DINING, RAINING, LOSING, AND ENDING.
Must wait at Stopping-places.--Place booked taken at any
Time.--Falling in ascending.--Drenched with Rain.--Coachmen are
Common Carriers, and liable as such.--Loss of Money.--Loss of
Luggage.--Dangerous Short Cut.--Bridges.--Safe Arrival.
The driver, annoyed at the loss of his fare, said he would drive
ahead at once and not wait, as he usually did at this place, for his
passengers to take refreshments, but as my wife was hungry and the old
maids thirsty, I insisted upon his remaining; for a carrier has no
right to deviate from established usages to gratify his own whims and
fancies.[234] While we were partaking of a cold collation, portions
of which, doubtless, had done duty on several former occasions, a
gentleman arrived at the inn, and from his conversation with the driver
I quickly perceived that he had paid his fare for the whole way from
town to our journey’s end, and that he now intended to take his seat,
as he clearly had a right to do.[235] He, too, was booked for an inside
place, and protested strongly because sufficient room had not been
left for him, saying that as more than the legal number were already
on board, he would not get on but would sue the proprietor for all
expenses he might be put to in performing the remainder of his journey
by another conveyance.[236]
“I took my place,” he exclaimed with emphasis, “and now you are going
to try to squeeze six people into an infernal box that only holds
five. I’ll take a post-chaise and bring an action for all the expenses
incurred. I’ve paid my fare. It won’t do; I told the clerk when I took
my place that it would not do. I know these things have been done. I
know they are done every day; but _I_ never was done, and I never will
be. Those who know me best know it; crush me.”[237]
The son of Nimshi tried to smooth down matters, but in vain; and the
irascible gent went off in high dudgeon; whereat I rejoiced.
Just as we were starting, an old woman approached, and after some
chaffering agreed with the driver as to the sum for which he would
carry her to the next village, and began to mount. Before she was up
the horses started, and she was thrown to the ground and injured so
much that she could not come with us. I endeavored to apply some balm
by informing her that she had better sue the owner of the stage; for,
she, being a passenger as soon as the contract was made, he was liable
to her for the negligence of his man.[238]
We had not gone far, after our refreshments, before the sky grew
overcast, the wind arose, heavy clouds began to send across the sky,
distant mutterings of thunder grew more and more audible, rolling,
rumbling, rattling, nearer and nearer, the heavens were wrapt in
gloom, through which, ever and anon, the lightning flashed vividly.
Quickly the thunderstorm was upon us, the rain descended first in
large heavy drops, then in a perfect deluge; the sky seemed on fire
with electric flashes, darting hither and thither like fiery, flying
serpents. In vain the coachee whipped up his wearied horses and made
their very bones to rattle, striving to gain shelter from the pitiless
storm. Before protection could be gained we were all drenched to the
epidermis, even those within did not escape, for the old stage leaked
like a sieve and let in the flood at every part. (My wife declared
afterwards that she had read that in the days of Henry II., of France,
there were three, and only three, coaches in existence, one belonging
to Catherine de Medicis, another to the fair, but frail, Diana of
Poictiers, and the third to René de Laval, a noble seigneur, and that
she verily believed that this was the one owned by, the fat old René,
so weak, so frail, so rickety, was the old antediluvian monster; in
fact, she remarked, there was nothing strong about the entire concern
except the smell!)
But, after all, it was only a thunderstorm, and ere very long its
fury was overpassed, the sun emerged from behind the murky clouds,
and we all steamed away beneath its fiery rays like small portable
steam-engines. Far worse, however, than being thoroughly damped
ourselves, the heavy down-pour had penetrated our trunks and bags,
playing the mischief with the things therein, for the carrier had not
provided tarpaulins, or cart clothes and such necessary coverings to
protect the baggage from the rain, as he was bound to do.[239] The
thoughts of the damages which I might recover, alone kept me from
pouring forth my ire upon the coachman’s devoted head.
Of course, proprietors of stage-coaches,[240] or mail-coaches,[241] who
hold themselves out as carriers of goods, as well as of passengers, are
liable as common carriers, and responsible at common law for all damage
and loss to goods during the carriage from what cause soever arising,
save only the act of God; and this liability extends to the luggage of
passengers, as well as to the goods of strangers, although no specific
charge be made for the luggage.[242] In England (by the Railway Clauses
Act) railways, stage-coach proprietors, and other common carriers of
passengers, their baggage and freight, are put upon precisely the
same ground, both as to liability and as to any protection, privilege
or exemption; and the same rule obtains in the great republic, except,
perhaps, that inasmuch as transportation by rail is infinitely more
perilous, a proportionate degree of watchfulness is demanded of
carriers thereby. Care and diligence are relative terms, and the degree
of care and watchfulness is to be increased in proportion to the hazard
of the business.[243]
The thorough damping which he had received seemed to have had a
mollifying effect upon our knight of the reins, and when I ventured to
address him on the subject of his master’s liability for loss or damage
to luggage, I found him quite thawed out, in fact, communicative.
“Wal,” said he, “I knows summat about that; but I rather guess you’d
find yourself mistook if you thought him liable for all losses, and put
a lot of money in your trunk, and didn’t tell on it, and had it lost.”
“Why,” queried I, “what about that?”
“Not much, only this: a chap one time thought so as how he’d come a
sharp dodge on a coachman, so he just put $11,250 in his old trunk and
said nothing about it; and when they got to their journey’s end the box
was nowheres; the man tried to make the owner of the stage pay, but the
judge decided he could not.”
“Who told you all that?”
“Wal, stranger, I heerd it in rather a roundabout way; my master told
me, another man told him, and an angel told the other man.”[244]
“Ah, indeed!” I exclaimed, “that is undoubted authority.”
