the defendants. The action was brought in respect of the decision of two justices upon a claim for services rendered in securing timber, supposed to have been carried out to sea by the tide from above Yarmouth Harbour, in consequence of the fastening having become loose, and found floating in the sea. The question arises whether the justices had jurisdiction. I think that they had not. Flotsam, jetsam, and lagan are terms not applicable to property in such a condition. The special authority is given to justices only in cases within the Act. Therefore the present claim cannot be sustained, and a nolle prosequi must be entered. MARTIN, B.: I am of the same opinion. The case depends on the construction of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1854. That Act was passed with reference to shipping, and must therefore be taken to apply to matters connected with shipping. The Act gives a jurisdiction unknown at common law, and subjects the owners of goods to the payment of charges to which at common law they were not liable. *It must therefore be construed strictly. Now, according to the well-known meaning of flotsam, as stated in the Termes de la Ley, it refers to goods having been at sea in a ship and separated from it by some peril. There is no authority for the interpretation sought to be put upon the word by my brother Shee. BRAMWELL, B.: I entirely concur. We must give to the words found in this Act their ordinary interpretation. Wreck, in many parts of England, belongs to the lords of manors. But in order to constitute a legal wreck the goods must come to land; if they continue at sea the law distinguishes them as jetsam, flotsam or lagan. That is the wellknown legal interpretation of the terms, and we need not search modern dictionaries to see how they are to be understood. Judgment of nolle prosequi. COOMBS v. BRISTOL AND EXETER RAILWAY (3 H. & N. 510-520; S. C. 27 L. J. Ex. 401; 6 W. R. 725.) A. agreed verbally to buy of B. all the whalebone he could procure at a certain price, to be sent by a particular railway, A. agreeing to pay the carriage. Some whalebone, to an amount exceeding 107, having been delivered at the railway station by B. consigned to A, (1) Mead v. South Eastern Rail. Co. (1870) 18 W. R. 739. nd having been duly invoiced to him, was lost in the transit. B. cas (inter alia). First: Not guilty. Secondly: That the the trial before Watson, B., at the London sittings in er Term, it appeared that for some time previously to per, 1857, the plaintiff, an umbrella manufacturer and dealer halebone at Bristol, had agreed with one Avery to buy of any quantity of old whalebone he could procure, at 2s. 7d. und; the whalebone to be delivered at the station of the col and Exeter Railway Company at Exeter, addressed to the tiff, who was to pay the carriage. On the 19th of October, y delivered at the station of the Railway Company at Exeter lbs. weight of whalebone, directed to the plaintiff at Bristol, sent the invoice to the plaintiff, charging him with the e, amounting to 12l. 18s. 4d. On the 21st of October the tiff wrote to Avery, stating that he had not then received whalebone, although the invoice had arrived the day before, promising to send a draft when he should receive the whale. Avery inquired at the station at Exeter, and was told that whalebone had been sent from thence. After some further espondence, on the 30th of October Avery wrote to the plainsaying, "As to the missing bone, as they have the account in Bristol, you had better make the claim for the amount with. I shall leave it in your hands, as you can tell them price you gave for it. I should also charge them *for the and inconvenience of not receiving it. As soon as you can (1) See now 8. 4 of the Sale of Goods Act, 1893 (56 & 57 Vict. c. 71). COOMBS v. BRISTOL AND EXETER RAILWAY Co. [ *511 ] [*512] make it right, please to send me the amount." The whalebone was never delivered. Upon this evidence the counsel for the defendants objected that, as the contract was for the sale of goods above the value of 101., and there was no agreement in writing, or acceptance of the goods within the Statute of Frauds, and as there was no consent to accept the particular goods sent, no property in the goods passed to the plaintiff, and therefore he was not entitled to maintain the action. The learned Judge directed a verdict to be entered for the plaintiff, reserving liberty to the defendants to move to enter a nonsuit, the Court to be at liberty to draw such inferences of fact as a jury might. Kinglake, Serjt., having obtained a rule nisi accordingly, Butt and Prideaux now showed cause: The case of Coats v. Chaplin (1) is an authority that where there has been a verbal order for goods above the value of 10., and no directions have been given as to sending them, if the seller send them to the buyer by a carrier, who loses them, the seller may sue. But PATTESON, J., there said, "If the consignees had selected a particular carrier, it would have made a difference: perhaps if they had ordered that the goods should be sent by some carrier,' the delivery to the carrier might have constituted a delivery to the consignees." If goods which have been ordered are delivered to a carrier named by the purchaser, an action for goods sold may be maintained. (MARTIN, B.: That is so if there is a valid contract, but such delivery is not sufficient to take the case out of the Statute of Frauds: Hanson v. Armitage (2). POLLOCK, C. B.: Though as between the parties the contract may not be enforceable, it may be good for collateral