TICKETS.
Man and Wife double as to Baggage.--Money in Trunk.--Authority of
American Decisions.--Annual Tickets.--Badge of Officers.--Legislature
outwitted.--“Tickets, Sir.”--“Good for this Day only.”--“Good for this
Trip.”--Stepping off.--Lose a Ticket, and pay again.--The Acts.
Just as we were starting, I overheard an altercation between the
baggage-man and a woman of a rather masculine appearance, “with
angular outlines and plain surface, hair like the fibrous covering of
a cocoanut in gloss and suppleness as well as color, and a voice at
once thin and strenuous--acidulous enough to produce effervescence
with alkalies, and stridulous enough to sing duets with the katydids.”
He was asserting that she had too much baggage and that she must pay
freight; the woman demurred to this, and protested that as she and
her husband were travelling together they were entitled to a double
quantity of luggage. In this she was clearly right, as, though the
law considers that a man and a woman joined together in the bonds of
wedlock are one, still as respects baggage they are two,[313] or half a
dozen, if one may judge from Saratoga trunks. The disputants moved off
and I did not hear the functionary’s decision.
As my companion opened his pocket-book to put in his checks, I
noticed that he had nothing therein except a few cents, so I remarked
jokingly:--
“You don’t appear to have much of the needful about you.”
He replied, “Pshaw! I am not such a goose as to carry money in my
pocket to afford the light-fingered gentry an opportunity of enriching
themselves at my expense.”
“But how do you manage to travel without money? I should like to learn
the secret,” I said.
“So should I. I carry my cash in my trunk.”
“In your trunk! Suppose you lose it?”
“Well, the company’s liable,” he replied.
“Shouldn’t think so,” I said.
“But I am sure of it. It has been held that common carriers of
passengers are responsible for money _bonâ fide_ included in the
baggage of a passenger, for travelling purposes and personal use,
to an amount not exceeding what a prudent man--like myself for
instance--would deem proper and necessary for the purpose.[314] But
they are not responsible for money beyond such an amount, or intended
for other purposes, unless, of course, the loss is occasioned by the
gross negligence of the carriers or their servants.”[315]
“Well, I don’t think you are a prudent man; besides, I fancy that’s
only an American authority,” I remarked.
“Only an American authority! Suppose it is, it is not to be despised.
Bramwell, B., once said, that although the American authorities are
not indeed binding upon us, still they are entitled to respect as
the opinions of professors of English law, and entitled to respect
according to the position of those professors and the reasons they
give for their opinions,[316] and Spragge, C., in a late case, uses a
similar expression.”[317]
“Of course I bow to the dictum of the learned baron and chancellor. But
doubtless there are American cases the other way.”
“Perhaps. In fact I know there are.[318] But the great American
authority, Judge Redfield, thinks they are incorrect.[319] I can give
you a Pennsylvania case sustaining the Massachusetts one I quoted;
and that is where the company in their advertisements stated that
passengers were prohibited from taking anything as baggage but wearing
apparel, which would be at the risk of the owner, and the trunk of a
passenger contained specie--the extra weight beyond the usual allowance
was paid for and the company’s agent took charge of it. The trunk
wandered from the right way, went astray and was lost; and it was held
that it was not incumbent upon the passenger to inform the carrier
of the contents of the trunk unless he was asked, and that it was
immaterial whether it was to be considered baggage or freight, and that
the company was liable for its loss through the negligence or fraud of
their agents.”[320]
“Well, such may be the law on the other side of the line, but in this
hyperborean Dominion of ours I must say that I think it is somewhat
different. I think that if the conduct of the traveller has in any way
contributed to the loss, he has no ground at common law for demanding
compensation from the carrier.[321] Why, there is that old case in
Burrows where a prudent man like yourself hid £100 stg. in an old
nail-bag with some hay, and gave it to a common carrier to be taken to
a banker; the money was lost, but the carrier was held not responsible,
as the consignor had neglected to tell him the exceeding value of the
bag and so prevented him taking due care of it.[322] Then there was
the case of the guineas tied up with a bit of string in a brown-paper
parcel,[323] the case of the sovereigns in the tea,[324] and the
banknotes and gold in the school-boy’s box,[325] in all of which the
carriers were held relieved from liability. Then in England there is
the Carrier’s Act (11 Geo. IV. and 1 Wm. IV., c. 68), applying to all
goods above £10.”[326]
Here I was interrupted by the sudden cry of “Tickets! Tickets!” which
rang through the car. The conductor entered, and stopped in front of a
gentleman who said:--
“I have not got my ticket here. I hold a season one.”
