pear that the subject was too broad to be sufficiently treated in a single volume. It will be observed, however, that the author does not propose to treat the whole subject of the law of contracts, but only "to state simply and clearly the principles which govern the interpretation of all mercantile contracts." Even thus narrowed the subject is sufficiently broad for a single volume. The author has evidently bestowed much labor upon the preparation of this book, which is a very valuable addition to the legal literature of the law of contracts. The arrangement of the matter of the book is very good; the first chapter treats of the nature and scope of construction; the second, who construes the contract; the third, the law which governs the construction; the fourth, the law governing construction in special cases, such as commercial paper. The fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, eleventh and twelfth chapters are devoted to questions as to admissibility and effect of parol evidence in aid of construction. The ninth and tenth chapters discuss the proof and effect of usage as affecting the interpretation. In the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth chapters, the operation of parol evidence on construction is further discussed. The sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth chapters furnish rules for the construction of contracts generally, of the whole contract and of ambiguous contracts. The remaining five chapters are devoted to particular contracts, such as insurance policies, guaranties and the like, and to the effect of alterations of contracts, material or immaterial, by parties or by strangers, with the legal consequences of such alterations, as to presumptions and burden of proof.

The book is divided into sections, with an appropriate head note or catch-word to each, and this we consider a very commendable practice. Just here, however, we are constrained to "hint a fault." The sections are not, in our opinion, sufficiently numerous. If there were more of them, the references in the index might well have been to the sections instead of the pages, which we think the better plan. This, however, is quite a small matter. We regard the book, upon the whole, as very valuable, and cordially commend it to the profession.

JETSAM AND FLOTSAM.

AN ODD JUDGE.-When ignorance and oddity take a seat on the judicial bench, "the unskilful laugh," and "the judicious grieve." Lord Eskgrove, a Scotch judge knew little law and was garrulous in proclaiming his ignorance. When pronouncing sentence of death, he used to signalize himself by offering consolation to the prisoner in a style that shocked the bar and the spectators. His usual formula was:

"Whatever your releegious persuashon may be, prisoner, or even if, as I suppose, you be of no persuashon at all, there are plenty of reverend gentlemen who will be most happy for to shew you the way to yeternal life."

In those days Tory principles were in the ascendant, and Lord Eskgrove was a Tory of the Tories. A Whig was made to suffer severely if he came within reach of the arm of the court. Sir John Henderson, a zealous Scotch Whig, was once up for sentence before the full bench, for some offence the penalty of which was at the discretion of the court.

Lord Eskgrove, being deaf, gave his opinion in a low voice that the fine ought to be fifty pounds.

"I beg you to raise your voice," interrupted the im

prudent Sir John; "if judges don't speak so as to be heard, they might as well not speak at all."

"What does the fellow say?" asked the nettled judge.

"He says that if you don't speak out, you may as well hold your tongue."

"Oh! My lords, what I was saying was very simpall; I was only sayingg that in my humble opinyon, this fine could not be less than two hundred and fifty pounds sterlingg," roaring out the sum as loudly as his old cracked voice could shout.

The London Law Times, apropos of the Queen's Jubilee celebration by the Benchers of the Inner Temple on the 19th ult., "drops into poetry" after the following unique fashion:

A Royal Jubilee rarely occurs in this sublunal sphere, And it's right that lawyers should welcome it when it really does appear;

So the Benchers of the Inner Temple, with the handsomest designs,

Got up their Hall, themselves, and Church, up to the very nines,

To celebrate the jubilee of our most gracious QueenQueen of England, Scotland, Wales, and of the Island green

(If Gladstone will of grace permit this loyal observation,

Which couples with the Saxon curs, the glorious Irish nation).

But how to celebrate this great event was the important question,

Without imposing too much work on anyone's digestion

Without neglecting any art, good fun, or Christian duty,

Or subjecting to vulgar gaze the Benchers' daughters' beauty.

How easily the Benchers soived this very knotty problem,

And sugared plums for heavy swells with certainty to nobble 'em;

How in the early hours of night the guests were plied with farce

The old familiar comedy of Bottom and the Ass; How later on, when dreams had fixed their soft illusions firm on,

The company at midnight hour submitted to a sermon; And after with philosophy proverbial as of Tupper, And organ strains and handsome trains, returned to hall and supper:

All this is told in humble prose in newspapers most numerous,

With phrases which almost suggest a lurking spirit humorous.

This relieves us from a painful suspicion engendered by the "law poetry" which it has been our misfortune to encounter, that when Blackstone penned his farewell to his muse, that lady took him at his word, not only cut his acquaintance, but that of all his professional confreres,and that her "boycott" had descended even to this enlightened generation. [Ed. C. L. J.]

ST. LOUIS, AUGUST 13, 1886.

CURRENT EVENTS.

