18 F. 590 | S.D.N.Y. | 1883
Upon plaintiff’s motion to direct a verdict,the court said:
It has been recently decided in the circuit court of this district that the streets of this city are “post-routes” within the meaning of section 3982 of the Revised Statutes. Blackham v. Gresham, 16 Fed. Rep. 609. In my judgment the words of section 3982, “by regular trips or at stated periods,” apply to and qualify the first clause of that section, as well as the second. The meaning is that “no person shall establish any private express for the conveyance of letters or packets by regular trips or at stated periods, or in any other manner make provision for such conveyance by regular trips or at stated periods.”
If the only mode of doing this business — the only mode of sending these letters by the defendant — was through special messengers employed for the particular occasion only, then the verdict should be. for the defendant. But the messengers in this case were not employed by Mr. Easson for the particular occasion only, i. <?., a special employment to carry each letter, but for daily service as a regular business.’ The different modes of doing business which the statute contemplates, are clearly shown in the evidence of the witness Yan Zandt, e., “He summoned a messenger from the American District Company, and sent the messenger on his own particular errand.” That is an example of the conveyance of letters by “special messenger employed for the particular occasion only.” The collection of letters in a central office and the delivery of them through carriers employed for the purpose, in the manner shown in this case, where the understanding of customers is, and the business is so designed and arranged, that such deliveries shall be made daily over the streets of the city wherever such letters are directed, constitutes a business for a delivery by regular trips and at stated periods. There is no controversy here as to the facts which belong to that branch of the defendant’s business.
For the evidence in this case shows, without contradiction, that a part of the defendant’s business was to employ a corps of messengers for the purpose of going about the city to the stores and offices of all his customers, collecting letters daily, generally two or three times a day, for delivery anywhere between the battery and Harlem; that stamps similar to postage stamps were furnished and sold to such customers beforehand, which, on being affixed to the letters, entitled them to delivery by the defendant according to the course of his business; that the course of his business was to bring all letters thus collected to the defendant’s office, then sort them out into packages, making up convenient routes for delivery, and then dispatching them by messengers sent out for that purpose. These messengers usually made three collections and deliveries daily. Several thousand letters were