“That won’t do, sir;” said the man. “Holders of annual tickets
travelling on the line are bound to produce their tickets as much as
ordinary passengers.[327] So take your choice, show your ticket, pay
your fare, or out you go.”[328]
“Well,” replied the gentleman, “sooner than be turned out with my
baggage, wherever you in your wisdom should deem best, I will pay my
fare.”
“Don’t do it, sir;” I almost without intending it called out, so
eager was I in my crusade against the company, “the conductor has no
right to demand the tickets, nor receive any fare, nor in fact can he
exercise any of the powers of his office, or meddle or interfere with
any passenger or his baggage unless he has upon his hat or cap a badge
indicating his office;[329] and a company before they can enforce any
law as to the production of tickets must bring themselves strictly
within the terms of the law.”[330]
“Sold again!” cried the wretched official, as he lugged out from his
coat pocket a small cap ornamented with the word “_Conductor_,” and
showing it to me he added, “You pretend to know a great deal about the
law, so perhaps you recollect that the statute does not say that the
cap or hat, with the badge, is to be worn on the head. The law in its
wisdom assumed that officers of the company would or must have caps
or hats, and that they would or must wear them, and wear them upon
the head, but it did not enact that they should do so.[331] It never
entered the wise noddles of the legislators at Ottawa that a man might
own two caps, a jolly fur one for use, and another little chap for
show.”
“I acknowledge that I spoke with undue haste,” I meekly replied,
feeling very crestfallen as I heard audible smiles from several of the
passengers.
But the remorseless railway man continued: “It is plain by the law of
Canada that a passenger is not obliged to purchase a ticket before he
enters the company’s car; he may pay the conductor, if he pleases, the
fare. But if the passenger pays and receives a ticket, then he accepts
the ticket upon the condition that he will produce it and deliver it
up when required by some duly authorized person, and in such case it
is part of the contract:[332] so, my dear sir,” he said soothingly to
the gentleman, though to me his words were very swords, “please produce
your ticket, or pay a second time. If you refuse, it will be too late
for you to produce it when I have given the signal to stop the train to
put you off.”[333]
One lady, who appeared to be of the suspicious class, rather hesitated
when the conductor requested her to give up her ticket, and take his
check instead, but my friend told her that it was one of the rules of
the line and that she was bound to obey it.[334]
When the conductor at length came up for my ticket I quietly shewed it,
and telling him of the circumstances connected with the refusal of the
baggage-man to check my trunk, asked him to refund the fare; this, as I
expected, he refused to do, adding that my friend would do as a witness
to prove that I had made the demand in case I chose to sue the company.
After this obnoxious individual had departed, the Q. C. entered into
a lengthy disquisition concerning railway tickets; he remarked that
the words usually printed on them, “Good for this day only, A. to B.,”
created a contract on the part of the company to convey the holder in
one continuous journey from A. to B., to be commenced on the day of
issuing the ticket, and that if a passenger alighted at an intermediate
station he would forfeit all his rights under the ticket, and could
not claim to be carried on to his journey’s end in a subsequent train
without paying a new fare.[335] And the same rule holds good when
the ticket is marked “Good for this trip only;”[336] and when marked
“Good for one passage on this day only,” it can only be used on the
day of its date.[337] And where a ticket with the words, “Good for
this trip only,” marked upon it, and unmutilated, but a few days old,
was presented, it was held that it was _primâ facie_ evidence that
the holder had paid the regular fare, was entitled to be carried
between the places named, and that the ticket had never been used;
and also that such words referred to no particular trip, or time,
but only to a continuous trip which might be made on the date or any
subsequent day.[338] Some companies give their conductors power to
allow passengers to stop by the way by endorsing permission on the
ticket.[339]
Companies have no intention of allowing a man after he has travelled
on a ticket for a time by one train to leave it, and afterwards, at
his august pleasure, to resume his seat in another train at some
intervening part of the road;[340] such proceedings would lead to
endless confusion, trouble, and annoyance. But it appears that when one
has tickets, in the coupon form, over distinct lines, if they contain
no restrictions one may delay as long as he likes at the different
changing places,[341] unless he voluntarily and negligently detaches
the coupon.[342]
One Craig bought a ticket in Buffalo marked “Good only for twenty days
from date,” from Buffalo to Detroit. After viewing the glories and
magnificence of thundering Niagara he took his seat in the afternoon
accommodation train of the Great Western at the Suspension Bridge.