INTER-STATE AND INTERNATIONAL JURISDICTION.--This phase of the general subject of conflict of laws seems to be coming to the front lately. The Cutting case can hardly be reckoned in a proper sense, one of that character, as Mexico has not yet developed a spirit of comity to any appreciable extent, and the question is diplomatic, with strong military tendencies. But the matters of inter-State garnishment, and inter-State attachment, we have always with us. And now, it seems, the English Court of Queen's Bench will to-day (August 11), tackle the question, whether the courts of that country will take jurisdiction of an action for libel between two foreigners, the (alleged) defamatory matter having been published in a foreign country. Mr. Field brought suit in London against Mr. Bennett for libel published in the New York Herald. The jury gave Mr. Field a verdict for $25,000, and the question was reserved whether, both parties being foreigners, and the publication made in a foreign country, neither having a domicile in Great Britain, the English courts can properly take jurisdiction of the controversy. We shall await the decision with interest, but we must say that at first blush, we do not see much room for discussion. The action is a personal action, the court, of course, had jurisdiction of the person of the defendant, by service of process or otherwise, or else he would not have appeared to the action, and the matter complained of, libel; is actionable, as well in England as in the United States.

SLIPSHOD LEGISLATION.-While the Congress of the United States has been wrestling with the oleomargerine problem, it seems that the English Courts have been occupied with the.consideration of similar questions affecting the public health, comfort, and convenience. There were two cases; in one, the plaintiff complained of being poisoned by Vol. 23.-No 7.

was conveyed from the main into his house; the blame was laid upon the water company, which the victim denounced as having "no soul to be saved." In the other case a grumbling consumer presumed to cavil with the unreduced price of gas, supplied by an incorporated company, which "had no body to be killed."

The first of these cases was in the House of Lords, the jury had given the plaintiff a verdict for £2000; the other was in the English Court of Appeals. In both cases the

judges were divided in opinion. the defendants were let off with a caution," and the blame laid on the legislature.

And just there, it may be said, in most cases of hardship and injustice, occurring in courts of justice, in which private corporations are concerned, is where the blame should properly rest. In our country it is too much the practice to charter corporations either in a wholesale way, or upon the ex parte representations of the promoters of the enterprise. They are naturally anxious to secure the most extensive privileges attainable and reduce the restrictive clauses' to the minimum. They and their lobbyists have nothing else to do but to put through their bill with the fullest powers and the scantiest safeguards. They are acute, earnest, personally interested; the other side, the public, is represented by the legislator, who has a thousand things to look after, besides the ever-present problem of re-election, and he, without personal interest, and habitually anxious to conciliate, allows points to escape which, afterwards, work serious wrong to the community, and bring reproach upon the administration of justice. There is much slipshod legislation resulting in injustice and hardships, the blame of which is laid upon the courts. Instances may be found in every State in the Union, but perhaps the English case under consideration is the most perfect specimen. By the act of Parliament the Water Company was vested with the absolute power to prescribe the size, nature, strength, and materials, of the consumers' pipes, they prescribed lead as the material, the water, pure in the iron mains, became impure in the leaden service pipes, the plaintiff and his family were poisoned by its use, but the

courts could give him no redress. The defendant could say, "Ita lex scripta est," and it is the duty of courts to interpret the law as it is written, and cause it to be enforced according to its terms. Unless a plaintiff can bring his case within its limits, he must needs fail. "It may be said," observed Lord Bramwell, "that we are deciding the case on technical grounds. Mr. Justice Willes said that law without technicality was impossible. I content myself with saying that, so long as our law says that a plaintiff, to succeed, must do so on the allegata et probata, the decision must be governed by them and them alone."

recent case, the Supreme Court of Ohio had under consideration an interesting question, involving the ownership of land covered by water, and the reversion of privileges granted to a corporation, after the termination of the company's corporate existence. It seems that a land company, owning the land on both sides of a river, granted a canal company the privilege of constructing their canal between two walls in the river bed, with flowing water on each side of the canal. The land, on the canal side of the river, subsequently passed, by mesne conveyances, to Day, Williams & Co., and the franchise and rights of the Canal Company, which had ceased to exist as a corporation, had passd to the defendant, a railroad company.

The

canal itself had been disused and abandoned. The defendant proposed to use the tow-path of the defunct canal as the road-bed of its railroad, and the plaintiffs claimed that upon the dissolution of the canal company, and the disuse of the canal as a navigable waterway, all the rights, in the premises, of that company, reverted to their grantor and conseqently to them, and that the defendant took nothing by its conveyance from the representatives of the defunct canal company, because that company had no interest in the

1 Day v. Pittsburg, etc. Co., 7 N. East. Rep. 528.

property after the abandonment of the canal as a means for transportation. And so the court held that upon the ouster of the canal company from its corporate franchise, its rights to use the land and water constituting the canal, or the premises in question, could not be conveyed by its trustees, but reverted to the grantor and those holding under him; that conveyances by him to the other persons and from them to the plaintiffs, making no reservation, but constituting the river the boundary of the land conveyed, gave the plaintiff a full title to the middle of the river, and passed to him all the rights which had, previously or subsequently, reverted from the defunct canal company.

