Page:The Working and Management of an English Railway.djvu/314

276 buyer, and if, while the goods are in transit, the buyer, not having paid the whole of the purchase money, becomes bankrupt, or fail, or stop payment, the sender may countermand the consignment, and require the goods to be re-delivered to himself, of course upon payment of the carriage.

(19.) When goods have been delivered to a carrier for conveyance the property in them is vested in him for the time being, and he is not obliged to give them up again until he has been paid his charges. Even if the sender changes his mind and does not require them to be forwarded, the carrier may still demand his hire because by taking the goods into his custody he has already incurred risks. The carrier, while he is liable to the owner for the safety of the goods, may maintain an action at law in his own name against a third party who takes them out of his possession or damages them, just in the same way as a letter while in transit through the post, is held to be, at law, the property of the Postmaster-General.

(20.) When goods are directed to be left with the carrier until called for, and the consignee does not remove them within a reasonable time, the carrier is entitled to make a charge for warehousing them.

(21.) In an action against a carrier for loss of goods the amount to be recovered depends upon the extent of the carrier's liability, i.e., upon whether he is liable for the whole value of the goods, or whether his liability has been limited by Act of Parliament (as, for instance, in the case of a horse carried at the uninsured rate), or by any special contract. If no special damage can be proved, the plaintiff cannot recover beyond the value of the goods.