Just then a friend came up to me and asked what was included in the personal baggage which a man was entitled to take with him, free of charge. I said:—
“My dear sir, that is a question which has often pressed itself seriously upon the consideration of a contemplative traveller and philosophic jurist like myself, when on entering a crowded train I have found one half of the seats occupied by ‘stern realities’ or bipedal extremities, and the other half by bundles and bandboxes, nursery paraphernalia, and the oleaginous and saccharine products of the kitchen and the cook-shop; and also when I have considered how gravely the question has agitated courts of justice. One of our own learned judges has forcibly remarked that ‘the authorities and references show it is much easier to say what is not personal or ordinary luggage, than it is to decide what it is which a carrier is bound, or which it is usual for him to carry along with his passengers.’”
“You have made a long oration, but have not answered my question; just like you lawyers, always darkening counsel by words.”
“State your question more definitely,” I remarked.
“Well, then, there is a poor man here, moving West with his family. He has a bed, pillows, bolsters, and bed-quilt in a trunk, or a box, with his clothes; he is carrying them for his own use. Should he be compelled to pay freight on them? He says that he has no money; and I don’t want to see the poor beggar put upon.”
“Yours is a question which I cannot definitely answer. In England, it was decided that such things were not personal baggage.[454] In Vermont it was held a matter for a jury to pronounce upon, after considering the peculiar circumstances, the value, the quantity, and the intended use of the articles.”[455]
“‘He would not, with a peremptory tone,
Assert the nose upon his face, his own;
With hesitation, admirably slow,
He humbly hopes, presumes it may be so.’”
said my friend mockingly, and then added pepperishly, “You unsatisfactory lawyers will never give a sensible reply to the simplest question.”
“Granted. But yours was not the simplest question. Were an ordinary layman like yourself to read but a tithe of what has been written on the moot point of personal luggage or not, you would be a sadder, if not a wiser man than you now are; so voluminous are the decisions, that a Saratoga trunk would fail to contain all.”
“Well, you are not luminous anyway.