It is well settled law, in this country and in England, that when a water-course (above tide-water) is made the boundary of land conveyed, the land covered by the watercourse is included, usque ad filum aquæ.' Whether this rule applies to navigable streams, above tide-water, is a question which depends for its solution upon the laws of the several States. In Ohio the owners of lands on the banks of navigable rivers owns the land to the middle of the stream, and if he owns on both sides of the river, he owns the whole bed of the stream, subject in both cases to the easement of the navigation. And the same rule, it is believed, is in force in all the States. In Missouri it is held that a riparian proprietor in St. Louis, whose lot is bounded on one side by the Mississippi River is entitled to alluvial accretions, formed on the shore, as far out as the middle of the stream.4

And it is a well settled rule of construction that if a riparian proprietor does not intend to convey the land covered by water to the middle, or thread of the stream, he must use proper words of reservation, or exclusion, in

2 Cold Spring Iron Works v. Tolland, 9 Cush. 402; Palmer v. Mulligan, 3 Caines, 319; Canal Commrs. v. People, 5 Wend. 423; Tyler v. Wilkinson, 4 Mason, 397; Claremont v. Carleton, 2 N. H. 369; Ingraham v. Wilkinson, 4 Pick. 468; People v. Seymour, 6 Cowen, 579; Hocker v. Cummings, 20 Johns. 91; Commrs. v. Kempshall, 26 Wend. 404.

3 June v. Purcell, 36 Ohio St. 396 See also, Gavitt v. Chambers, 3 Ohio, 496; Benner v. Platter, 6 Ohio, 505; Lamb v. Ricketts, 11 Ohio, 311; Walker v. Board, etc., 16 Ohio, 540.

4 St. Louis Public Schools v. Risley, 40 Mo. 356; See Jones v. Soulard, 24 How. U. S. 21.

So,

his deed." A deed is always taken most strongly against the grantor; and if, by its terms, a water-course is declared to be a boundary of the land conveyed, no words of restriction or reservation being used, the law will give full operation to the terms employed by the grantor, and the courts will hold that, in that connection, the word "river," means the middle of the river.

CARRIERS OF PASSENGERS-LOSS OF BAGGAGE - LIABILITY OF RAILROAD COMPANY BAGGAGE IN SLEEPING CAR TICKETS AND BAGGAGE CHECKS.-The Supreme Court of Tennessee recently decided a case involving the liability of railroad companies for the baggage of passengers, taken by them into the "sleeper," attached to the train. We had occasion to investigate this subject, some time ago, and recur to it now, as the Tennessee court goes somewhat farther in fixing the liability for loss upon the railroad company, than the cases which then fell under our observation.

7

The Tennessee ruling is, in effect, that the railroad company, by the contract for the passage of the traveler, implies an insurance of his baggage, if placed by him in the custody of the servants of the company, that the porter of a sleeper attached to a train, is for this purpose a servant of the company, and that baggage, placed in his hands by a passenger, is at the risk of the railroad company. And, further, that the liability of a railroad company is not avoided by its contract with the sleeper company, exempting the latter from liability, nor is it affected by the fact that exemption from liability for baggage was expressly stipulated in the sleeping car ticket. And in this ruling the court is very logical, for if the sleeper is pro hac vice, the servant of the railroad company, it cannot renounce liabilities of that company already incurred by the sale of the passage ticket. How far the sleeping car is an appendage of the train, and the railroad company responsible for it, is manifest from a ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States, in which the railroad company was

5 Angel on Water Courses, § 9, 17.

6 Louisville & N. etc. Co. v. Katzenberger, June 10,

1886, 1 S. W. Rep. 44.

722 Cent. Law Journal, 505.

8 Pennsylvania, etc. Co. v. Roy, 102, U. S. 452.

berth.

held liable for the consequences of the imperfection of a sleeping car attached to the train and occupied by its passengers, one of whom was hurt by the falling of an upperThe company was bound to furnish safe and suitable cars, irrespective of their ownership; and, upon the same principle, it is equally bound to furnish honest and competent custodians of the baggage of its passengers.

