Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 703

Every newspaper reader must have remarked the frequent accidents which occur through passengers (whilst entering or leaving railway carriages) falling between the steps and the platform. This being so, it is satisfactory to remark that the Royal Commissioners have resolved to recommend that the adoption by railway companies of continuous foot-boards of sufficient width should be made compulsory wherever, in the opinion of the officials of the Board of Trade, 'the circumstances of the traffic are such as to render them necessary for the safety of passengers.'

As regards the important subject of the compensation which the railway companies are at present obliged to make whenever a passenger is – through no fault of his own – killed or injured whilst travelling upon their lines, the Royal Commissioners have not thought it necessary to make any special recommendations. They appear indeed to think that the principle of self-interest will be sufficient to make the companies introduce all reasonable improvements and take all possible means to secure the safety of their passengers. Mr Galt, however, one of the Royal Commissioners, dissents from this view of his colleagues, and we think with reason. He asks in connection with this subject the following very pertinent question: 'Does the sum paid in compensation by the companies exceed the expenditure that would necessarily be incurred for the avoidance of preventable accidents?' This question Mr Galt proceeds to regard from two points of view. First, the effect of accidents on the market value of railway shares; and second, the cost which the companies would have to incur in order to introduce various well-known means for the prevention of accidents, which have often been pressed upon their attention by Captain Tyler and other officials of the Board of Trade. The effect of an accident upon the market value of railway shares, even when it is one of exceptional severity, Mr Galt shews is only temporarily and never permanently to lower the value of the shares in the particular railway company upon whose system it occurred. The first cost, moreover, of introducing improvements upon their lines, Mr Galt points out, is felt very severely by railway companies; whereas the compensation which they pay for personal injuries does not at present amount to one per cent. of their total expenditure. Mr Galt indeed asserts that the saving which the companies would effect by the use of every available means for the prevention of accidents would 'scarcely amount to a shilling in the hundred pounds.' Hence he arrives at the very disagreeable conclusion, that so far as the pecuniary principle – apart from all higher considerations – is concerned, the railway companies' interests and those of the general public are diametrically opposed to each other!

We shall conclude this article by giving a brief epitome of the principal points upon which the Royal Commissioners have made formal 'recommendations' either for the consideration of parliament or of the railway companies. 1. They have recommended that discretionary powers should be conferred upon the Board of Trade to enforce the extension of stations and sidings wherever the accommodation provided for the traffic is so inadequate as to endanger safety. 2. To enforce the adoption of the block and interlocking systems on all lines or portions of lines where the introduction of these improvements is necessary for the safety of the traffic. 3. To restrict the speed of trains upon any line or section of a line which is in a condition to render a high rate of speed unsafe. 4. To require companies to provide their passenger carriages with continuous foot-boards. 5. To impose conditions upon companies in certain cases in sanctioning the opening of new lines. 6. To require companies to provide foot-bridges or subways at stations where the absence of such accommodation is proved to be a source of danger. 7. To require a lodge to be maintained at public crossings for foot-passengers wherever circumstances render it necessary for safety. 8. That railway companies shall be required by law, under adequate penalties, to supply all trains with sufficient brake-power to stop them within five hundred yards under all circumstances. 9. That in order to produce greater punctuality in the conduct of the traffic on railways, additional facilities be afforded to the public for obtaining compensation when trains are late. 10. That the 31st and 32d Vict. c. 119, s. 22, relating to intercommunication in trains, be amended in the manner which we have indicated above. 11. That the civil liability of railway companies for accidents to their servants, and of the criminal liability of persons in railway employment for acts of negligence endangering life, be extended.

Some at least of these proposals of the Royal Commissioners will doubtless be adopted by Her Majesty's government, and will be proposed to parliament, with all the weight of their authority, during the next (1878) session of parliament. That the government measure which will embody these 'selected' recommendations of the Royal Commissioners will satisfy all parties – directors of railways, railway servants, and the general public alike – would of course be too much to hope. But this may at least be confidently predicted – that if the chief recommendations of the Royal Commissioners be adopted by parliament, and be loyally carried out in practice by the railway companies, they will tend in no inconsiderable degree to render railway travelling in Great Britain in the future both much safer and much pleasanter than it has been in the past.

