“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.”