After a visit to the charred and smouldering ruins of the once handsome depot—my numerous inquiries having confirmed my worst fears as to the total loss of my wife’s apparel—I returned to my office to consult the law on the subject, before I encountered her ladyship with the direful news of the antics of the Fire Fiend. There I quickly found that after a reasonable time and opportunity to take away his baggage has been given to a traveller, the company’s responsibility as carriers ends: they are no longer responsible for its absolute security, but degenerate into mere warehousemen bound to exercise only that care which a prudent man ordinarily does in keeping his own goods of a similar kind and value;[743] and that care is exercised by the company placing the goods in a secure warehouse;[744] or, as a Canadian Chief Justice of high repute and great experience says, “the terminus of the transport being reached, the duty of the common carrier is fulfilled by placing the goods in a safe place, alike safe from the weather and from danger of loss or theft.”[745] It was perfectly clear that the company was not responsible to me for the loss of my baggage,[746] through the foul pranks of the Fire Fiend. And it would have been just the same if it had been stolen from the warehouse;[747] or if on the arrival of the train I had taken possession of the trunks, and afterwards for my own convenience handed them back to the baggage-master at the station to be kept until sent for, and they had come to grief or been pilfered;[748] unless, indeed, there was some gross negligence on the part of the company. And I found by my books that it is the duty of the company to have the baggage ready for delivery upon the platform, at the usual place, until the owner may with due diligence call for, and receive it; and that it is the owner’s duty to call for and remove it within a reasonable time; and that “reasonable time” is directly upon the arrival of the train, making a reasonable allowance for delay caused by the crowded state of the depot at the time; but that the lateness of the hour makes no difference if the baggage be put upon the platform.[749] Nor does the fact of it being Sunday make any difference.[750] But if the traveller does not choose to call and take away his impedimenta (as Julius Cæsar calls it), the company do all they need by putting it into their baggage room and keeping it for him, with the liability of ordinary warehousemen.
Thus conscious that I should wring nothing from the iron grasp of the railway company, and that out of my own professional earnings I should have to replenish my wife’s wardrobe, I went home sad, down-cast and dejected, to break the direful news to her.
Scarcely had I entered my house, which had been so peaceful and calm during the past few weeks, when my alter ego flew at me with a perfect storm of words and questionings as to why her trunks had not yet come up, and assertions that she had literally nothing to wear. (Though to the eyes of an ordinary mortal she appeared far from being in puris naturalibus.)
When I told of the fate that had befallen her paraphernalia the storm increased into a hurricane, and when it was announced that the company were not liable, a perfect tornado—a cyclone—a typhoon—a simoon—of words, whirled with terrific fury around my head, then a perfect waterspout shot forth; and I, remembering suddenly an appointment down town, vanished from the scenes, resolved that henceforth both myself and my amiable—but hysterical—spouse would eschew the iron horse and his train forever, and living peaceable at home avoid the Wrongs and Rights of Travellers by Rail, by Stage, by Private Conveyance.
FOOTNOTES:
[710] Bayley v. Manchester, etc., Rw., L. R., 7 C. P. 415.
[711] Ibid.
[712] Phil. & R. Rw. v. Derby, 14 How. 468; Noyes v. Rutland, etc., Rw., 27 Vt. 110; Yarborough v. Bank of England, 16 East. 6.
[713] Roe v. Berkenhead & L. Rw., 7 W. H. & G. 36.
[714] Craker v. Chicago & N. W. Rw., 36 Wis. 657.