“Who told you all that?”
“Wal, stranger, I heerd it in rather a roundabout way; my master told me, another man told him, and an angel told the other man.”[244]
“Ah, indeed!” I exclaimed, “that is undoubted authority.”
“Another time there was a long fellow put a £50 note in his bag among his old duds. In getting on the stage he gave his bag to the driver, who lost it; he sued the master to court, but the jury only paid him for his old clothes.”[245]
“There must have been some stage-coachman on that jury,” I said.
“Like enough; there’s a deal of them scattered around every civilized country.”
“I suppose you know,” I added, “that if you were to carry parcels for your own particular profit, your master would not be liable for the loss of them,[246] unless, indeed, he paid you less wages, because of the opportunity thus afforded you of making small sums.”[247]
“I guess there’s no chance of my makin’ a fortun’, along this ere road that ere way. Folks think I ought to carry their traps for nothing. Look ye here, mister, how would it be ’sposing a man took his portmantee with him, and kept his own eye on til it, and it was lost after all.”
“Oh, it’s clear the owner of the coach would be liable.[248] But if a gentleman keep, for instance, his overcoat wholly in his own custody and possession, and does not actually deliver it to the carrier, the latter cannot reasonably be held liable for the loss[249] if it disappears.”
(P.S. and N.B. Any person or persons desirous of becoming thoroughly posted upon the all important question of the liability of carriers for the loss of baggage, will find it to their advantage to consult chapter fifteen of this my book.)