left on the open door to aid him in mounting the steps and entering the car. The guard without giving any previous warning forcibly closed the door. Fordham having his fingers where the door should meet the door plate, had them badly crushed. Both the Courts of Common Pleas and the Exchequer Chamber held that the guard was guilty of negligence to which Fordham had not contributed, and that consequently the defendants were liable for the damages: Fordham v. London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway, L.R. 3 C.P. 368 and 4 C.P. 619 Exch. Cham. Different, however, was the result of one Richardson's attempt to recover for injuries sustained while entering a railway carriage his hand was upon the edge of the door; the porter having called out, "Take your seats-Take your seats," closed the door on Richardson's thumb: the Court held that the porter closed the door in the ordinary and proper exercise of his duty and that the accident was solely attributable to Richardson's own want of caution: Richardson v. Metropolitan Railway Co., L.R. 3 C.P. 374 n.

Having escaped all accidents at the station and in entering the cars, and being now fairly en route, the next thing is to present your ticket to the conductor when he asks to see it; although, by the way, no conductor has a right to demand the tickets, or 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 or property, unless he has upon his hat or cap a badge indicating his office: Railway Act 1868, sec. 20. The learned judge in Farewell v. Grand Trunk R. W. Co., 15 C.P. 427 points out that the statute has not provided that the hat or cap, when so badged, is to be or shall be worn upon the head: it assumes that such officers will or must have hats or caps, and that they will or must wear them, and wear them on the head, but

it does not enact that they shall do so. Quære as to the effect of a conductor having a badge on his cap and his cap in his coat-tail pocket? The ticket will probably be marked "Good for this day only, A. to B." This creates 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 if the passenger alights at an intermediate station he forfeits all his rights under the ticket he holds and cannot claim to be carried on to his journey's end in a subsequent train without paying a new fare: Briggs v. Grand Trunk R. W. Co., sup., and Dietrich v. Pennsylvania A. R. R. Co., 8 C. L. J. N.S. 202. It is no part of the contract that the company should suffer him to leave the train and resume his seat in another train at any intervening part of the road: Slate v. Overton, 4 Zabriskie 438. One Craig bought a ticket marked "good only for twenty days from date" from Buffalo to Detroit; after viewing the glories 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. Catharines and went to see the town. As the night express was going through 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 be conveyed the residue in some other train-the whole journey to be completed in 20 days: but that it did not give the holder the right to stop at any or every intermediate station, as Mr. Craig contended: Craig v.

Great Western R. W. Co., 24 U. C. Q. B. 504.

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: Dietrich v. Penn. A. R. R. Co., ubi sup. 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 where he resumes his journey afterwards.

Great care should be taken of the ticket. "It is plain by law that a passenger is not obliged to purchase a ticket before he enters the company's cars, he may pay the conductor, if he pleases, the fare. 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." If a traveller having previously paid the fare and obtained a ticket, loses it, the conductor, (unless he has knowledge of the facts), is justified in demanding payment of the fare, and, in case of refusal, in putting such passenger off the cars: Duke v. Great Western R. W. Co., 14 U.C. Q.B. 377. As the late Chief Justice Robinson remarked in this case, "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 for 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 sometimes be found 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 shewing to him a proof that he had paid any one."

If a railway passenger, holding a ticket entitling him to alight at a particular station, is carried past such station without his consent and without being allowed a reasonable opportunity of leaving the train, he has a right of action against the company for whatever damages may have accrued to him through his non-delivery at the place of his destination, at least it was so held by the Supreme Court at Illinois in Illinois Central R. W. Co. v. Abell, 8 C.L.J.N.S. 172. The ticket must be taken to be the contract between the plaintiffs and the defendant for the special purpose and upon the terms which are contained in it: Farewell v. Grand Trunk P. W., 15 C.P. 427.

As accidents will happen even on the best regulated lines and baggage is frequently mislaid, stolen or lost, the law as to when, for what and to what extent companies are liable for passengers' baggage is consequently voluminous. Shaw v. Grand Trunk R. W. Co., 7 C.P. 493, decided for this country that railway companies are not liable for the loss or destruction of merchandise carried by a passenger as luggage and for which he has paid no extra charge. In Great North

:

ellers: Cahill v. London & North Western R. W., 10 C. B. N. S. 154. Nor can a lawyer, or any one else, carry title deeds as personal luggage, nor a banker, or any other man, money as such: Phelps v. London & North Western R. W., 19 C. B. N. S. 321. Nor can fond parents take a spring-horse for their little offspring Hudston v. Midland R. W., L.R. 4 Q.B. 366; nor sheets or blankets or quilts, wherewith to furnish a house when permanently settled: Macrow v. Great Western; nor, notwithstanding Porter v. Hildebrand, can a carpenter take a quantity of chisels, planes, bitts, saws and gouges, nor a sewing-machine; nor can one musically inclined carry a concertina: Bruty v. Grand Trunk R. W. Co., 32 U.C. Q.B. 66. If one sends his luggage by a servant and the servant gives it with his own to the company's officials, and it is lost, the master cannot recover therefor from the company: Becher v. Great Eastern R. W. Co., L.R. 5 Q.B. 241.

