once they are loaded on the railway trucks at his siding; a merchant's, when they are passed over to the railway or other carrier. On the Continent of Europe where railway, canal, lake, and river transit form by far the most important part of the carrying done, the wants of the merchant have been met by the institution of companies for the insurance of such risks as their goods are exposed to, or by the special authorisation of marine insurance companies to extend their operations to cover such risks. As a natural consequence special forms of policy have been devised for such business. In England, on the other hand, the smallness of the country and the nearness of the great producing districts to the seaports, reduce the inland risk to such comparative insignificance that it has hardly ever been thought worth while to define its extent and content with any exactness. Such uncertainty has sometimes been found awkward.

CHAPTER III

THE POLICY: PART I continued

Common English Policy continued, General Description of Subject Matter Insured, Duration of Risk on Goods and Ship, including Touch and Stay and Deviation Clauses.

Upon any kind of goods and merchandises, and also upon the body, tackle, apparel, ordnance, munition, artillery, boat and other furniture, of and in the good ship or vessel called the . .

The earliest form of marine policy seems to have been devised for the insurance of goods only, but the extension of protection to shipowners had become usual long before the date when the text of the ordinary English policy was fixed. That text was therefore so drawn as to be applicable both to goods and ship. The way in which this has been done is to make the standing printed text cover both, and to designate in writing at the foot the particular object intended to be covered by the policy.

(a) Goods and Merchandises.—If the written designation of cargo is not more explicit than these general words, or if either of these words is merely repeated at the foot, the underwriter is held to have willingly acquiesced in the loose description, and to have taken his chance of the nature of the cargo. There are only two points which he can open in such a case; he can demand satisfactory proof that the assured has an actual property in the interest insured, and he can insist that the goods or merchandises be carried in the place properly belonging to them, namely

under deck. As regards the former point, Lord Mansfield in Glover v. Black, 1763,1 decided that when a ship and cargo were lost by fire, the plaintiff having lent the captain cash, for which a respondentia bond 2 in common form was given, could not recover the amount of the loan upon a policy on goods. Lord Mansfield based his decision solely on practice; his words were: "In practice bottomry and respondentia have always been considered as a particular species of insurance, and have taken a particular denomination. . . The ground of our determination is that by the custom of merchants, respondentia is insured under a special denomination. But we by no means say that under an insurance on goods at large a man may not be permitted to give in evidence a mortgage or other special lien."

On the second point, as long as maritime custom has determined that the proper place to carry goods and merchandises is under deck, it results that wares insured in these general terms are taken to be so laden. Consequently, even in cases where the custom of trade permits the carriage of deck loads, articles insured merely as goods or merchandise, or in such terms that their nature is not disclosed, are taken to be laden under deck, unless special mention is made to the contrary. The effect of such special mention is that the underwriter is warned of the special perils of the venture in question 3 (see Gould v. Oliver, 1840;4 Lord Lyndhurst in Blackett v. Royal Exchange, 1832).5

Further, the words "goods and merchandises" plainly denote such material objects as are bought and sold in trade and are conveyed from one port to another for the

1 3 Burr. 1394.

2 A bond pledging cargo for the repayment on arrival at destination of money borrowed at an intermediate port in emergency, the money not being repayable in case of loss of the venture; the rate of interest charged is always high.

3 On the other hand the mere description of the wares insured has been held to be sufficient notice to the underwriter that they are carried on deck; for instance, in an insurance on carboys of vitriol it was held to be sufficient that they were carefully stowed on deck; this being the usual place for this article there was no need to inform the underwriter (Da Costa v. Edmonds, 1815).

4 4 Bing. N.C. 134; 2 M. & G. 208.

5 2 C. & J. 250.

purposes of trade. They do not therefore include effects of the master or spare outfit of the ship. These interests should be defined by name; so also should live stock and their feed.

There seems to be now no reason to doubt that even valuables such as gold and silver specie may be insured under the general words "goods or merchandises." But such valuable documents as bonds and titles appear to be of an essentially different character; there is in the material of which they consist no intrinsic value corresponding to that present in gold and silver. In Glover v. Black, 1763,1 Lord Mansfield had in view, when he spoke of mortgage or other special lien, some security of that character affecting objects exposed to marine perils in the venture named.

Cargo on board a vessel is not covered by a policy on the vessel, even though the cargo may be of the same nature as part of the apparel or other furniture of the ship. For instance, if a ship carries as part of its cargo a shipment of ropes and cables belonging to the shipowner, and intended to be used eventually as rigging, a loss of these could not be claimed on the ground that they were part of the ship's tackle; and this even though in case of uncontrollable circumstances (vis major, force majeure, höhere Gewalt) they might have been used to supplement or replace the ship's stores.

(b) The ship is described in terms more appropriate to the fleets of last century than to the trading transports of to-day. Nothing is to be made of a consideration of what each separate word of the description was intended to cover. Phillips (463) interprets the purport of the clause thus:-"It is well settled that a policy for a commercial voyage on a vessel generally, without any further specification, covers not only the body, but also the rigging, sails, tackle, boat, armament, and provisions, and all the appurtenances necessary, suitable, or usual, and that may be presumed to belong to a vessel of such description, for the purposes of navigation on a voyage such as that

1 3 Burr. 1394.

described." This exposition is more immediately applicable to sailing vessels than to steamers, and even in the case of sailers, special exception must be made of fishing vessels. But if for "rigging, sails," we read "engines, boilers, shafting, fuel," the rest of the description will answer all wants. It is to be understood that of the "appurtenances necessary, suitable, or usual," only those which are permanent are to be considered part of the ship, temporary fittings being classed with such articles as sand ballast and dunnage wood and not regarded as being part of the structure of the vessel.

In the case of fishing craft, the decision in Hoskins v. Pickersgill, 1783,1 was that "by the usage of trade the meaning of the word furniture did not include fishing stores, in the construction applied to a policy of insurance.”

On the wording of this clause in the policy the most important decision is that in Blackett v. Royal Exchange, 1832.2 In this case Lord Lyndhurst refused to admit evidence of a usage or custom that underwriters never paid for boats slung on the quarter outside the ship. He held that as the boat was included nominatim in the policy he ought not to admit evidence at direct variance with the terms of the policy and in plain opposition to the language it used.

The phrase "ship or vessel" is employed to get over a somewhat technical difficulty. The English language possesses no word equivalent to the French navire, German Fahrzeug, Scandinavian Fartyg, meaning any seagoing carrying craft: the English vessel has a wider sense, being applicable to any moveable hollow structure capable of containing solids, fluids, or gases.3 The word ship had therefore to be brought in; but it is much too definite, being the technical name of a square-rigged three-master. If transport were not exclusively used in a specially limited sense it would be suitable for this place; craft would be better still, if it were not generally used to designate smaller boats.

1 3 Dougl. 222.

2 2 C. & J. 250.

8 Cf. Whitton Gas Float, No. 2, 1895, 12 Times L. R. 109.