This train ran on to London, but Craig for his own pleasure got out
at St. Catherines and went up to see the town. As the night express
was going through that fashionable watering-place he applied to be
allowed to travel by it on the ticket he held, and on being refused
sued the company. The court, however, considered that the ticket bound
the company to carry the plaintiff on one continuous journey from
the Suspension Bridge to Detroit, giving him the option of taking any
passenger train from the point of commencement, and if that train did
not go the whole distance, to convey him the residue of the journey in
some other train, the whole journey to be completed in twenty days;
but that it did not give the holder the right to stop at every or any
intermediate station as Mr. Craig contended.[343] If one has left
the train in which he started on his journey, the fact that he has
subsequently entered another train and travelled over a part of the
remaining distance without being required to pay fare by the conductor
in charge, does not prejudice the company or renew the contract.[344]
But, said my friend, “I believe that in this last case Agnew, J.,
guarded his meaning by saying that there might be exceptions to the
general rule, where from misfortune or accident, without his fault, the
transit of the passenger is interrupted, and he afterwards resumes his
journey. If, however, one has forfeited his right to be carried any
further by his stopping over, and yet the company continue to carry
him, they are bound to exercise reasonable care both towards him and
towards his baggage.”[345]
While I was listening intently to the words of knowledge that were
flowing like some mighty river from the lips of the learned counsel,
and wondering how and why he was so deeply read on the topic, he
suddenly stopped in his discourse, pointed his finger at a little child
who had got possession of his mother’s ticket and was quietly by a
process of suction reducing it to an unsightly and undistinguishable
pulp, then raising his voice, Smith, Q. C., exclaimed:--
“Excuse me, madam, you ought to be more careful of your ticket, for if
you lose or destroy it, the conductor (unless he knows for a fact that
you actually did pay your fare and obtain a ticket) will be justified
in demanding repayment from you, and, if you refuse it, may put you off
the cars. Just listen to what the late lamented Chief Justice Robinson
says on this very point, and where a married woman, and for aught I
know a mother like yourself, was turned off the train, or had to pay
her fare a second time, I forget which.”
And before the lady had recovered from her astonishment he dived into
his red bag, produced an extensive brief, and reads as follows:--
“It may seem hard to a man who has lost his ticket, or perhaps had it
stolen from him, that he should have to pay his fare a second time;
but it is better and more reasonable that a passenger should now and
then have to suffer the consequences of his own want of care, than
that a system (the system of issuing tickets as now in vogue) should
be rendered impracticable, which seems necessary to the transaction of
this important branch of business. It is not for the sole advantage,
or the pleasure and caprice of the railway company that these things
are done in such a hurry. The public, whether wisely or not, desire
to travel at the rate of four or five hundred miles a day, and
that rapidity of movement cannot be accomplished without peculiar
arrangements to suit the exigency which must be found sometimes to
produce inconvenience. If the passenger in this case, who I have no
doubt lost her ticket, could claim as a matter of right to have it
believed on her word that she had paid her passage, everybody else in
a similar case must have the same right to tell the same story and to
be carried through without paying the conductor, and without showing to
him a proof that he had paid any one.”[346]
“But,” said the lady, who during the delivery of the judgment had time
to recover her senses and her ticket, “but my friend here could vouch
for me that I spoke the truth.”
“Ah, my dear madam, do not deceive yourself; reflect that in
Massachusetts it was decided that if carriers require passengers to buy
tickets before going on board, and to deliver them up on going off, and
the passenger loses his ticket, he must on landing pay again;[347] and
in Curtis _v._ G. T. R. Co.,[348] that ornament of the Canadian bench,
Draper, C. J., remarked that he supposed that a man who produced
no ticket, but asserted that he had paid his fare and had lost his
ticket and therefore declined to pay again, would--though a by-stander
corroborated the assertion--be deemed refusing to pay, within the
meaning of the Acts.”
“I do not see what the Acts have to do with it. I never saw anything
about such things in the Acts,” said the lady, getting rather puzzled
over the matter.
“What, madam, do you read such things? I should have imagined that a
fair creature like yourself would have found them too dry to read.”
“No sir; I am a member of the association of the Church of the New
Jerusalem, and I read the Acts of the Apostles as well as every other
part of the Bible,” eagerly responded the lady.
Amid broad smiles, giggling he-hes, hearty ha-has, guffawing ho-hos,
the Q. C. hastened to explain.
