Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/141

121 THE BICYCLE AND THE COMMON CARRIER. 121 varied and grown with the advance in our travelling facilities. Story's definition of " baggage " of over sixty years ago ^ as, "such articles of necessity or personal convenience as are usually carried by passengers for their personal use, and not merchandise or other valuables, although carried in trunks of passengers, which are not designed for any such use, but for other purposes, such as sale and the like," has expanded to-day into the elaborate definition of Professor Lawson : ^ " The term ' baggage ' means such goods and chattels as the convenience or comfort, the taste, the pleasure, or the protection of passengers generally make it fit and proper for the passenger in question to take with him for his personal use, according to the habits or wants of the class to which he belongs, either with reference to the period of transit or the ultimate purpose of the journey." Thus the decisions and text-books give us but one definite limita- tion to the term " baggage," and that is that it must be something for the personal use of the traveller. This of course immediately shuts out a large number of cases dealing with samples of goods of com- mercial travellers ; ^ but within the otherwise wide and vague limits of such a definition there is still room for great differences of opinion and most conflicting decisions. In the words of Chief Justice Earle,^ " It is impossible to draw any well defined line as to what is and what is not necessary or ordinary luggage for a traveller ; that which one traveller would consider indispensable would be deemed superfluous and unnecessary by another. . . ." A closer examination of authorities, however, I think will dis- close that there are two classes of considerations which arise and determine this question in every case. The first group of considera- tions relates to the journey, the second to the x2iv€^&x's personnel. Under the first head we must consider the nature of the carrier and the nature and extent of the journey. As the transportation facilities have developed, the demands of the passengers have grown correspondingly. We ask from the modern carrier that has at its command steam engines, palace cars, or fast ocean steamers, conveniences and comforts that would have been ridiculous to think of in the days of coaches and sailing vessels. With each improve- 1 I Story, Bailments, § 499. 2 Lawson, Bailments, § 272. 8 See Hutchinson, Carriers (2d ed.), page 822, note i, and Lawson, Bailments, page 394, note 4, for a collection of authorities.
 * Phelps V. Northwestern Ry. Co., 19 C. B. n. s. 321.