DROLLERIES OF THE AMERICAN BENCH

Droll things are reported of the bench and bar in the United States. Perhaps all that is said of them in the newspapers may have a tinge of exaggeration; but we do not doubt that there is a considerable substructure of truth. What, indeed, but odd sayings and doings can be expected from judges who are appointed by universal suffrage, and may in many cases be little better than the boon-companions of the culprits who are apt to come judicially before them. We cull a few drolleries of the American bench for the amusement of our readers.

Wearied beyond endurance by the tediousness of a long-winded pleader, a Kentuckian judge put himself out of his misery and his tormentor out of countenance by suddenly exclaiming: 'If the court is right, and she thinks she air, why then you are wrong, and she knows you is. Shut up!' Almost as rude in speech was Judge Dowling, who after serving as fireman and police-officer, became by election one of the magistrates of the Empire City. 'What are you reading from, sir?' asked he of a counsel.

'From the statute of 1876, your Honour,' was the reply.

'Well,' said Dowling, 'you needn't read any more; I'm judge in this court, and my statutes are good enough law for anybody!'

This worshipful gentleman plumed himself upon deciding 'according to the equities of the case,' law and precedent to the contrary notwithstanding; they went for nothing with him.

They did not go for much more with the western administrator of the law, Judge Alec Smith. A divorce case being called on, he, addressing the plaintiff's representative, said: 'I don't think people ought to be compelled to live together when they don't want to do so. I will decree a divorce in this case;' and the parties concerned were thereupon declared to be no longer man and wife. Presently the defendant's lawyer appeared, and was not a little surprised to find all was settled, that the judge had decided without hearing one side, much less both. He protested against such over-hasty proceedings, and appealed to the court to redress the wrong it had committed. The court not being inclined to own itself in fault, he was informed it was too late to raise objections; the decree had been pronounced; but if he wanted to argue the case 'right bad,' the court would marry the parties again, and let him have a crack for it.

When Miss Amelia Donnerschley claimed two hundred dollars from faithless Augustus Berker for breach of promise, the gentleman justified his conduct on the plea that after dwelling under the same roof with the young lady and her mamma for eight months, he found it so impossible to live comfortably with the one, that he was compelled to cry off with the other. The judge inquired if the mother purposed living with her daughter after marriage, and receiving an affirmative answer, asked the defendant whether he would rather live with his mother-in-law or pay two hundred dollars.

'Pay two hundred dollars,' was the prompt reply.

Said the judge: 'Young man, let me shake hands with you. There was a time in my life when I was in the same situation as you are in now. Had I possessed your firmness, I should have been spared twenty-five years of trouble. I had the alternative of marrying or paying a hundred and twenty-five dollars. Being poor, I married; and for twenty-five years have I regretted it. I am happy to meet with a man of your stamp. The plaintiff must pay ten dollars and costs for having thought of putting a gentleman under the dominion of a mother-in-law.'

The much-married dignitary was not so susceptible to the charms of the sex as his brother of Iowa, who refused to fine a man for kissing a girl against her will, because the complainant was so temptingly pretty that nothing but an overwhelming sense of its dignity prevented the court kissing her itself.

It is lucky for an offender when his judge puts himself in his place; justice is sure then to be tempered with mercy, as in the case of the snatcher of spoons brought before a Georgian court many years ago. Bela Brown, who then went the circuit as judge, was an able man, in equal repute as a lawyer and as a boon-companion. The night before the court was to open at Dayton, his Honour went to a tavern kept by Sterrit, and had such a good time of it with his legal friends that by midnight he was not quite so sober as a judge should be. Somebody cleared the table of all its spoons, and put them into the unconscious gentleman's pocket. He was greatly perturbed at finding them there next morning. They were Sterrit's spoons without doubt, for they bore the landlord's initials.

'Polly,' said the judge to his wife, 'was I tipsy when I came home?'

