in its general acceptation, is a person who conveys the goods of another for hire. In its mere colloquial use it was applied to the class of men, now rendered comparatively obsolete by the railway system, who conveyed goods in carts or waggons on the public roads. In jurisprudence, however, the term is collectively applied to all conveyors of property, whether by land or water; and in this sense the late changes and enlargements of the system of transit throughout the world have given additional importance to the subject. The law by which carriers, both by land and sea, are made responsible for the goods intrusted to them, is founded on the prætorian edict of the civil law, to which the ninth title of the fourth book of the Pandects is devoted. The edict itself is contained in these few words, "Nautæ, Cauponæ, Stabularii, quod cujusque salum fore receperint, nisi restituent, in eos judicium dabo." The beautiful simplicity of the rule so announced has had a most beneficial influence on the commerce of the world. Throughout the great civilized region, which took its law directly from the Roman fountain, and through the other less civilized countries which followed their commercial code, it laid a foundation for the principle, that the carrier's engagement to the public is a contract of indemnity. It bound him, in the general case, to deliver what he had been intrusted with, or its value; thus sweeping away all secondary questions or discussions as to the conditions of more or less culpability on his part under which loss or damage may have occurred; and it left any limitations on this general responsibility to be separately adjusted by special contract.

The evident utility of the principle caused its adoption in the common law of England, though, without acknowledgment of the source whence it was derived. Lord Mansfield, in Forward v. Pittard (1 T. R. 27), thus clearly laid down the principle: "By the custom of the realm—that is, by the common law—a carrier is of the nature of an insurer. It is laid down that he is liable for every accident, except by the act of God, or the king's enemies.

To prevent litigation, collusion, and the necessity of going into circumstances impossible to be unravelled, the law presumes against the carrier, unless it was done by the king's enemies, or by such act as could not happen by the intervention of man; as storms, lightning, or tempests. If an armed force came to rob the carrier of his goods, he is liable; and the true reason is, for fear it may give room to collusion, that the master may contrive to be robbed on purpose, and share the spoil." In the early part of the present century, the law lapsed into a state of confusion by the efforts of carriers to limit their responsibility. They frequently attempted to do so by notices and advertisements, which were only effective so far as they could be brought home to the knowledge of the employer. To obviate the complex inquiries thus arising, the statute called the Carrier's Act, was passed in July 1830, "for the more effectual protection of mail contractors, stage coach proprietors, and other common carriers for hire" (1st Will IV., cap. 68). It enumerates certain articles of a costly character, beginning with gold and silver, precious stones, jewellery, &c., for which the carrier is not to be responsible, except for the misconduct of himself and his servants, when parcels exceed the value of L10, unless the nature of the contents have been imparted to him, and any additional charge as insurance premium demanded by him has been paid. It is a condition that a notice of the increased rate so chargeable must be publicly hung up in the carriers' office, and if it be not, he has no benefit from the act. At the same time, the act excludes all limitation of responsibility by mere notice or advertisement, except in the special cases of limitation for which it provides, leaving parties at liberty to make separate contracts. It is understood that canal companies are brought within this act by the 8th and 9th Vict., cap. 42, to enable canal companies to become carriers of goods on their canals. It does not apply to marine navigation; and for the special application of the principle to this great class of carriers the article Charter-party may be consulted. The peculiar statutory laws applicable to railway companies will be found under the head Railway; but here it may be noticed, that questions of considerable delicacy are opened by allowing railway companies the same power of specially stipulating for limited responsibility which belongs to ordinary carriers. The carrier in general has no monopoly, but competes with others; and if one refuse to take a particular risk, another may be found who will not decline it. The railway companies, however, which monopolize the means of transit over so great an area, by self-imposed limitations on their responsibility would virtually abrogate the law over the large districts to which their operations extend; and it becomes questionable how far on grounds of public policy they should possess such a privilege. The public attention was alarmingly directed to this point by an announcement that the directors of one company were determined to relieve themselves of responsibility for the personal safety of passengers conveyed on their line.

Carrier-Pigeon or Courier-Pigeon, a sort of pigeon which is trained to carry letters from one place to another. See Ornithology, Columba.

Though these birds be hood-winked, and carried 20, 30, or even 100 miles away, they will return in a very short space of time to the place where they were bred. They are trained to this service in Turkey and Persia; and are carried first, while young, short flights of half a mile, afterwards, till at length they will return from the farthest part of the kingdom. Every pasha has a basket of these pigeons bred in the seraglio, which, upon any emergency, he despatches, with letters braced under the wings, to the seraglio. Lithgow affirms that one of these birds will carry a letter from Babylon to Aleppo, which is thirty days' journey, in forty-eight hours. The use of carrier-pigeons is very ancient. Hirtius and Brutus, at the siege of Mutina (Modena), maintained a correspondence with each other by means of pigeons. And Ovid relates that Taurosthenes gave notice to his father of his victory at the Olympic games by sending to him at Ægina a pigeon stained with purple.

In modern times, the most noted were the pigeons of Aleppo, which served as couriers at Alexandretta and Baghdad. But this use of them was laid aside because the Kurd robbers killed the pigeons. The manner of sending advices by them was this: They took pairs which had young ones, and carried them on horseback to the place whence they wished them to return, taking care to let them have a full view. When the news arrived, the correspondent tied a billet to the pigeon's foot, and let her loose. The bird, impatient to see its young, flew off like lightning, and arrived at Aleppo in ten hours from Alexandretta, and in two days from Baghdad. The carrier-pigeon has nothing very peculiar in its form except its nostrils, which, instead of being smooth and even, are swelled and rough.

In this country there seem to be two other varieties of pigeon frequently used as messengers, namely, the horseman and dragoon. The following fact is related of the last-named variety:—A gentleman sent a dragoon by the stage-coach to a friend at St Edmund's Bury, along with a note, desiring that the bird, two days after its arrival there, might be thrown up into the air precisely as the town clock struck nine in the morning. This was accordingly done; and the pigeon was observed to fly into a loft in Bishopsgate Street, London, at half-past eleven of the same morning, having flown, probably without any violent exertion, 72 miles in two hours and a half.

Carrier-pigeons are still used to carry occasional despatches from the Bell Rock lighthouse to the northern shore of the Frith of Forth. They refuse, however, to leave the lighthouse during hazy weather; and as in this country considerable training seems necessary, the feats of these aerial messengers, though very admirable, are not so purely instinctive, and consequently not so unerring, as is usually supposed. Their use in obtaining intelligence of changes in the foreign stocks is well known.