that the meaning is not changed, but that the reverse is true. But this reformation is not permitted in wills; not because they are more sacred than any other paper, but because the statute requires them to be in writing and signed at the end; if they are not signed, the property by law belongs to the heir or next of kin, and the power to divest that title has not been well executed. This doctrine is obscured by the mode of stating it copied from Lord COKE. It is by him stated as if it were the fondness of the law for the heir. Whereas, it should be stated as a power given by law to take from the heir, provided it is done in a certain way. The way to test this, is to assume that instructions in writing signed by the testator were to give an estate that would at the same time enable the devisce to sell and use the money but also confer a separate use. Then, that the will was written in these words, and the testatrix assured this would have the effect she desired. No one would, or could then dispute that the conveyancer had blundered; no one would attempt to argue that the meaning of the will was changed, or that the instructions could be used to construe the will. It may be that it is better to let in the evidence and go to a jury on the meaning of wills. But the alternative is either this or the English rule, which till now, we have always supposed was the same as ours. And certainly no one desires or intends anything so absurd as to change the rule. Probably the question of the admission of evidence turns on the meaning of sensible. If that has the meaning that it has in characterizing a will as a sensible will, when conversing about a friends will, the court was right in looking at the evidence to ascertain that it was a very foolish will, and of what importance is that fact? But if by sensible is meant capable of operation, though producing unfortunate and probably unforseen results, which is the legal meaning of the word, the evidence, if admissible, had no bearing on the will. Oxenden v. Chichester, 4 Dow, 65, decides that if there be a thing answering the words used to describe it in a devise, no evidence is admissable that the testator intended something else to form part of that thing for the purpose of the devise. As there is no power to vary a principle once decided in the House of Lords saving by Act of Parliament, and it is absolutely immaterial whether the decision is right or wrong, we may be quite certain that this is still the rule in that country. And, therefore, when they use the same words as we do as to the admissability of evidence, they do not mean that you can change the meaning of the words by any facts, if those words can mean what they express when applied to things as they are. Has any one ever pretended or imagined that the canon of evidence had a different meaning on the opposite sides of the Atlantic. The Annotations are prepared by the following Editors and Assistants : Department of Practice, PLEADING AND EVIDENCE. Hon. George M. Dallas, Editor. Assistants: Ardemus Stewart, Henry N. Smaltz, John A. McCarthy, William Sanderson Furst. Department of Constitutional Law. Prof Christopher G. Tiedeman, Editor. Assistants: Wm. Diaper Department of MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS. Hon. John F. Dillon, LL. D., Editor. Assistant: Mayne R. Longstreth. Department of Equity. Richard C. McMurtrie, LL. D., Editor. Assistants: Sydney G. Department of TORTS. Melville M. Bigelow, Esq., Editor. Assistants: Benjamin H. DEPARTMENT OF CORPORATIONS. Angelo T. Freedley, Esq., Editor. Assistants: Lewis Lawrence Department of CARRIERS AND TRANSPORTATION COMPANIES. Charles F. Beach, Jr., Esq., Editor. Assistants: Lawrence Godkin, Owen Wister, Victor Leory, Cyrus E. Woods. Department of ADMIRALTY. Morton P. Henry, Esq., Editor. Assistant: Horace L. Cheyney. Department of COMMERCIAL LAW. Frank P. Prichard, Esq., Editor. Assistants: H. Gordon Mc- Department of Insurance. George Richards, Esq., Editor. Assistants: George Wharton Department of Criminal Law aND CRIMINAL PRACTICE. Department of Patent Law. George Harding, Esq., Editor. Assistant: Hector T. Fenton. Department of PROPERTY. Hon. Clement B. Penrose, Editor. Assistants: Alfred Roland Department of MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. Hon. Marshall D. Ewell, LL. D., Editor. Assistants: Thomas Department of WILLS, EXECUTORS AND ADMINISTRATORS. Department of TRUSTS AND COMBINATIONS IN RESTRAINT OF H. La Barre Jayne, Esq., Editor. Assistants: George S. Patterson, DEPARTMENT OF CARRIERS AND TRANSPORTATION COMPANIES. EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, CHARLES F. BEACH, JR., LAWRENCE GODKIN, Assisted by OWEN WISTER, CYRUS E. Woons. G. C. & S. F. Ry. Co. v. Gilbert.' APPEALS OF TEXAS. VICTOR LEOVY, COURT OF CIVIL Carriers-Delay in Transportation-Special Damages. 