Where the party injured is in fault, the common carrier has still been held liable, if that fault was made possible and injurious through the fault of the carrier. If passengers are carried gratuitously, that is, without pay, the common carrier is still liable for injury caused by his negligence. Whether a railroad company is responsible for fire set to buildings or property along the road, without negligence on its part, has been much considered in this country. In some o our States they are made so liable by statute provision. And this fact, together with the general principles of liability for njury done, would seem to lead to the conclusion that they are not liable, unless in fault, or unless made so by statute. MARKS AND NUMBERS. (89.) .Steam Packet Company. Received from the following articles, being marked and numbered as in the margin, in apparent good order, the corr tents and value unknown, to be transported from one of the company's steamers, and to be delivered The following form will show the terms and conditions on which our express companies carry their freight. This paper, given and received, constitutes a contract. .Express Company. Advanced Charges, $ RATES. Marked and numbered as in the margin, D'ble 1st Class cts. per 100 lbs. to be forwarded by railroad and delivered at upon payment of freight therefor cents per 100 lbs. as noted in the margin, subject to the condi tions and rules on the back hereof, and cents per 100 lbs. those of the several railroads over which the property is transported, which consti cents per 100 lbs. tute a part of this contract. 1st Class id Class 3d Class 4th Class cents per 100 lbs. Agent. As per Classification on back. On the back of this receipt is a minute and very full classi fication of all articles likely to be offered for transportation. followed by the Conditions and Rules. The destination, name of the consignee, and weight of all articles ot freight, must be plainly and distinctly marked, or no responsibility will be taken for their miscarriage or loss; and when designed to be forwarded, after transportation on the route, a written order must be given, with the particu lar line of conveyance marked on the goods, if any such be preferred o desired. The companies will not hold themselves liable for the safe carriage or custody of any articles of freight, unless receipted for by an authorized agent; and no agent of the line is authorized to receive, or agree to transport, any freight, which is not thus receipted for. No responsibility will be admitted, under any circumstances, to a greater amount upon any single article of freight than $200, unless upon notice given of such amount, and a special agreement therefor. Specie, drafts, bankbills, and other articles of great intrinsic or representative value, will only be taken upon a representation of their value, and by a special agreement assented to by the superintendent of the receiving road. The companies will not hold themselves liable at all for injuries to any articles of freight during the course of transportation, arising from the weather, or accidental delays, or natural tendency to decay. Nor will thei guaranty of special despatch cover cases of unavoidable or extraordinary casualties, or storms, or delays occasioned by low water and ice; and may be stored at the risk and expense of the owner. Nor will they hold themselves liable, as COMMON CARRIERS, for such.ticles, after their arrival at their place of destination at the company's warehouses or depots. Carriages and sleighs, eggs, furniture, looking-glasses, glass and crockery ware, machinery, mineral acids, piano-fortes, stoves and castings, sweet potatoes, wrought marble, all liquids put up in glass or earthen ware, fruit, and live animals, will only be taken at the owner's risk of fracture or injury during the course of transportation, loading and unloading, unless specially agreed to the contrary. Gunpowder, friction matches, and like combustibles, will not be received on any terms; and all persons procuring the reception of such freight by fraud or concealment, will be held responsible for any damage which may arise from it while in the custody of the company. It is further stipulated and agreed, that goods shipped to points west of shall be subject to a change in classification and cor responding change of rates beyond those points. Cases or packages of boots and shoes, and of other articles liable to peculation or fraudulent abstraction, must be strapped with iron or wood, or otherwise securely protected, or the companies will not be liable for diminu. tion of the original contents, and the companies will hold the freighter, in all cases, to bear the loss arising from improper packing. It is also agreed between the parties that the said companies, and the railroads and steamboats with which they connect, shall not be held accoun able for any deficiency in packages if receipted for to them in good order. All articles of freight arriving at their places of destination must be taken