIII. 
the English law seems not to have imposed on 
the common carrier a greater responsibility than | 
the French code. But, since the time of Eliza- 
beth, he has been held answerable for all losses 
and damage not arising from the perishable na- 
ture of the article, the act of God, as it is called, 
or of a public enemy. ‘Thus he is answerable for 
loss by robbers, for which the French code would 
excuse him. The reason of this strictness is to 
provide “for the safety of all persons, the neces- | 
sity of whose affairs obliges them to resort to 
those sorts of persons, that they may be safe in 
their ways of dealing; for else these carriers 
might have an opportunity of undoing all per- | 
sons that have any dealings with them, by com- 
bining with thieves, and yet doing it in such a 
clandestine manner as would not be possible to 
be discovered.” In regard to the continuance of 
the responsibility, in a case of the carriage of 
hops from Stourport to Manchester, and thence 
to Stockport, they were carried to Manchester 
by one set of carriers on the canal, where they 
were stored in their storehouse, until they should 
be taken by another set of carriers, to be for- 
warded to Stockport, and, being so stored, were 
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