It is well settled that the liability of a railroad company, for the baggage of passengers, (properly so called,) is that of a common carrier of goods, and not as narrow as that which it incurs for the safety of the passenger himself. The act of God, or of the public enemy, or of the owner himself, in the absence of any limiting statute, like the English "Carrier's Act," can only exonerate the carrier. The baggage for which a railroad company is responsible, by reason of its contract to carry the passenger, includes only articles intended for personal use. What that embraces is a question too broad for consideration in this connection. Merchandise for sale is not included. 10 Jewelry intended to be worn by the passenger has been held to be baggage for which the carrier is liable." A reasonable amount of money may also be carried in a trunk as baggage, for which the carrier will be responsible, 12 but what is "reasonable" is a matter of question. Four hundred and thirty-nine dollars was held to be an unreasonable amount, 13 and in Connecticut sixty dollars was held to be too much, as the passenger was only going from Waterbury to Bridgeport.14

There are many like decisions, distinguishng the kind, quantity and value of property which may, or may not, be regarded as baggage; in Kansas the Supreme Court has held that what the station agent receives as baggage is baggage, and that his acceptance fixes the liability of the company.15 In that

9 Story on Bailments, § 499, and cases cited; Macrow v. Great Western, etc. Co., L. R., 6 Q. B. 612. 10 Stimson v. Connecticut, etc. Co. 98 Mass. 83; Parmalee v. Fisher, 22 Ill. 212; Hawkins v. Hoffman, 6 Hill, (N. Y.), 586.

11 McGill v. Howard, 2 Penn. St. 451; Brook v. Pickwick, 4 Bing. 218.

12 Johnston v. Stone, 11 Humph. 419.

13 Davis v. Michigan, etc. Co., 22 Ill. 278.

14 Hickox v. Naugatuck, R. R. Co., 31 Conn., 281.

15 Chicago, etc. Co. v. Conklin, 3 Pac. Rep. 762.

case the property in question was open to inspection, and was manifestly not baggage in any proper sense of the term. The rule can hardly be fairly applied in cases in which the property is locked up in a trunk, or otherwise concealed from the inspection of the agent.

The question, however, in the Tennessee case, was not whether the property in question was baggage, technically, or not, but whether the railroad company was responsible for the loss of it when in charge of the sleeping-car porter. A Massachusetts case, 16 is in accord with the Tennessee ruling, except that the court implies that if the passenger had known that the sleeping car was not owned by the defendant railroad company, nor under its exclusive control, the result might have been different. It is probable that if it had been necessary to the decision of the case, the Massachusetts court would have taken the ground assumed by the Supreme Court of Tennessee. Manifestly the sleeping car company, its agents, conductors, and porters, acting in subordination to the railroad company, ministering to the comfort and convenience of its passengers, and going, coming, stopping, and starting, at the will of the railroad company, are in a legal sense the servants of that company quoad its passengers. Whatever contract may be made between the two companies as to liability for lost baggage, is binding upon both, but in no respect obligatory upon passengers, nor are they bound by any other contract expressed on the ticket or otherwise, unless they have agreed to the terms of such contract. This is expressly held in an Ohio case,17 in which the company insisted that the plaintiff was bound by the notice on the ticket that the company limited its responsibility for loss to one hundred dollars, and that the acceptance of the ticket was an assent to that limitation. In a case involving the same point,18 Mr. Justice Davis said: "The considerations against the relaxatiou of the common law responsibility by public advertisement apply with equal force to notices, having the same object, attached to receipts given by carriers

16 Kinsley v. Lake Shore, etc. Co., 125 Mass. 54.

17 Baltimore and Ohio R. R. Co. v. Campbell, 36 Ohio St. 647.

18 Railroad Co. v. Manfg. Co., 16 Wall. 318.

on taking the property of those who employ them, into their possession for transportation. Both are attempts to obtain, by indirection, exemption from burdens imposed in the interests of trade upon this particular business. It is not only against the policy of the law, but a serious injury to commerce-." And railroad tickets and checks are within the same rule. Neither a ticket nor a check is evidence of an agreement. The ticket is a voucher that the holder has paid his fare, the check, that he has delivered his baggage.19 In a New York case, Denio, J-, said: "The tickets do not purport to be contracts. They are rather in the nature of receipts for the separate portions of the passage money; and their office is to serve as tokens to the persons having charge of the vessels and carriages of the company to enable them to recognize the bearers as parties entitled to be received on board. They are quite consistent with a more special bargain." 20

In England, however, it has been held, by the House of Lords," that where a ticket had printed on its face only the usual matter, e. g., "Dublin to Whitehaven," etc., and on its back contain conditions, there being upon the face no reference to the back, not even the customary "over," the passenger was not bound by the conditions, but the face was held to express the whole contract of the parties. In another later case the ticket was in the form of a little book, on the first page was the usual ticket matter, on the second, certain conditions, among them the condition in controversy. Lord Coleridge held that the case was not controlled by the case of Henderson v. Stevenson, that, because the book was a continuous work, each page was to be read after the preceding page, and the whole formed the contract of the parties. This ruling, it strikes us, is a remarkable exercise of the power to