The principle which governs these cases may be stated thus. If the transportation be the chief thing, and the deposit of the goods on a wharf or in a building be for a short time only, and merely incidental to the transportation, and the owner of the goods relinquishes them entirely when they are so deposited, then they are so delivered to the common carrier in that capacity, and he is liable for them accordingly. (t) Thus, most carriers have a receiving-office, or depot, or station. However such a place be called, goods once delivered and received there are as much at the risk of the carriers as if they were packed in the wagon or car, and in actual motion. (u) But if they are deposited even in such receiving-office, with orders not to transport them, but to let them lie until further instructions shall be given by the owner, the carrier has not received them for carriage; or, in other words, he has not received them as a carrier, but only as a depositary. (v) As soon as final instructions to transport the goods were received by the carrier, his liability in that character would begin under some circumstances. But not if the goods had been previously deposited there, for a distinct time, and an independent purpose.

In such case the order to carry would * have no further operation than an order by an owner to carry goods in the owner's possession. It attaches no liability until the order is executed, or begins to be executed. So, if goods are deposited with one who is a carrier, but distinctly for the purpose of warehousing them, the depositary is answerable only for negligence; and if afterwards he is ordered to carry, and undertakes to carry the same goods, his peculiar liability as carrier does not begin until he begins to carry, or moves the goods, or prepares them for caring the old one, and for themselves taking the captain's receipt for the goods. Persons ostensibly engaged as forwarders have, in this State, become numerous, and their business complicated and extensive. The rigid rules of the common law make the carrier assume the liability of an insurer of property, whilst the warehouseman and forwarder are but answerable as bailees, for ordinary neglect. 'The law distinctly defines the business of each, and their liabilities. Whilst the warehouseman confines himself to the receipt and storage of goods for a compensation, and a forwarder to the receipt of goods, and the forwarding of them by a carrier other than himself, in good credit and in safe vessels, they only assume the liability of depositaries for hire. But if, calling themselves forwarders, they so act and conduct their business as to lead the public to regard them as carriers, and employ them as such, without intimation of their true character, the liabilities of a carrier attach to them."

(t) Maying v. Todd, 1 Stark. 72. And see Clarke v. Needles, 25 Penn. St. 338; Moses v. The Boston & Maine Railroad Co. 4 Foster (N. H.), 71.

(u) Camden & Amboy Railroad Co. v. Belknap, 21 Wend. 354; Woods v. Devin, 13 Ill. 746; Moses v. Boston & Maine Railroad Co. 4 Foster (N. H.), 71.

(v) Platt v. Hibbard, 7 Cowen, 497; Moses v. Boston & Maine Railroad Co. 4 Foster (N. H.), 71.

The delivery to a carrier must be known to the carrier, in order to create a responsibility on his part. (w) If goods are left in his depot or receiving-office, with no notice to him, and no knowledge by him, he is not then, in general, bound to any care or charge of them. But usage, or terms made public by advertisement, might raise such an obligation. (x) As if he * had adver * 181

(w) Selway v. Holloway, 1 Ld. Raym. 46; Buckman v. Levi, 3 Camp. 414; Packard v. Getman, 6 Cowen, 757.

(z) Mechanics & Traders Bank v. Gordon, 5 La. An. 604. The case of Merriam v. The Hartford Railroad Co. 20 Conn. 354, is very strong to this point. In that case, certain goods, designed to be transported by the defendants, as common carriers, from New York to Meriden, in Connecticut, were delivered in New York, in the usual manner, on the defendants private dock, which was in their exclusive use for the purpose of receiving property to be transported by them. It was held, that such delivery was a good delivery to the defendants to render them liable for the loss of the goods, although neither they nor their agent were otherwise notified of such delivery. And Storrs, J., said: "A contract with a common carrier for the transportation of property being one of bailment, it is necessary, in order to charge him for its loss, that it be delivered to and accepted by him for that purpose. But such acceptance may be either actual or constructive. The general rule is, that it must be delivered into the hands of the carrier himself, or of his servant, or some person authorized by him to receive it; ana if it is merely deposited in the yard of an inn, or upon a wharf to which the carrier resorts, or is placed in the carrier's cart, vessel, or carriage, without the knowledge and acceptance of the carrier, his servants or agents, there would be no bailment or delivery of the property, and he, consequently, could not be made responsible for its loss. Addison on Cont. 809. But this rule is subject to any conventional arrangement between the parties in regard to the mode of delivery, and prevails only where there is no such arrangement. It is competent for them to make such stipulations on the subject as they see fit; and when made, they, and not the general law, are to govern. If, therefore, they agree that the property may be deposited for transportation at any particular place, and without any express notice to the carrier, such deposit merely would be a sufficient delivery. So if, in this case, the defendants had not agreed to dispense with express notice of the delivery of the property on their dock, actual notice thereof to them would have been necessary; but if there was such an agreement, the deposit of it there, merely, would amount to constructive notice to the defendants, and constitute an acceptance of it by them. And we have no doubt, that the proof by the plaintiff of a constant and habitual practice and usage of the defendants to receive property at their dock for transportation, in the manner in which it was deposited by the plaintiff, and without any special notice of such deposit, was competent, and in this case sufficient to show a public offer, by the defendants, to receive property for that purpose, in that mode; and that the de-livery of it there accordingly, by the plaintiff, in pursuance of such offer, should be deemed a compliance with it on his part; and so to constitute an agreement between the parties, by the terms of which the property, so deposited, should be considered as delivered to the defendants without any further notice. Such practice and usage was tantamount to an open declaration, a public advertisement, by the defendants, that such a delivery should, of itself, be deemed an acceptance of it by them, for the purpose of transportation; and to permit them to set up against those who had been thereby induced to omit it, the formality of an express notice, which had thus been waived, would be sanctioning the greatest injustice and the most palpable fraud. The present case is precisely analogous to that of the deposit of a letter for transportation in the letterbox of a post-office, or foreign packet vessel, and to that of a deposit of articles for carriage in the public box provided for that purpose, in one of our express offices; where it would surely not be claimed that such a delivery would not be complete, without actual notice thereof to the head of these establishments or their agents." tised that parcels properly directed might be put into his box, that adequate provisions had been made for their safety, and that he should hold himself responsible for them, he would in such case undoubtedly be held to this responsibility. And the knowledge of his authorized agent is his knowledge. (y) But not every one employed by him is his agent in such wise as to charge him with this responsibility. (z) Drivers of stage-coaches, or conductors of cars, may be in the habit of carrying goods generally, in parcels of some particular kind, on their own account, receiving themselves the pay, and not accounting for it to their employers. One who delivers goods to such a person for carriage, knowing that he carries them only in this way, and that no part of the compensation he receives goes to his employer, cannot hold that employer liable for loss of the goods. (a) But the employing carrier cannot defend himself by showing that his servant carried his goods on his separate account, and for his separate gain, pro• 182 vided the owner did not * know the state of the case, but believed that the employer was the carrier, and the servant his receiver of goods for carriage, and was justified by the apparent facts of the case in so believing. (b)