Wilkinson

This is an action at law, wherein jury was waived, to recover $4,100, being the value of jewelry lost by plaintiff Jessie Cook Wilkinson while she and her husband, the coplaintiff, were passengers and guests for hire in one of tho standard sleeping cars of defendant company on an overnight journey en route from San Buenaventura, Cal., to San Francisco, Cal., over the coast line of tho Southern Pacific Railway Company, and thence to Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands. Diversity of citizenship of tho parties and jurisdictional amount in controversy brings this case to this court.

The complaint substantially avers that, while the plaintiffs were asleep in the section of the sleeping car which they had rented from the defendant company and to which they had been regularly assigned by its agents, Mrs. Wilkinson’s handbag, containing her personal adornments of valuable rings, bracelets, and broach, which was part of her baggage appropriate to said journey to Honolulu, was stolen from the place in said section where she had placed them in a secure manner upon retiring for the night. It is alleged that the theft and removal of the property was the result of negligence of defendant company in not…