' held liable for their value. 
708 
burnt. The goods were considered to be in the 
defendants’ hands, not in their character of car- 
riers, but in that of warehouse-men ; and so they 
were held not to be able. Lord Kenyon said, 
“The case of a carrier stands by itself on pecu- 
liar grounds; he is held responsible as an insurer ; 
but I do not see how we can couple the character 
of a carrier with that of a warehouse-man.” In 
another case against the same company by Hyde, 
the goods were brought to Manchester, to which 
place they had been brought and stored in the 
duke of Bridgewater’s storehouse, where they 
were consumed by fire. The company had charged 
for cartage from this storehouse to the consig- 
nee’s store. The goods were, from this circum- 
stance, considered to be in the hands of the de- 
fendants, as common carriers; and they were 
These cases consider 
loss by fire as not among the inevitable accidents 
denominated acts of God. The distinction was 
made upon this point in another case (reported 
in the ‘Term Reports,’ vol. i. p. 27), of some bags 
of hops, which were in the course of transporta- 
tion from London to Shaftesbury, deposited in a 
booth at Andover, and destroyed by a fire, which, 
at first, caught in a neighbouring booth, at a 
hundred yards’ distance. It was said, in this 
case, if the fire had been occasioned by lightning, 
the carriers would not have been answerable; 
but as it was occasioned by the agency or care- 
lessness of man, they were answerable. ‘This 
risk of fire does not seem to be one which ought 
to be imposed on the carrier, upon the principle 
alleged in favour of his answering for a robbery, 
namely, for the purpose of preventing collusion 
with the robbers, for there appears to be no rea- 
son for collusion with incendiaries. The above 
cases show that the law of England considers 
persons employed in transporting goods on a 
canal to be common carriers. The rule extends, 
also, to persons employed in inland navigation 
generally ; and some of the old cases appear to 
extend it to the coasting trade; but there is no 
question that it is not, under a bill of lading in 
| the usual form, applicable to foreign navigation, 
the risk from pirates being universally acknow- 
ledged to be a “danger of the seas,” for which 
‘the ship-owner is not responsible. A waggoner 
or coachman, whose business 1s carrying for hire, 
is answerable as a.common carrier; and the 
owners of the vehicle who employ him, are also 
answerable in the same manner; but they are 
not answerable for any articles which it is known 
not to be their business to carry; as when the 
driver of a coach, intended by the proprietors, 
and ordinarily used, only for the transportation 
of passengers, took a box to carry, without the 
consent or authority of the owners, intending to 
keep the fare himself, they were held not to be 
answerable for the loss of the box. A postmas- 
ter was held not to be under so strict a respon- 
sibility, nor answerable for money enclosed in a 
letter stolen from his office, for he is a public | 
CARRIER. 
officer ; but Chief-justice Hale thought he ought 
to be answerable upon the same principle and to 
the same extent as a common carrier. A person 
who undertakes to carry goods in a special in- 
stance, though it be for hire, is not answerable, 
under the English law, as a common carrier; 
that is, he is not an insurer, but is only bound 
to use due diligence. So one who carries goods 
without receiving any compensation is answer- 
able only for the loss and damage occasioned by 
his negligence or misconduct, and the reason of 
his being thus far answerable is his undertaking 
to carry the goods, which are accordingly put 
into his hands upon the presumption that he 
will not be guilty of any gross negligence in so 
doing. Where there is no special stipulation as 
to the delivery of goods by the carrier, and where 
the contract is not modified by some very dis- 
tinct and well-known usage, he must deliver the 
goods to the consignee, or to some person autho- 
rized by him to receive them, and the responsi- 
bility of the carrier continues till the goods are 
so delivered. Where, in attempting to shoot a 
bridge, the boat was driven, by a sudden gust of 
wind, against a pier, and sunk, the carrier was 
held not to be answerable; but where any acci- 
dent of this kind happens, in consequence of 
overloading the vessel, or otherwise, by the fault 
of the carrier, he is answerable; as, where goods 
were taken to be carried from Hull to Stockwith, 
and the vessel arrived at Stockwith, where a part | 
of the cargo was discharged, but not the goods 
in question, which, being stowed under some 
that were to be carried on to Gainsborough, 
were left on board, the master intending to de- 
liver them on his return from Gainsborough, but 
the vessel was run aground, and the goods dam- 
aged, in going to Gainsborough, the owners of 
the vessel were held responsible. The particular 
circumstances under which goods are taken to 
be transported, may modify and control the re- 
sponsibility of the carrier; as where, in time of 
scarcity, some wheat was taken by a boatman on 
a canal, to be carried from Wolverhampton to 
Manchester, on a day of the week on which it 
was not usual for his boat to go, and for the pur- 
pose of removing the wheat from a mob who 
showed a riotous disposition, he was held not to 
be answerable for damage done by some of the 
mob, who seized a part of the wheat, about four 
or five miles from Wolverhampton. It was held, 
in this case, that the boatman did not take the 
wheat as a common carrier. And if the owner 
of the goods contract with one of the partners in 
the business of transportation, with a knowledge 
that he alone is to be benefited, and receive the 
fare, his partners are held not to be liable. But 
carriers may limit their responsibility by giving 
notice of the conditions upon which, and the ex- 
tent to which, they will be answerable. Thus, 
where carriers gave notice that they would not 
be answerable for any package over the value of 
five pounds, unless entered and paid for as such, 
x = 
oo eee 