“Another time there was a _long fellow_ put a £50 note in his bag among
his old duds. In getting on the stage he gave his bag to the driver,
who lost it; he sued the master to court, but the jury only paid him
for his old clothes.”[245]
“There must have been some stage-coachman on that jury,” I said.
“Like enough; there’s a deal of them scattered around every civilized
country.”
“I suppose you know,” I added, “that if you were to carry parcels for
your own particular profit, your master would not be liable for the
loss of them,[246] unless, indeed, he paid you less wages, because of
the opportunity thus afforded you of making small sums.”[247]
“I guess there’s no chance of my makin’ a fortun’, along this ere
road that ere way. Folks think I ought to carry their traps for
nothing. Look ye here, mister, how would it be ’sposing a man took his
portmantee with him, and kept his own eye on til it, and it was lost
after all.”
“Oh, it’s clear the owner of the coach would be liable.[248] But if a
gentleman keep, for instance, his overcoat wholly in his own custody
and possession, and does not actually deliver it to the carrier,
the latter cannot reasonably be held liable for the loss[249] if it
disappears.”
(P.S. and N.B. Any person or persons desirous of becoming thoroughly
posted upon the all important question of the liability of carriers for
the loss of baggage, will find it to their advantage to consult chapter
fifteen of this my book.)
“I say, mister, had I better take a short cut over that ere bridge,
which is so rotten that I calkerlate it will go down mighty soon with
a tremendous whack into the water below, or go away round a couple of
miles to the stone bridge?” queried the driver.
“Well,” I replied, “I think you had better go round, for the law saith,
if a common carrier--which you decidedly are in every sense of the
word--goes by ways that be dangerous, or drive by night, or in other
inconvenient times, or if he overcharge a horse, whereby he falleth
into water or otherwise, so that the stuff is hurt or impaired, then he
shall be charged for his misdemeanor.”[250]
“But why does not the corporation repair the bridge?” I added.
“Oh, they don’t own it; old Squire Squaretoes built it and owns it;
but he lets folks cross it if they choose,” replied the man.
“Then it is clear we would have no one to sue if any accident happened
through its defective state.”[251]
I trust that my readers (if I have any) will understand that a town is
not liable for injuries caused by a bridge being out of repair, if it
has become so, suddenly and unexpectedly, by reason of a freshet, and
sufficient time has not elapsed to enable the authorities to repair it,
or to guard travellers against the danger;[252] but if the chairman of
the board of supervisors has had notice of the defect, and no proper
precautions are taken to guard against accidents, the town will be held
liable for negligence.[253]
Quickly now we drove along the bank of a little babbling, bubbling
river, which “like a silver thread with sunsets strung upon it thick
like pearls” wound in and out, and round about, doubling the distance
we had to travel; but I was quite content and sought not to descend
from my high perch, for the breeze was
“‘Sweet as Sabæan odors from the shores
Of Araby the blest;’”
and the woods near by had many verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways,
to charm the eye, and I had ever loved to gaze upon
“groups of lovely elm-trees bending
Languidly their leaf-crowned heads,
Like youthful maids, when sleep descending,
Warns them to their silken beds.”
On and on we clattered along the rough and stony road, rattling and
jolting, till a loud and sharp “Toot-toot-toot,” with a long clear
flourish “that warbled away in an acoustic ringlet” from the driver’s
horn, announced the fact that that day’s work was done; that our
journey was complete, and we were safe in the little village of Ayr.
As our journey beyond this point was upon the trackless deep, I will
here say nothing about it, save that we were while on board the
steamboats neither blown up nor drowned.
FOOTNOTES:
[234] Chitty on Carriers, 253; Story on Bailments, § 597.
[235] Ker _v._ Mountain, 1 Esp. 27.
[236] Chitty on Carriers, 252.
[237] See Mr. Dowler’s remarks in Pickwick.
[238] Brien _v._ Bennett, 8 C. & P. 724; Lygo _v._ Newbold, 9 Ex. 302.
[239] Webb _v._ Page, 6 M. & G. 204; Walker _v._ Jackson, 10 M. & W.
168; Philleo _v._ Sandford, 17 Texas, 227.
[240] Clark _v._ Gray, 4 Esp. 177; Lovett _v._ Hobbs, 2 Shower, 127;
Hutton _v._ Bolton, 1 H. Bla. 299 n.; Dwight _v._ Brewster, 1 Pickering
(Mass.), 50; Jones _v._ Voorhees, 10 Ohio, 145.
[241] White _v._ Bolton, Peake, N. P. 113.
[242] Robinson _v._ Dunmore, 2 B. & P. 416.
[243] Commonwealth _v._ Power, 7 Met. 601; Jencks _v._ Coleman, 2
Sumner.
[244] Angell on Carriers, 262.
[245] Miles _v._ Cottle, 4 M. & P. 630; 6 Bing. 743; and on this point
see chapter 8.
[246] Butter _v._ Basing, 2 C. & P. 614.
[247] Dwight _v._ Brewster, 1 Pick. (Mass.), 50.
[248] Robinson _v._ Dunmore, 2 B. & P. 419; Brooke _v._ Pickwick, 4
Bing. 218.
[249] Tower _v._ Utica & Sch. Rw., 7 Hill, 47.
[250] Doctor & Stud., Dial. 2d, p. 224.
[251] Gautret _v._ Egerton, L. R. 2 C. P. 371; State _v._ Seawell, 3
Hawks, 193.
[252] Jaquish _v._ Ithaca, 36 Wis. 108; Ward _v._ Jefferson, 24 Wis.
342.
[253] Ibid.