Where a traveller carried a bag with him into the car and there left it, in order to retain his place, while he went out at a station where the train stopped for refreshments, and during his absence it was taken away, he was held entitled to recover therefor from the railway company; his ticket giving him a right to be carried with his luggage of which the bag was a part: Gamble v. Great Western R. W., 24 U.C.Q.B. 407. Draper, C. J., stated that he considered the system of checking in vogue in this country only as additional precautions taken by the company, beyond what is customary in England, in order to prevent the luggage from being given up to the wrong person; that the company would be liable for a loss in case no such means of checking was in ase, and if notwithstanding, a loss occurs, the liability is unchanged, in the absence of express notice on their part that they will be responsible only for articles

checked. Morrison, J., on the contrary, thought that the system of checking was notice to passengers that all articles which they do not desire or prefer to keep under their own personal care and at their own risk, must be checked or handed to the company's officers.

A lady placed her dressing-case in a car under her seat, the company's porters having taken the other baggage. On arrival at the station the railway official carried her things to her carriage. When she reached home, she, for the first time, missed her dressing-box: the Court held that the railway company must make good the amount of the loss: Richards v. London, Brighton and South Coast R. W., 7 C.B. 839. In fact, the law laid down by Chambre, J., in Robinson v. Dunmore, 2 B. & P. 419, as to stage coaches has been considered by eminent authorities to be, in general, equally applicable to railway carriages, viz., "that if a man travel in a stage coach and take his portmanteau with him, though he had his eye upon it, yet the carrier is not absolved from his responsibility, but will be liable if the portmanteau be lost." Luggage, though never delivered to any servant of the company but kept by the passenger during the journey, is yet, in point of law, in the custody of the company, so as to render them responsible for its loss: Great Northern R. W. Co. App. v. Shepherd Resp. 8 Ex. 30. Willes, J., in Talley v. Great Western R. W. Co., L.R. 6 C.P. 50, remarked that it had been questioned by high authority whether the liability of carriers in respect of passengers' luggage is as stringent as that in respect of the ordinary carriage of goods, and whether there be any larger obligation in respect of goods carried with passengers than in respect of passengers themselves to whom they are accessory. In this case it was decided that when a passenger's luggage is at his request placed by a railway company's

servants in the carriage in which he is travelling, the company's contract to carry it safely is subject to an implied condition. that the passenger takes ordinary care of it, and if his negligence causes its loss, the company are not responsible. So where a passenger whose portmanteau had been placed at his request in the carriage with him, got out at an intermediate station on his journey, and having negligently failed to find the same carriage again, finished his journey in a different one: the portmanteau having been robbed during the latter part of the journey by persons in the carriage without any negligence of the railway company; it was held, that the railway company was not responsible for the loss, any more than if | the passenger had upon some false alarm thrown his property out of the carriage window.

In giving judgment in Le Conteur v. London and South Western R. W. Co., L.R. 1 Q.B. 54, Cockburn, C. J., said, "I cannot help thinking we ought to require very special circumstances indeed, and circumstances leading irresistibly to the conclusion that the passenger takes such personal control and charge of his luggage as to altogether give up all hold upon the company, before we can say that the company, as common carriers, would not be liable in the event of the loss." (To be continued.)

JUDGES' REPORT ON THE
GOODHUE BILL.

As promised last month we now publish the report made by the heads of the three Courts on the Bill to declare and determine the true meaning and intention of the Act to confirm the distribution of the Estate of the Hon. George Jervis Goodhue, deceased. The Bill and petition for it were submitted to the Judges composing the Commission appointed under 34 Vict., chap. 7, the Commission consist

ing of all the Judges, including the Chief Justice of Appeal, except Mr. V. C. Blake, who was raised to the Bench since the Commission issued. Though the Report is signed only by the Chancellor and the Chief Justices of the Courts of Queen's Bench and Common Pleas, it is understood that all the Judges concurred in the views expressed in the Report. It is a weighty, logical and convincing document, worthy of the high reputation of those whose names are appended to it, whilst the whole circumstances of the case are evidence of the wisdom of the Act under which the Report was made. Many of the observations are of general application, and condemnatory of the pernicious principle which the passage of such an Act would countenance. Much stronger language than is used on this point would not have been inappropriate. But the Judges, properly enough perhaps, did not think fit to travel out of the record or to express opinions as to matters which it might have been said were rather of general import than submitted to them in this particular case. Our readers are doubtless sufficiently familiar with the facts of the case to follow the Report without further explanation. It is dated at Osgoode Hall, 11th February, 1873, and reads as follows:

"The undersigned judges, who have considered the Estate Bill (No 132), intituled An Act to declare and determine the true meaning and intention of an Act intituled, "An Act to confirm the deed for the distribution and settlement of the estate of the Honourable George Jervis Goodhue, deceased," forwarded to the judges under the Provincial Statute 34 Vict. cap. 7, to report thereon, beg leave to submit the following observations relative thereto :-It being the peculiar duty of the judges to interpret the Acts passed by the Legislature, and to expound their meaning, they can only do so by reference to the language used in framing these Acts of Parliament; they can know nothing of the intention of the Legislature, save from the language in which the Acts passed by them are expressed. A Court of competent jurisdiction having, by ita judgment, declared the meaning of an Act of