away within twenty-four hours after being unladen from the cars,―each com pany reserving the right of charging storage on the same, or placing the same in store at the risk and expense of the owner, if they see fit, after lapse of that time. CHAPTER XXI. HOTEL KEEPERS, INNKEEPERS, AND BOARDING-HOUSE KEEPERS. An HOTEL KEEPERS and innkeepers are, in law, the same. inn has been judicially defined as a house where the traveller is provided with everything which he has occasion for while on his way. There need not be a sign to make it an inn. A coffeehouse or eating-room is not an inn, nor is a boarding-house. An innkeeper has a lien upon all the goods of a guest, for the price of his entertainment, or that of his servants and horses. This lien covers the goods brought to him by a guest, though they belong to another person. Thus he has a lien on a stolen horse which the thief brings to him. But he has no lien on the clothes or goods which a guest actually has upon his person. He must receive every guest who offers, unless his house is rull, or there is good reason to believe that the guest will be disorderly. A guest has a right to reasonable accommodations but not to choose his apartment, or use it for other purposes than those for which it was designated. Public policy imposes upon an innkeeper a severe liability. In strict law, he is an insurer of the property committed to his care, against every. thing but the act of God, the public enemy, or the fraud or neglect of the guest. But there seems to be of late some disposition in the courts to hold him thus liable only where there has been some kind or measure of negligence on his part. A boarder at a boarding-house neither holds the keeper of the house to this liability, nor has the keeper a lien on the boarder's goods. It is sometimes difficult to say whether a person in the house is a guest at an inn, or a boarder. From all the cases we infer this distinction: A boarder is one who makes a bargain for a certain time. A guest comes and goes when he likes, paying only for what he receives. Though he stays a long time at an inn or hotel, without any bargain on time, he is still a guest; holding the keeper of the inn to his liability, and having his goods under a lien to the keeper. But if he makes a bargain on time, he becomes a boarder, and the Hability and lien of the keeper cease. It is a good defence by an innkeeper against his liability for a loss, that it was caused by a servant of the owner, or by one who came with him as his companion, or by the owner's own fault. It is also a good defence if the owner retained, personally and exclusively, the custody and care of the goods; but it is not enough to make this defence sufficient, that the owner exercised some choice as to where his goods should be placed, nor that the key of the room was given him. But an innkeeper may require of his guest to place his goods in a particular place, under lock and key; or to give notice to guests that he will not be responsible for money, or especially valuable goods, unless placed in the innkeeper's safe. If such precautions are reasonable, and the guest neglects them, the innkeeper is not Lable. Some articles of this kind a guest needs to have within his immediate reach; and such things he reed not deposit in the safe, and the innkeeper would be liable if they were lost without the guest's own fault. The innkeeper is liable for the loss of the goods while fairly in his custody, though not specially delivered to him: as if lost while the innkeeper's servant was carrying them to an inn, or from the inn to the cars, or in a hack in which the innkeeper undertook to carry the guest "free" from a station to his inn. Some cases hold that the innkeeper is liable for the loss of goods placed in an inn although the owner does not himself lodge or eat there. But other cases, and we think with better reason, hold that the innkeeper is liable only for the goods when the owner comes and stays with them. He is not liable permanently for goods left by a guest who has gone away. He would, however, still be held liable for them for a reasonable time, which, in one case, was said to extend over "some days." For a guest may leave for a reasonable time,-which must not be long, with the purpose of return; and while he is absent his goods are under the same responsibility of the innkeeper as if the owner were in the house. If a horse or carriage is put into a distant barn, or a horse into a pasture, by the innkeeper, without the knowledge or consent of the owner, the innkeeper is liable for their loss. We hold that a boarding-house keeper is liable for loss caused by the negligence of his or her servants, as he or she is for his or her own; but not, like an innkeeper, for a loss without negligence. CHAPTER XXII. LIMITATIONS. SECTION I. THE STATUTES OF LIMITATIONS. ALL of our States have what are called Statutes of Limitations. They are not the same everywhere; but they provide different periods of time within which the actions specified in |