“I had an idea,” I said, “that a Canadian judge had expressed an opinion to the effect that the system of checking in vogue in this enlightened country was notice to passengers that all articles must be checked or handed to the company’s servants, except what they desire or prefer to keep under their own personal care and at their own risk. Did you ever meet with such a dictum or decision?”
“Oh yes, I noticed the case only the other day. Morrison, J., did speak to that effect, but he was overruled, and Draper, C. J., said that he considered checking 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 use, 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.[450] By the way, were there any papers in your bag?”
“No; they were all in my pocket. I have not many with me, and I remember seeing it decided that title deeds, which an attorney was carrying with him to produce on a trial, were not baggage for the loss of which a carrier would be responsible.”[451]
“Prudent man!” replied my friend, as he turned on his heel and departed.
What I did at the place where I now was concerns nobody except those who had the pleasure of paying my travelling expenses to and fro and my hotel bill while there. To dilate with any particularity on the subject might lead one into a breach of that well-established rule concerning privileged communications between attorneys and their clients.
At length my labors were at an end and I was at perfect liberty to return to my Lares et Penates at my earliest convenience. My readers must not suppose, from the fact that my bag and baggage had been lost, that I was acting the Nazarite all this time; no indeed, I had bought all the necessary articles of a gentleman’s toilet and some changes of raiment, and with these in a brand new valise I was ready to start en route for the place whence I had come forth.
I was rather amused, while awaiting the arrival of my train at the station, by a controversy between what was evidently a “fond parient” of rural origin and the baggage-master. The father had invested in a spring-horse for his youthful son and heir to exercise upon; the creature was forty-four inches long and weighed seventy-eight pounds. The man wished it passed as luggage.
“No, you will have to pay freight for this,” said he of the chalk and checks.
“But I have nothing else, and I am certainly entitled to carry something,” urged the man.
“Yes,” returned the other, “you are entitled to take your personal baggage with you; but if you have none, that does not give you the right to take other things instead,[452] and a horse of this color is personal luggage by no manner of means.”[453]