'Yes,' said she. 'You know your habits when you get among those lawyers.'

Much relieved in his mind, the judge declared he could understand how the spoons came into his possession. 'That fellow keeps the meanest liquor in the States; but I never supposed it would make a man steal.'

A day or two afterwards, a man was arraigned for larceny; he pleaded guilty, but urged he was intoxicated when he committed the offence.

'What's the nature of the charge?' inquired Judge Brown.

'Stealing money from the till at Sterrit's tavern,' replied the clerk.

'Young man,' said the judge solemnly, 'are you sure you were tipsy when you took this money?'

'Yes, your Honour; when I went outdoors the ground kept coming up and hitting me on the head.'

'That will do. Did you get all your liquor at Sterrit's?'

'Every drop, sir.'

Turning to the prosecuting attorney, the judge said: 'You will do me the favour of entering a nolle prosequi; that liquor of Sterrit's I have reason to know is enough to make a man do anything dirty. I got tipsy on it myself the other night, and stole all his spoons. If Sterrit will sell such abominable stuff he ought not to have the protection of this court. – Mr Sheriff, you may release the prisoner.' Like the sailor who objected to his captain preaching and flogging too, offenders generally do not appreciate being suitably admonished as well as punished; and no doubt the Californian felt annoyed when, through incautiously demurring to the magistrate reproaching him with having no ambition, he found himself put to the question with: 'Where is it, sir? Where is it? Did you ever hear of Cicero taking free lunches? Did you ever hear that Plato gamboled through the alleys of Athens? Did you ever hear Demosthenes accused of sleeping under a coal-shed? If you would be a Plato, there would be a fire in your eye; your hair would have an intellectual cut; you'd step into a clean shirt; and you'd hire a mowing-machine to pare those finger-nails. You have got to go up for four months!'

The Honourable Kiah Rodgers, commonly called Old Kye, presiding in a Louisiana court, thus spoke his mind to a delinquent named Kettles: 'Prisoner, stand up! Mr Kettles, this court is under the painful necessity of passing sentence of the law upon you. This court has no doubt, Mr Kettles, but what you were brought into this scrape by the use of intoxicating liquors. The friends of this court all know that if there is any vice this court abhors it is intoxication. When this court was a young man, Mr Kettles, it was considerably inclined to drink, and the friends of this court know that this court has naterally a very high temper; and if this court had not stopped short off, I have no doubt, sir, but what this court, sir, would have been in the Penitentiary or in its grave.'

Still more communicative was Judge Kye respecting his young days when summing up in an action brought by an overseer for wrongful dismissal from his situation.

'The jury,' said his Honour, 'will take notice that this court is well acquainted with the nature of the case. When this court first started in the world it followed the business of overseering, and if there is any business which this court understands, it's hosses, mules, and niggers; though this court never overseed in its life for less than eight hundred dollars. And this court in hoss-racing was always naterally gifted; and this court in running a quarter race whar the hosses was turned, could allers turn a hoss so as to gain fifteen feet in a race; and on a certain occasion it was one of the conditions of the race that Kye Rodgers shouldn't turn narry of the hosses.' Surely it must have been Old Kye who upon taking his official seat for the first time, said: 'If this court know her duty, and she thinks she do, Justice will walk over this track with her head and tail up.'

Prone as he might be to discursiveness, we fancy the Louisiana judge would have laid down the law a little more lucidly than the worthy to whom a Minnesota juryman appealed for aid, when his ideas as to what constituted murder had been confused by the arguments of counsel.