“Oh, my dear madam, I meant no allusion to Holy Writ; I meant 31
Vic., chapter 68, commonly called the Railway Act of 1868, which
says at section 20: ‘Any passenger refusing to pay the fare, may by
the conductor of the train and the servants the company be put off
the cars, with his luggage, at any usual stopping-place, or near any
dwelling-house, as the conductor elects, the conductor first stopping
the train and using no unnecessary force.’”
FOOTNOTES:
[313] Great Northern Rw. _v._ Shepherd, 8 Ex. 30.
[314] Jordan _v._ Fall River Rw., 5 Cush. 69.
[315] Orange County Bank _v._ Brown, 9 Wend. 85; Weed _v._ Saratoga &
Sch. Rw., 19 Wend. 534; Duffy _v._ Thompson, 4 E. D. Smith, 178.
[316] Osborn _v._ Gillett, L. R., 8 Ex. 92.
[317] Deedes _v._ Graham, 20 Grant, 258, 270.
[318] Grant _v._ Newton, 1 E. D. Smith, 95; Chicago and Aurora Rw. _v._
Thompson, 19 Ill. 578.
[319] Red on Railways, vol. ii., pp. 56-58.
[320] Camden & Amboy Rw. _v._ Baldauf, 16 Penn. St. (4 Harris), 67; see
also Walker _v._ Jackson, 10 M. & W. 161, as to not inquiring contents,
and Crouch _v._ L. & N. W. Rw., 14 C. B. 255, as to right to inquire.
[321] Butterworth _v._ Brownlow, 34 L. J. C. P. 267.
[322] Gibbon _v._ Paynton, 4 Burr. 2298.
[323] Clay _v._ Willan, 1 H. B. 298.
[324] Bradley _v._ Waterhouse, 3 C. & P. 318.
[325] Batson _v._ Donavan, 4 B. &. Ald. 37.
[326] By it no carrier is liable for loss or injury to any articles
of great value in small compass, or for money, bills, notes, jewelry,
etc., above £10, unless the value and nature of the property has been
declared, and an increased charge paid for it.
[327] Woodard _v._ Eastern Counties Rw., 7 Jur. (N. S.), 971, 4 L. T.
(N. S.), 336; Downs _v._ N. Y. & N. H. Rw., 36 Conn. 287.
[328] Railway Act (Can.) 1868, § 20, s. 12.
[329] The Railway Act 1868, § 20.
[330] Jennings _v._ Gt. N. Rw., L. R., 1 Q. B. 7.
[331] Farewell _v._ G. T. R., 15 U. C. C. P. 427.
[332] Duke _v._ Great Western Rw., 14 U. C. Q. B. 377.
[333] State _v._ Thompson, 20 N. H. 250.
[334] N. R. Rw. _v._ Paige, 22 Barb. 130.
[335] Briggs _v._ G. T. Rw., 24 U. C. Q. B., 510; Dietrich _v._ Penn.
A. Rw., 8 C. L. J. (N. S.), 202; McClure _v._ Phil., Wil., & Balt. Rw.,
34 Md. 532; Boice _v._ Hudson R. Rw., 61 Barb. 611; Cunningham _v._ G.
T. R., 11 L. C. Jur. 107; Cheney _v._ Boston & M. Rw., 11 Met. 121;
Elmore _v._ Sands, 54 N. Y. 512.
[336] Cheney _v._ Boston & Maine Rw., 11 Met. 121.
[337] State _v._ Campbell, 3 Vroom, 309.
[338] Pier _v._ Finch, 24 Barb. 514.
[339] McClure _v._ Phil., Wil., & Balt. Rw., 34 Md. 532.
[340] State _v._ Overton, 4 Zabriskie, 438: Cincinnati, Columbus, & C.
Rw. _v._ Bartram, 11 Ohio St. (U. S.), 457.
[341] Brooke _v._ Grand Trunk Rw., 15 Mich. 332.
[342] Hamilton _v._ N. Y. C., 51 N. Y. 101.
[343] Craig _v._ Great Western Rw. Co., 24 U. C. Q. B. 504; Boston &
Lowell Rw. _v._ Proctor, 1 Allen, 267; Shedd _v._ Troy & Boston Rw., 40
Vt. 88.
[344] Dietrich _v._ Penn. A. Rw. Co., 8 C. L. J. (N. S.), 202.
[345] Smith _v._ G. T. R., 35 Q. B. (Ont.), 547, 557.
[346] Duke _v._ Great Western Rw. Co., 14 U. C. Q. B. 377.
[347] Standish _v._ Narragansett St. Co., 111 Mass. 512.
[348] 12 U. C. C. P. 89.