The law sometimes uses carriage to refer to the act of carrying a person or goods, or to the vehicle, vessel or aircraft itself.
In addition, much of the early common law of carriage necessarily omitted carriage by air.
For example, in the British Explosives Substances Act 1875, at §108, carriage was defined as:
"... any waggon (sic), cart, truck, vehicle or other means of conveying goods or passengers by land, in whatever manner the same may be propelled."
In some cases, a bicycle has been held to be (a) carriage.
Compare with the words of Justice Parker in Customs:
"Carriage, of course, is a very wide word, which can be used to convey an incidental carriage of goods as well as a whole cargo of goods. It need not convey the notion of something loaded on a vehicle, but anything so long as it is carried on the vehicle."
Traditional carriage law divisions are carriage by air, carriage by rail, carriage by road and carriage by sea.
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