FOOTNOTES:
[254] Galena & Chi. Rw. v. Loomis, 13 Ill. 548.
[255] Skelton v. L. & N. W. Rw., L. R., 2 C. P. 631; Boggs v. Great Western Rw., 23 U. C. C. P. 573.
[256] Williams v. Richards, 3 C. & K. 82; Cotton v. Wood, 8 C. B. (N. S.), 571.
[257] Stubley v. L. & N. W. Rw., L. R., 1 Ex. 13.
[258] Kissenger v. N. Y., etc., Rw., 56 N. Y. 538.
[259] Bilbee v. L. & B. Rw., 18 C. B. (N. S.), 584; see also, Stapley v. L. B. & S. C. Rw., L. R., 1 Ex. 21.
[260] Mackay v. N. Y. C., 35 N. Y. 75; Richardson v. N. Y. C., 45 N. Y. 846.
[261] James v. Gt. W. Rw., L. R., 2 C. P. 634 n.; see p. 63.
[262] Barrett v. Midland Rw., 1 F. & F. 361.
[263] Galena, etc., Union Rw. v. Loomis, 13 Ill. 548; Wakefield v. C. & P. R. Rw., 37 Vt. 330.
[264] B. & O. Rw. v. Trainor, 33 Md. 542; Cliff v. Midland Rw., L. R., 5 Q. B. 258.
[265] Wharton on Neg. § 382 and notes.
[266] Davis v. N. Y. C., 47 N. Y. 400.
[267] Wharton, § 382.
[268] Ernst v. Hudson R. Rw., 39 N. Y. 61.
[269] Wanless v. N. E. Rw., L. R., 6 Q. B. 481; S. C., L. R., 7 E. & I. App. 12; Stapley v. London & B. Rw., L. R., 1 Ex. 21.
[270] Brown v. Buffalo, etc., 22 N. Y. 191.
[271] Havens v. Erie Rw., 41 N. Y. 296.
[272] Hart v. Erie Rw., 3 Alb. L. J. 312; Tabor v. Mo. Vall. Rw., 46 Mo. 353; S. C., 2 Am. Rep. 270.
[273] Steves v. Oswego & S. Rw., 18 N. Y. 422; Wilds v. Hudson R. Rw., 24 N. Y. 430; but see Chaffee v. Boston & L. Rw., 104 Mass. 108.
[274] Butterfield v. Western Rw., 10 Allen, 532; Miller v. G. T. R., 25 C. P. (Ont.), 389.
[275] Brand v. Troy & S. Rw., 8 Barb. 368; Anderson v. N. Rw., 25 C. P. (Ont.), 301.
[276] Brown v. Hannibal & St. J., etc., 50 Mo. 461; B. & O. Rw. v. Trainor, 33 Md. 542.
[277] Lake Shore Rw. v. Miller, 25 Mich. 277; Telfer v. N. Rw., 30 N. J. 188; St. Louis, etc., v. Manly, 58 Ill. 300.
[278] Oliver v. N. E. Rw., L. R., 9 Q. B. 409; Thompson v. G. W. R., 24 C. P. (Ont.), 429.
[279] Longmore v. G. W. Rw., 19 C. B. (N. S.) 183.
[280] Bridges v. N. London, etc., L. R., 6 Q. B. 377.
[281] Welfare v. London & Brighton Rw., L. R., 4 Q. B. 693; Stott v. G. T. R., 24 C. P. (Ont.), 347.
[282] Crafter v. Metropolitan Rw., L. R., 1 C. P. 300.
[283] Shepperd v. Midland Rw. Co., 20 W. R. 705; but see ante, p. 9.
[284] Railway Act, 1868, § 20, ss. 5 and 6 (Can.).
[285] Railway Act, 1868, § 20, s. 5.
[286] Ibid. § 20, s. 2.
[287] 34 Vict. c. 43, § 6 (Can.).
[288] Addison on Torts, 3d ed. 447.
[289] Redfield on Rail., vol. ii., p. 276.
[290] Le Blanche v. L. & N. W. Rw., 34 L. T. R. 25.
[291] Becke v. G. W. R., 18 Sol. J. 972.
[292] Denton v. G. N. Rw., 5 Ell. & Bl. 860; In re Oxlade, 1 C. B. (N. S.), 454; Heirn v. McCaughan, 32 Miss. 17.
[293] Gordon v. M. & L. Rw., 52 N. H. 596.
[294] Sears v. Eastern Rw., 14 Allen, 433.
[295] Redfield on Railways, vol. ii., p. 277 n.
[296] Hamlin v. G. N. R., 1 H. & N. 408, and as to damages for remote and collateral consequences, see Story v. N. Y. & H. Rw., 2 Selden, 85; Horner v. Wood, 16 Barb. 386.
[297] Le Blanche v. L. & N. W. R., 34 L. T. R. 25; reversed on Appeal, W. Notes, May 27, 1876.
[298] Becker v. L. & N. W. Rw., cited in 10 C. L. J. 311.
[299] Weed v. P. R. Rw., 17 N. Y. 362.
[300] Benson v. New Jersey Rw. Co., 9 Bosw. 412.
[301] Hurst v. Gt. Western Rw., 34 L. J. C. P. 265; Robinson v. The same, 35 L. J. C. P. 123.
[302] Addison on Torts, p. 487.
[303] Welfare v. London & Brighton Rw. Co., L. R., 4 Q. B. 693.
[304] Briggs v. Grand Trunk Rw. Co., 24 U. C. Q. B. 510, 516.
[305] McDonald et ux. v. Chicago & N. W. R. Co., 26 Iowa, 124.
[306] L. R., 3 Exch. 150.
[307] Caswell v. Boston & Worcester Rw., 98 Mass. 194.
[308] Forsyth v. Boston & Alb. Rw., 103 Mass. 510.
[309] Cornman v. Eastern Counties Rw., 4 H. & N. 781; see also Blackman v. London, B., & S. C. Rw., 17 W. R. 769.
[310] Hogan v. S. E. Rw., 28 L. T. (N. S.), 271.
[311] Jackson v. Metropolitan Rw. L. R. 10 C. P. 49.
[312] Crafter v. Metropolitan Rw. Co., L. R., 1 C. P. 300. Where on the platform there were two doors in close proximity to each other, the one for necessary purposes, had painted over it the words “For gentlemen,” the other had over it “Lamp room.” The plaintiff having occasion to go to the former, inquired its whereabouts and was directed to it: by mistake he opened the door of the lamp room, fell down some stairs, and was injured: Held, that in the absence of evidence that the place was more than ordinarily dangerous, a nonsuit was right. Toomey v. London B. & S. C., 3 C. B. (N. S.), 146.
CHAPTER VIII.
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.’”