The law of England recognizes a distinction between a common and a private carrier. The former is one who holds himself out to the public as ready to carry for hire from place to place the goods of such persons as choose to employ him. The owner of a stage coach, a railway company, the master of a general ship, a wharfinger carrying goods on his own lighters are common carriers; and it makes no difference that one of the termini of the journey is out of England. It has been held, however, that a person who carries only passengers is not a common carrier; nor of course is a person who merely engages to carry the goods of particular individuals. If a man undertakes to carry goods safely, although he is not a common carrier, and is to have nothing for the carriage, he is responsible for damage sustained by his negligence. A common carrier is subject at law to peculiar liabilities. He is bound to carry the goods of any person who offers to pay his hire, unless there is a good reason to the contrary, as, for example, when his carriage is full, or the article is not such as he is in the habit of conveying. He ought to carry the goods in the usual course without unnecessary deviation or delay. To make him liable there must be a due delivery of the goods to him in the known course of his business. His charge must be reasonable; and he must not give undue preference to any customer or class of customers. The latter principle, as enforced by statute, has come to be of great importance in the law of railway companies. In respect of goods entrusted to him, the carrier’s liability, unless limited by a special contract, is, as already stated, that of an insurer. There is no question of negligence as in the case of injury to passengers, for the warranty is simply to carry safely and securely. The law, however, excepts losses or injuries occasioned immediately “by the act of God or the king’s enemies ”—words which have long had a strict technical signification. It would appear that concealmeant without fraud, on the part of the customer, will relieve the carrier from his liability for negligence, but not for actual misfeasance. Fraud or deceit by the customer (e.g., in misrepresenting the real value of the goods) will relieve the carrier from his liability. The responsibility of the carrier ceases only with the delivery of the goods to the proper consignee. By the Carrier’s Act (11 Geo. IV. and 1 Will. IV. c. 68) the liability of carriers for gold, silver, <fcc. (in general “articles of great value in small compass ”) is determined. Should the article or parcel exceed £10 in value, the carrier is not to be liable for loss unless such value is declared by the customer, and the carrier’s increased charge paid. Where the value is thus declared, the carrier may, by public notice, demand an increased charge, for which he must, if required, sign a receipt. Failing such receipt or notice, the carrier must refund the increased charge and remain liable as at common law. Except as above no mere notice or declaration shall affect a carrier’s liability; but he may make special contracts with his customers. The carriage of goods by railway or canal or by sea is subject to special regulations. (See Railways and Charter Party.) A carrier of passengers is responsible for personal injuries only when they have been occasioned by his negligence or want of skill. Where there has been contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff,—i.e., where he might, by the exercise of ordinary care have avoided the consequences of the defendant’s negligence—he is not entitled to recover. By 9 and 10 Vict. c. 93 (commonly called Lord Campbell’s Act), when a person’s death has been caused by such negligence as would have entitled him to an action had he survived, an action may now be maintained against the party responsible for the negligence on behalf of the wife, husband, parent, or child of the deceased. Previously such cases had been governed by the maxim actio personalis moritur cum persona.

CARRIER, Jean Baptiste (1756-1794:), French Revolutionist, one of the actors most infamous for cruelty in the “Reign of Terror,” was born at Yolai, a village near Aurillac in Upper Auvergne, in 1756. At the beginning of the Revolution (1789), he was merely an obscure attorney; and in 1792, with many others of the same class, he was chosen deputy to the National Convention. He was already known as one of the influential members of the Cordeliers Club, which with the Jacobins supported Robespierre. After the subjugation of Flanders he was one of the commissioners nominated in the close of 1792 by the Convention, and sent into that country to carry out a general spoliation of the inhabitants, which was called “organizing the progress of liberty.” In the following year he took part in establishing the revolutionary tribunal, and said openly that for the prosperity of the republic at least half of its population must be “suppressed.” He voted for the death of Louis XVI., was one of the first to call for the arrest of the duke of Orleans, and took a prominent part in the revolution of May 31 (overthrow of the Girondists). After a mission into Normandy, Carrier was sent, early in October 1793, to Nantes, under orders from the Convention to suppress the revolt which was raging there, by the most severe measures. Nothing loath, he established a revolutionary tribunal, and formed a body of desperate men, called the Legion of Marat, for the purpose of destroying in the swiftest way the masses of prisoners heaped together in the jails. The form of trial was soon discontinued, and the victims were sent to the guillotine or shot or cut down in the prisons en masse. He also had large numbers of prisoners put on board a vessel with a trap door in its bottom, and sunk in the Loire by night. This process, first of the noyades of Nantes, called by its inventor “republican baptism,” was twenty-five times repeated, so that the river became polluted with corpses, and a decree was issued, prohibiting the drinking of its water; and even in this wholesale slaughter of men, women, and little children, there were special aggravations. Such was the terror inspired by these deeds that for some time no one dared to denounce the perpetrator, who, in his reports to the Committee of Public Safety, deliberately lied. At length the horrible truth became known, and Carrier was recalled. He was now the object of general execration; and although, in consequence of the fall of Robespierre (9th Thermidor), he had a short respite, he was in November 1794 tried before the revolutionary tribunal. The proceedings lasted nearly a month, and on the 16th December, having vainly pleaded the orders of the Convention in his defence, he was condemned to death and executed.