1. In order to charge a carrier with such special damages for delay in transportation, as the rental value of machinery intended for immediate use, special notice of the intention must be given at the time of shipment and not afterwards. 22 S. W. Rep. 760, reversed. 2. The ordinary measure of damages for delay in transporting goods is the depreciation suffered, and the rental value of the goods for the time of the delay; these damages must be specially pleaded and proven. 22 S. W. Rep. 760, reversed. THE MEASURE of DamagES. 1. The ordinary measure of damages resulting from delay in the delivery of an article shipped, is the difference between the value of the article when due and when delivered. 2. Damages for the value of the use or rent of a machine can be recovered only when the special purposes of the shipment are made known to the carrier at the time of the contract of shipment. Questions as to the measure of damages for breaches by a carrier of contracts of shipment of merchandise, present few novel or difficult problems. Since, however, such questions are of daily occurence, and since the textbooks with their voluminous excerpts, refined distinctions and 1 Reported in 23 S. W. Rep. 320. interminable references, rather confuse than enlighten the reader, it is believed that a short analysis of the subject, citing only new or leading cases, may be of practical valuc. The general doctrine as to the measure of damages in cases of contract is summarily compre hended in a few pages of l'othier on Obligations: (Evans Poth. on Ob. (1st Am. Ed.) Vol. I. p. 80, et seq.) This summary statement is referred to in most of the leading cases and forms, confessedly, the basis of the entire jurisprudence of England and America upon the subject. It is unfortunately too long for reproduction here; but its substance is found in Article 1928 of the Louisana Civil Code of 1826, known as the "Louisana Rule," and said in Sedgwick on the Measure of Damages (Vol. I. p. 67), to be "the clearest and most definite rule that can be framed in this perplexing matter.” That Article is as follows: "Where the object of a contract is anything but the payment of money, the damages due to the creditor for its breach are the amount of the loss he has sustained and the profit of which he has been deprived, under the following exceptions and modifications: " "1. Where the debtor has been guilty of no fraud or bad faith, he is liable only for such damages as were contemplated or may reasonably be supposed to have entered into the contemplation of the parties at the time of the contract. It is necessary to separate at once from the authorities to be considered, a class of cases comparatively few in number, but exceedingly troublesome. In this annotation cases will not be considered where the parties have put themselves outside of the general rules, by special notices or special contracts, and where the decisions turned entirely upon the sufficiency of such notices or the proof of such contracts. It must be noted, moreover, that a carrier's contract should be considered, in respect to damages, without reference to decisions upon other kinds of contracts, supposed to be similar. Without going into nice distinctions on the subject, it is enough to say that contracts to build a boat, to repair machinery, to return a deposit, and to carry a shipment, differ from one another toto caelo on the very important point of implied notice. He who repairs machinery knows, or should know its probable use; but a carrier may take a shaft across the country without knowing whether it is intended for a steamship or a sugarho ise. As a general rule, the measure of the carrier's liability is the market value of the shipment at its destination, computed at the time when it should have been delivered, less transportation charges, with in terest. 1. It is an old contention on behalf of the carrier, which still occasionally reappears, that the value when shipped should be the measure; both on account of a supposed analogy to insurance, and because the destination value includes profits. The leading case on this point is that of Gillingham . Dempsey, 12 S. & R., 183 Penn. (1824). It cites all the authorities back to the beginning of the century and lays down the rule that the destination value is the test. This is now the settled jurisprudence, and this measure has been used in all the cases cited under the different heads below. Other leading cases are: Spring v. Haskell, 4 Allen, 112 (1862); Dean v. Vaccaro, 2 Head, 488 Tenn. (1859). But the prime cost or shipment value, plus expenses, is a mode of reaching the destination value, which may be used in the absence of direct proof, to which it yields : McGregor v. Kilgore, 6 Ohio, 358 (1834); North. Transp. Co. V. McClary, 66 III. 233 (1872); R. Co. v. Phelps, 46 Ark. 485 (1885); Rome Rd. . Sloan, 39 Ga. 636. 2. The freight, if unpaid, is, of course, to be deducted from the destination market value. It is obvious that any other rule |