At the present time, the tendency is for the companies to take the responsibility of the whole conveyance, the C. acting as their agents, if willing so to do, or else endeav oring to maintain a fair competition. One of the greatest of the companies, the Mid have in this way become C. on their own account, in order to obtain a share of the profit which accrues from road-traffic. The goods-vans traversing the streets of the metropolis, and other great towns, are now more frequently inscribed with the names of railway companies than with those of private carriers.
The goods-depots of the several railways are scenes of great activity during the for it is then that the arrival-trains are mostly unpacked, and the departure-trains mostly made up. During the day, vans are collecting goods from manufactories and ware houses; these goods are sorted at the deptos, and are, when evening conies on, distri buted among different trains, according to the part of the country to which they are to be conveyed. On the other hand, goods-trains arriving during the evening and night are unpacked, the goods classified according to districts, and sent out for delivery by road-vans on the day.
The four-horse broad-wheel wagons, as already said, have almost disappeared from English roads; vans of lighter construction sufficing to convey merchandise from and to the various railway stations. Canals still command a trade, but it is chiefly in coal, stone, Eine, ores, slate, bricks, and other articles very bulky in proportion to their value. The conveyance of manufactured goods has, for the most part, passed over to the railways.
In towns, there are C. whose business is confined wholly to short distances. Taking the metropolis as an example, there are C. residing in all the villages and hamlets round about, each possessing one or more single-horse covered carts. Every morning the cart, containing miscellaneous articles collected in the village or hamlet, goes to London, and delivers each article at the particular house or establishment to which it is addressed. When thus emptied, it receives a supply of packages or other articles going from London to the suburbs, and makes its return-journey in the evening. The plan is cheap and convenient, and does not seem likely to be supplanted by any other; for no amount of railway extension would wholly accommodate short traffic. For the metropolis more strictly, however, an excellent system has been established by the "London parcels delivery company." Two or three times a day, parcels arc conveyed from receiving houses all over the metropolis to a central depot near Fetter lane, there sorted, and sent out again for delivery. The metropolis, out to a wide distance. is separated into dis tricts, and one or more carts, filled with parcels, are sent to each district at certain hours of the day. The speed is rapid, the times are punctual, and the service in general well conducted. The suburban C. have arranged among themselves a sort of central depot or "house of call" in the Old Bailey, for the exchange of traffic; but their system is not so well organized as that of the company just named.
The progress of improvement in the English CARRYING TRADE is a type of the advances similarly made in the United States, where canals, railways, and coasting steam-vessels have generally'giperseded the old tedious methods of conveyance: and it is chiefly on the long and almost trackless routes to the shores of the Pacific that are now seen the old processes of carriage by pack-mules and horses aid• bullock-wagons, the cost of transit by these means being very great.
The term CARRYING TRADE has latterly been applied more specially to all kinds of conveyance of merchandise by sea, whether across the ocean or along the coast. In this broad view, it, in reality, involves the whole question of mercantile marine, British and foreign.
autumns, LAw RESPECTING. A carrier, in law, is one who offers to the public to convey passengers, or goods, from one place to another, for hire. The offer must be
for a private person who contracts with another for carriage, is not a carrier in the legal sense, and does not incur the peculiar responsibilities which, in almost every country, it has been found expedient Ivo attach to the occupation of a public or common carrier. Carriage, in law, is thus a peculiar modification of the contract of hiring. In Rome, the responsibilities of carriers by water were regulated by a prmtorian edict, which was applicable also to inn-keepers and stablers (Nautm, Caupones, Stabularii, Dig.; lib. iv. t. 9); and from that edict the law of carriage in modern Europe has been mainly borrowed, sometimes directly. as in Scotland, sometimes indirectly, as in Eng land. The ground on which the edict increased the responsibilities attaching to an ordinary contract of hiring was, that the persons whom it enumerated were under peculiar temptations to consort, either personally or through their servants, with thieves and robbers, without the connection being such as to admit of proof: and that the public safety consequently required that they should be held responsible for whatever had intrusted ntrusted to them, till its safe delivery at the place to which they had undertaken to convey it. This responsibility in our own law extends not only to the acts of the carrier's servants, but also to those of the other guests in an inn, or the other passengers in a conveyance. The only exception to this liability at common law is in the case of loss arising from the act of God (q.v.) or the queen's enemies—i.e., the fury of the ele ments, or war. But there are several statutory limitations. The liability for gold and silver, and articles of unusual value, is restricted to £10, unless the extra value has been previously stated and paid for as insurance against the greater risk (11 Geo. IV. and 1 Will. IV. c. 68, and 17 and 18 Vict. e. 31); and the proof of value is laid on the person claiming compensation. But the last-mentioned act, commonly called the rail way and traffic act of 1856, provides, on the other hand, that the company shall be liable for neglect or default in the carriage of goods, animals, etc.; notwithstanding any notice or condition or declaration made by the company, for the purpose of. limit ing their liability. The decisions of the courts have also somewhat limited the uni versal responsibility of the carrier. For example, it has been decided that he is not liable, qua C. (and the same applies to an inn-keeper), for money taken from the pockets of the traveler; but that, if the money has been taken from the pockets of clothes which have been stolen, or from trunks which have been broken into, his responsibility comes into operation.
Under C. are included carters and porters. who offer themselves for hire, to carry goods from one part of a city to another. Whether the same be the case with hackney coachmen, is more doubtful; though, from the extent to which they are now employed in the transport of luggage, there seems no sound reason for an exemption in their case. Wharfingers and warehousemen are liable only under the special contracts into winch they may have entered, or in accordance with mercantile usage. In England, it has been decided that lodging-house keepers are in a different position from carriers and inn keepers, on the grouted that they do not profess to entertain all-corners, or to receive their goods. C. are liable to make good to the owners of goods. intrusted to them all losses arising from accidental fire. This rule was introduced into Scotland by the mercantile law amendment act of 1856. Carriers have a lien upon the goods they have carried for payment of the carriage only. The lien is, however, restricted to the par ticular goods to which the carriage refers, and ceases on possession of them having been given up. It does not cover any account or balance cue either by the sender or consignee to the carrier.