e for the loss if there was such a contract between
the shipper and carrier. _A carrier is no longer an insurer for the
safe carrying of goods._

The courts have permitted carriers to thus lessen their liability
because they are willing to take goods at lower prices than they would
if they were to be responsible for all losses. They now virtually say
to the shippers: "If you are willing to be your own insurers, or
insure in insurance companies, and hold us for no losses except those
arising from our own negligence, we are willing to carry your goods at
a much lower rate." And, as shippers are willing to take the risks
themselves for the sake of getting lower rates, the practice has
become universal for lessening the liability of carriers in the manner
described.

Suppose that goods are burned up by fire. The shipper must be the
loser unless he can show that it was caused by the negligence of the
carrier. As he often can show this, he imagines that the carrier is
still living under the old law and is liable as he was in the early
days of railroad and steamboat companies. In truth, this is not so.
His liability is measured by his contract, and there can be no
recovery for any loss unless negligence on the carrier's part is
clearly shown, and in many cases this is not easily done.

Though common or public carriers are obliged to take and transport
almost everything, _they may make reasonable regulations about the
packing, etc., of merchandise_. Suppose a shipper were to come to a
railroad company's clerk with a quantity of glass not in boxes, and
should say to him, "I wish this glass to be carried to New York"; and
the clerk should say to him that the rules of the company required all
glass to be packed in boxes lined with straw, and that the rule could
not be set aside, however short might be the distance. Very likely the
shipper would say to the agent: "This is expensive; I wish you to take
it as it is." And if he should say to the agent that he was willing to
run the risk of breakage, then, perhaps, the clerk might take it in;
yet, even on those terms, some carriers would not. At all events, if
the clerk should insist on following the rules, the shipper could not
justly complain, for this rule is a very reasonable one, as the courts
have many times declared.

Suppose a shipper should ask a carrier to take a load of potatoes or
apples to Montreal in very cold weather. The carrier says to him:
"There is danger of the