purposes. *Cannot the act of the carrier, in receiving the goods for the buyer, be ratified and made the buyer's own act? Suppose A. orders goods, and the seller goes to A.'s agent and says, "Will you accept the goods on behalf of A. ?" If the agent accepts the goods, and A. ratifies his act, the seller could not undo his own act and claim back the goods. BRAMWELL, B.: Suppose I order goods, to be delivered to a person who consumes them: do I not accept the goods ?) Stead v. Dawber (3) shows that the contract is not void, though not enforceable between the parties. Delivery to a carrier, (1) 61 R. R. 267 (3 Q. B. 483). (3) 50 R. R. 327 (10 Ad. & EL 37. . EX gh not named by the vendee, is a delivery to the vendee: ton v. Solomonson (1); and there is no authority that where e has been a delivery to a carrier named by the vendee, the or is the proper person to sue in case of the loss of the s. WATSON, B.: It may be contended, that if goods are sent particular carrier in consequence of the order of the vendee, purchaser has a qualified possession, in respect of which he titled to sue whether he has a property in them or not.) plaintiff is not seeking to enforce the contract. Setting e the question whether the property passed, he was at least ilee of the goods: the carrier held them as his agent. In ts v. Chaplin (2) there was no evidence of an acceptance of goods by the purchaser, while the fact that the vendor sued evidence that he did not treat the contract as complete. e, by bringing his action, the plaintiff shows that he assented he appropriation of the goods. If the buyer exercises. act of ownership in relation to the goods, as if he resell or mpt to resell them, that *is sufficient to warrant a jury in ing a delivery and acceptance: Blenkinsop v. Clayton (3), plin v. Rogers (4), Morton v. Tibbett (5). * * MARTIN, B.: Here the purchaser could only accept by taking goods after he had had an opportunity of inspecting them: t v. Hecht (6). Meredith v. Meigh (7) is an authority to same effect.) goods were not unascertained goods, because the plaintiff agreed to take "all the whalebone sent." BRAMWELL, B.: Suppose the plaintiff is right in his conion that he can sue, though the property was never vested im, to what damages is he entitled ?) Kinglake, Serjt., and Collier, in support of the rule: n the absence of a special contract, the proper person to bring action against a carrier for the loss of goods entrusted im to be carried is the owner of the goods. Hence the signee is usually the proper plaintiff, because the delivery the goods to the carrier commonly vests the property in : Roscoe on Evidence, p. 411, 9th edition, citing Dunlop Lambert (8) and Dawes v. Peck (9). It is only where there ) 7 R. R. 883 (3 Bos. & P. 582). (6) 91 R. R. 780 (8 Ex. 814). 95 R. R. 603 (2 El. & Bİ. 364). (8) 49 R. R. 143 (6 Cl. & Fin. 600). 4 R. R. 675 (8 T. R. 330). COOMBS 2. EXETER RAILWAY Co. is a special contract with the carrier that the question of BRISTOL AND Ownership becomes immaterial. The question, then, is, had the property in the whalebone vested in the plaintiff? Now, from Hanson v. Armitage (1) and other cases collected in Roscoe on Evidence, p. 342, it appears that delivery to a carrier named by the purchaser is not a delivery to the purchaser, because he is not the purchaser's agent to accept the goods. [515] [ *516 ] POLLOCK, C. B.: This is an action by the consignee against a carrier to recover the value of goods lost in the course of conveyance. The question is whether the property passed to the vendee. If it passed, the plaintiff, the vendee, is the proper person to sue; if not, the vendor should have sued. It would be very inconvenient to treat the liability of a carrier as ambulatory, to hold that he is not liable to the consignee unless the latter does some act showing an intention to treat the contract as valid, but that he may be made liable by the act of the consignee in bringing an action. The argument of the plaintiff's counsel would go to this extent that the consignee, in a case where the contract is incomplete, may elect to treat it as valid, and by such adoption entitle himself to say, as against the carrier, that he is the proper person to sue. But the liability of the carrier cannot be altered by anything which takes place after the loss: it must be certain at the moment of the loss. Therefore the question is, whether the delivery to the carrier was a delivery to the vendee. I suggested, in the course of the argument, that the only way in which the plaintiff could make out that the action was well brought by him, as consignee, would have been to show that he had adopted something done by the carrier, as his agent, adoption being equivalent to a prior demand. But I am not sure that a prior demand would have done. It was suggested in Coats v. Chaplin (2) that the consignee might have sued. That *was answered by the opinions of the majority of the Judges that it was necessary that the property in the goods should have passed to enable him to do so. There is a decision in this Court (3) that delivery to a carrier is not sufficient, and that, in order to satisfy the Statute of Frauds, the consignee must have had the power to reject the goods. ALDERSON, B., points out that the statute requires that the vendee should have received the goods. Here, as there was no acceptance of the goods by the vendee, and nothing else to take the case out of the statute, the property did not pass to the plaintiff; and (1) 24 R. R. 478 (5 B. & Ald. 557). (3) Norman v. Phillips, 14 M. & W. 277. |