On Saturday last, and on Monday, Mr. Justice Grantham and
a special jury had before them a case of considerable interest to householders. Mrs. Brunton, the plaintiff, claimed damages for a Persian carpet, worth 21,000, which was injured, or rather destroyed, by fire while in the custody of Messrs. Maple, who had undertaken to clean it. It was practically admitted that if Mrs. Brunton did in fact let Messrs. Maple know that the carpet was of exceptional value, they were liable to make good the loss, since it could not be disputed that there had been negligence on the part of the persons to whom the actual work of cleaning was entrusted, and qui tacit per attain fa.eit per se. The case, then, turned upon whether Mrs. Brunton had made it clear that she was entrusting Messrs. Maple with the cleaning of a carpet of exceptional value. It appears to us from the evidence that she did, and that even if she had not, the testimony of the hostile expert showed that the carpet should have been recognised at once as worth a large sum of money.
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