THE GREEN BAG It is not sufficient delivery to merely place goods where a carrier may conveniently get them unless he has consented to receive them there. Consent may be established by cus tom. Where the owner of the goods goes along with them and retains custody of them the carrier is not considered in possession, but where he goes merely for greater security of the goods the carrier is responsible on assum ing possession. A carrier in England is re sponsible for small articles of personal bag gage taken with him by a passenger, but he is not an insurer, and the degree of care is materially lessened by the fact that the passenger is in actual control. In this country the carrier has never been held liable. "The carrier's liability begins at once on the receipt of goods for transportation, though the goods have not yet been placed in the carrier's vehicle for transportation and even though no bill of lading has been issued for them, and the freight has not been prepaid." "Since a bailment is required before the carrier of goods becomes responsible as such, it must be clear that without such bailment one cannot be a carrier of goods. It some times happens that a bill of lading is issued by the servant of a carrier without a delivery to the carrier of the goods named in the bill. Such issue of a bill of lading does not make the carrier responsible as a carrier for the goods described in the bill. In some jurisdictions it has, to be sure, been held that if a bill of lading was issued by the proper agent of the carrier and was indorsed for value to a bona fide purchaser, the carrier could not as against him dispute the receipt of the goods; and where a carrier issued two bills of lading for the same goods, and the two bills came into the hands of two holders for value and with out notice, it was held that the carrier could not dispute the receipt of two lots of goods. But this is based on the doctrine of estoppel; the carrier is not responsible as such on real facts, but in this particular case the real facts cannot be shown." CHATTEL MORTGAGES (see Mortgages).
CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. "The Law of the Constitution in Relation to the Election of President," by J. Hampton Dougherty, American Lawyer (V. xiv, p. 68). CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. " Is There an Unwritten Constitution of the United States?"
by Henry M. Dowling, Central Law Journal (V. Ixii, p. 144). CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (Commerce). The interpretation of the commerce clause which forbids a state to tax or prohibit the introduction of goods from other states so long as they remain in the original package is criticised by William Trickett, in the March Columbia Law Review (V. vi, p. 161). in an article entitled, " The Original Package Inepti tude." This doctrine arises from a decision of Chief Justice Marshall, who drew the line at the time when the goods became incor porated and mixed up with the mass of prop erty in the state. The author says this is manifestly no test. While it might be intel ligible with reference to some articles it would not be with reference to others, for machines can always be identified until taken apart. The reason for the prohibition of taxation is that a right to tax would practically mean a right to prohibit importation. From the doctrine that an importer loses his right if he breaks the original package it follows that he must establish an unbusinesslike package or lose his right to sell at retail, and unless he has the right to sell at retail the right to im port is practically worthless. The author asks why should the right to import and sell depend on the size or form of the package. In a recent decision it was suggested that where there was no original package there was no right to import, and then lays down the new principle, " that not every original package can be sold by the importer despite the state's prohibition, but only original packages of a certain size." The size is not determined by naming its cubical dimensions, or the material which encloses the bulk, but is defined in part by history, and in part by intention. The package, we are informed, must be in the " form in which from time immemorial, foreign goods have been brought into the country." But these cigarettes were not foreign goods. Foreign goods are of infinite variety, and they do not all come in the same kind of packages. Silks do not come in casks, nor potatoes in pasteboard boxes. New kinds of goods are from time to time brought into the country. Suppose a kind of package has been used twenty-five years past only. Will it be deemed to have been used from time immemorial? Cigar
