applicant for a license is carrying on business, the reasonable requirements of the public with respect to the purchase of such poisonous substances are satisfied.

For the remaining sections, and for the full text of all the Acts dealing with the subject, we must refer our readers to the work under review, which contains also, besides much original matter, one or other of the recognised reports of every case in the High Court under the Pharmacy Acts which has been so reported.

We wish the author could have seen his way to have included the Irish Statutes, if only for purposes of comparison, but with this exception, his work is singularly complete, and we heartily commend it to the attention of all interested in the subjects with which it so lucidly deals.

H. WIPPELL Gadd.

V. THE LAW AS TO LEFT LUGGAGE AT

RAILWAY STATIONS.

HE decision of the First Division of the Court of

THE

Session in Scotland in the case of Lyons & Co. v. Caledonian Railway Company,1 has such far-reaching consequences, and is of such vast importance to the commercial world and to the travelling public, that we venture to call attention to it, and also to cognate cases that have been previously decided in the English and the Scottish Law Courts.

The facts in the case were that a firm of wholesale merchants in London, sued the Caledonian Railway Company for £84: 19s., damages for the loss of a skip, containing various samples of ladies' clothing, which their representative had deposited with the defenders at Buchanan

1 1909 Session Cases, 1185; [1909], 2 S. L. T. 72.

Street Station, Glasgow. The defenders relied on the condition on the back of the left luggage ticket, which was to the usual effect, that the Company would not be responsible for the loss of, injury to, or detention of any parcel, etc., when the value of such parcel, etc., exceeds £5, unless at the time of delivery of such parcel, etc., to them, its true value is declared to exceed £5 and a special payment is made to them. The pursuers maintained—and this is the point of the whole case-that the defenders were not in a position to enforce the condition, as they failed to take such reasonable care as was required of them by their contract, they having left the skips on the platform of the station, unattended and unguarded. That averment the Railway Company denied, but the Sheriff Substitute, who tried the case in the first instance, inter alia found this proved as a fact. There were, in all, three skips deposited by the pursuer in the hands of the railway company, at their left luggage office, and it was averred that when the said skips were applied for, and the receipt for same was presented, only two skips were forthcoming, and Messrs. Lyons, thinking they had a just claim in law, sued the railway company for the value of the third skip, which they estimated at £84: 19s. The Sheriff Substitute took the same view, and in granting decree with expenses for the sum sued for, held that the railway company, in leaving the goods on a platform to which the public had access, had not taken due care of them, that they had thus committed a breach of contract, and that the condition on the back of the ticket did not apply: (1) as the skip was not deposited in a safe place; (2) nor was any care taken of it. The Caledonian Railway Company appealed to the Sheriff, who took the same view, and on the same grounds. The company appealed to the Court of Session, and the First Division-the Lord President, Lord Kinnear, and Lord Guthrie-reversing the judgments

of the Sheriff and the Sheriff Substitute, have decided that the railway company are not liable, and have found the defenders, the railway company, entitled to expenses in both Courts. If this is the law, then it is opposed to several decisions presently to be referred to, including a decision of the First Division of the Court of Session itself. The case turned on two points, viz.: whether the condition quoted on the back of the ticket was binding upon the pursuers; and, secondly, whether or not the railway company had taken due and reasonable care of the articles deposited. The learned Sheriffs appear to have decided that as, in fact, the skips were not deposited by the railway company in their cloak-room at all, they had not taken due and reasonable care of them, and that therefore, the conditions on the back of the ticket or receipt could not, and did not, apply, as the railway company were in breach of their contract themselves. Lord Kinnear, who gave the judgment of the Court, said that the railway company "made no special stipulation

"with reference to those that are not above the value "of £5, but they give distinct notice that they would only "receive articles left for custody subject to the following "conditions, and then there follow conditions as to pay"ment. But there is no express stipulation as to the liability until we come to the fourth condition." Had the goods been under the value of £5, instead of, as here, over, it would appear that the learned judges would have decided the case in favour of Messrs. Lyons & Co., because the railway company undertake by their contract to take due and reasonable care of goods left in their custody under that value, and that was, as Lord Kinnear said, "the limit of their obligation." It was evidence of negligence, and of not taking due and reasonable care, to leave the goods on a platform. But, as the goods were above £5, and the pursuer had not declared their

value, and made the payment stipulated for by the company on the back of the ticket receipt, the company were thereby absolved from all liability whatever for the safety of such goods, whether or not they took due and reasonable care, and whether or not they were guilty of breach of contract. That the House of Lords will take this view of the law is, at all events, doubtful. It seems to be clear (1) that the company were guilty of negligence and of breach of contract in leaving the goods as they did on the platform, and therefore were liable in damages for their loss; (2) that the conditions on the back of the ticket only applied to the goods left in the cloak room, and the goods never having been in fact in the cloak room, the ticket or the conditions did not apply.

The points raised in this case have frequently been before the Courts. It appears to be now well settled that if a person is aware of the fact that there are printed conditions. on the back of a ticket, and does not take the trouble to look at them, or thinks it better not to do so, he will be bound by them. In Harris v. The Great Western Railway Co.1 the plaintiff left her luggage, consisting of two packages, with a clerk of the defendants, at their cloak-room, for which she received in exchange a ticket which inter alia legibly bore the words "left subject to the conditions on the "other side," which were the usual ones. The value of each package exceeded £5, but no declaration of value and additional payment was made. The plaintiff knew there were conditions on the back of the ticket, but did not know what they were. The luggage was not put by the defendants' servants into the cloak-room, but was left in a vestibule, without any other protection, and was stolen owing to this negligence of the defendants' servants. At the trial, before Baron Pollock, the plaintiff was awarded £60 damages. The defendants appealed, and the Queen's Bench Division

1 [1876], I Q. B. D. 515.

decided that the luggage must be taken to have been deposited subject to the conditions on the back of the ticket, and also by Mr. Justice Blackburn and Mr. Justice Mellor (Mr. Justice Lush dissenting) that the conditions were applicable to the loss, and protected the defendants, although the luggage was not deposited in the cloak-room. Mr. Justice Lush took the view that the contract was to warehouse the luggage in the cloak-room, and that the conditions only protected the defendants as to a deposit in the cloak-room.

In the case of Acton v. Castle Mail Packets Co.,1 the plaintiff brought an action of damages for £300 against the defendants for loss of his goods and chattels in the defendants' ship, the Tantallon Castle, whilst on a voyage from Durban to London. Part of the plaintiff's luggage consisted of a despatch box containing money, jewellery, scrip, documents, promissory notes, &c., of the value of £300, which was lost on the voyage, the box having been securely locked and corded, and placed in a cabin set apart by the defendants for the plaintiff. The plaintiff alleged negligence, want of due care, and in not using due diligence in endeavouring to discover the thief. On the face of the ticket there was a clause to the effect that the owners did not hold themselves responsible for any loss, damage, or detention of luggage under any circumstances. On the back of the ticket there were certain further conditions. Lord Russell of Killowen decided the case in favour of the defendants, with costs, but mainly on sub-sect. 2 of sect. 502 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1894, which, inter alia, provides that the owner of any British sea-going ship shall not be liable if certain articles, such as gold, silver, diamonds, &c., taken in or put on board his ship, the true nature and value of which have not at the time of shipment been declared, are lost or damaged by reason of any robbery. The learned 1 [1896], 73 L. T. 158.