railway, prior to the Railway Clauses Consolidation Act. It was decided that such a conveyance gives a right by implication to all reasonable subjacent and adjacent support connected with the subject matter of the conveyance, and that, therefore, although in the conveyance the minerals are reserved, the grantor is not entitled to work them, even under his own land, in any manner calculated to endanger the railway. On the same principle, "if the owner of a house were to convey the upper story to a purchaser, reserving all below the upper story, such purchaser would on general principles have a right to prevent the owner of the lower stories from interfering with the walls and beams upon which the upper story rests, so as to prevent them from affording proper support."

The distinction between this case and that of the previous one is this, that here the conveyance was not a conveyance under the statute, but an ordinary private assurance. "There is an obvious distinction," said Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, "between an ordinary purchaser and one who acquires the surface by a compulsory purchase, under the Land Clauses Consolidation Act, 1845," and upon this distinction the diversity of the decisions depends. Similar provisions have been inserted in various Acts of Parliament, incorporating canal companies, and enabling them to purchase lands for the formation of a canal. The effect of them is to deprive the company of the right to support for the railway or canal from coal, ironstone, slate, or minerals beneath the surface of the adjoining land, or beneath the land over which the railway or canal is carried, unless they have purchased the slate

or minerals, or compensation has been given in the manner prescribed by the statute.

Under statutory provisions of this sort, the company do not in the first instance pay to the landowner more than the value of the surface in the shape of purchase money, or for the injury to the surface, if only compensation is made for damage. The minerals remain the property of the owner of the soil. But where he is desirous of getting them, the company have the option of purchasing at a fair price, to be settled in case of dispute in the usual way. These provisions are for the benefit of the company, who are relieved from the great expense of buying the minerals along the whole line of an intended railway or canal in the first instance, before it is constructed, and are enabled to postpone the purchase of them until the time when, from the state of the market in the neighbourhood, the owners really want to get them. When this happens, the company have an option either to buy (in which case the landowner cannot get the minerals, but is fully compensated for the loss of that right), or not to buy, in which case he receives no compensation at all, and his right to get them remains as complete as if no railway had been made. The Act only deals with minerals under the specified limits. With regard to minerals lying beyond those limits, the company have no power under the Act to purchase them, nor are they bound to make compensation for not working any portion of them. The company's right of lateral support is the same as that of any other surface owner, as far as these minerals go. Consequently it is advisable, in agreements with

railway companies, to make provision for compensation, in case these minerals cannot be worked through fear of causing damage to the railway. (See Davidson P. Conv. vol. ii. part 1.)

In Midland Railway Company v. Checkley (L. R. 4 Eq. 19), Lord Romilly held that the cases decided upon this point only go to establish the company's right to an injunction, but not to absolve them from making compensation for the minerals without the specified limits, as well as those within them.

In the case of canal companies, it has been held that clauses in Acts of Parliament requiring coalowners to give notice to the company of their intention to work their mines within a certain distance of the canal, and giving liberty to the company to inspect the works, and to prohibit the owners, upon compensation being made, from working within that distance, were framed for the purpose of enabling the company to purchase out the rights of the coalowners, if they thought their canal works likely to be endangered by the nearer approach of the miners; that if the company declined the purchase, the coalowners were left to their common-law rights, as if no canal had been made; and they might take every part of their coal in the same manner as they might have done before the Act passed; their former rights in that respect not having been taken away by the Act, which has only appropriated the surface of the land, and so much of the soil as was necessary for the cutting and making of the canal, leaving the coal, &c., to the owners, to be enjoyed in the same manner as before.*

*

Wyrley Canal Co. v. Bradley, 7 East, 371; Addison on

Torts, 34.

CHAPTER XVI.

ACCIDENTS IN COLLIERIES-LIABILITIES OF EMPLOYERS.

Ir is only necessary to read a few of the reports of the inspectors of mines to appreciate the importance of this subject. From these reports it appears that the large proportion of accidents and deaths in mines occur to individuals whose own carelessness is the

sole cause of their own injuries. Upon this class of accidents there is nothing further to say; but there are a large number of accidents which are alleged to happen in consequence of the negligence, or ignorance, or rashness of the employer, or his agents or overmen, or of the fellow-workmen of the sufferers. Other accidents there are whereby strangers suffer through the negligence of persons in the employ of the colliery owner. The object of this chapter is to state the legal rules which fix and define the responsibility for such accidents.

As the last-named class of accidents requires the shortest consideration, we will take it first. It was long ago settled that, by the law of England, a master of a servant is liable to a stranger for damage caused by the act of the servant while employed on the master's business. If, however, the master employs a fit and proper person to execute work for him under a contract,

and a stranger is injured through the negligence of the contractor or his workmen, the master will not be liable for such injury. But a man who orders work to be executed on his own premises, lawful in itself, but from which, in the natural course of things, injurious consequences to his neighbour must be expected to arise, unless means are adopted by which such consequences may be prevented, is bound to see to the doing of that which is necessary to prevent the mischief, and cannot relieve himself of his responsibility by employing someone else to do what is necessary to prevent the act he had ordered to be done from becoming wrongful (Bower v. Peate, 1 Q. B. Div. 321). So too where the work which the contractor is employed to execute is a part of a duty imposed by statute upon the person or corporation employing the contractor, this exemption from liability does not apply, and the stranger has his remedy against such person or corporation. See Hole v. Sittingbourne Railway Company (30 L. J. Ex. 81).

But the master is not liable, unless the act which caused the injury to the stranger was within the scope of the servant's authority, or incident to the ordinary duties of his employment. Illustrative of this may be cited the case of Stevens v. Woodward, decided in 1881 by the Queen's Bench Division, and reported in 6 Q. B. Div. 318. In that case the plaintiffs occupied premises beneath the offices of the defendants, who were solicitors. One of the defendants had a room of the offices, and in it was a lavatory for his own use exclusively, and his orders to his clerks were, that no clerk should come into his room after he had left. A clerk went into the room to wash his hands