'Gentlemen of the jury,' said this legal luminary, 'murder is where a man is murderously killed. The killer in such a case is a murderer. Now murder by poison is just as much murder as murder with a gun, pistol, or knife. It is the simple act of murdering that constitutes murder in the eye of the law. Don't let the ideas of murder and manslaughter confound you. Murder is one thing, manslaughter is quite another. Consequently, if there has been a murder, and it is not manslaughter, then it must be murder. Don't let this point escape you. Self-murder has nothing to do with this case. According to Blackstone and all the best living writers, one man cannot commit felo de se upon another; and that is clearly my view. Gentlemen, murder is murder. The murder of a brother is called fratricide; the murder of a father is called parricide, but that don't enter into this case. This case is murder, and as I said before, murder is most emphatically murder. You will take the case, gentlemen, and make up your minds according to the law and the evidence, not forgetting the explanation I have given you.' When an English judge has passed sentence upon a criminal, he has done with him. It would never enter his head to visit a man he had condemned to death. Judge Smith of Cincinnati had different notions of judicial etiquette. One Samuel Covert, about to be executed at Lebanon, had just taken his last meal, when the judge looked in, inquired how he felt, and asked for his autograph. Having obtained the autograph, and learned that Covert was pretty well, considering circumstances, the judge shook his hand warmly, saying: 'Good-bye, Mr Covert; I shall not see you again.'

'Good-bye, Mr Smith,' was the reply. 'Remember my last words to you: you have passed sentence of death upon an innocent man.'

'That is so, is it, Sam?' queried the visitor.

'Yes, sir.'

'If that be true, you've nothing against me; have you, Sam?'

'No, sir; you did your duty under the evidence.'

'Well, Sam, if you are an innocent man, it is a great calamity.'

'I am innocent,' repeated Covert.

The judge then departed, and Covert was marched to the scaffold.

Judge Smith hardly felt so easy in his mind as a Californian sheriff did after being interviewed by a self-confessed murderer, who desired to be sent to New York to answer for the crime he had committed in that city.

'So your conscience ain't easy, and you want to be hanged?' said the sheriff. 'Well, my friend, the county treasury ain't well fixed at present, and I don't want to take any risks, in case you're not the man, and are just fishing for a free ride. Besides, those New York courts can't be trusted to hang a man. As you say, you deserve to be killed, and your conscience won't be easy till you are killed, and as it can't make any difference to you or to society how you are killed, I guess I'll do the job myself!' and his hand moved to his pocket; but before he could pull out the revolver and level it at the murderer, that conscience-stricken individual was down the road and out of killing distance.

When lawyers behave in such a free-and-easy way, it is not surprising that a prisoner presumes to enter into familiar conversation with the bench. 'An old tippler,' asked by a Nevadan court whether he was rightly or wrongly charged with being intoxicated, pleaded, 'Not guilty, your Honour. Sunstroke!'

'Sunstroke?' queried Judge Cox.

'Yes, sir; the regular New York variety.'

'You've had sunstroke a good deal in your time, I believe?'

'Yes, your Honour; but this last attack was most severe.'

'Does sunstroke make you rush through the streets offering to fight the town?'

'That's the effect precisely.'

'And makes you throw brickbats at people?'

'That's it, judge. I see you understand the symptoms; and agree with the best recognised authorities, who hold it inflames the organs of combativeness and destructiveness. When a man of my temperament gets a good square sunstroke he's liable to do almost anything.'

'Yes; you are quite right – liable to go to jail for fifteen days. You'll go down with the policeman at once.' With that observation the conversation naturally closed, and the victim of so-called sunstroke 'went down.'

The bench does not always come off so victoriously. A prisoner before the court of Keatingville, Montana, neglecting to remove his hat, the sheriff was directed to do it for him, and obeyed instructions by knocking the offending head-gear off with his rifle. The owner picked it up, and as he clapped it on his head again shouted: 'I am bald, judge!' A repetition of the performance followed; at which, waxing indignant, his Honour rose and said: 'I fine you five dollars for contempt of court – to be committed until the fine is paid!'

The offender walked up to the judge, and laying down half a dollar, remarked: 'Your sentence, judge, is most ungentlemanly; but the law is imperative, and I will have to stand it; so here is half a dollar; and the four dollars and a half you owed me when we stopped playing poker this morning, makes us square!'

The card-playing administrator of justice must have felt as small as his brother-judge when he priced the cow. Being at Little Rock, Arkansas, on business, that judge strolled into the market, and seeing a farmer with a cow, stepped up to him and asked what he wanted for her. 'Thirty dollars,' said the farmer. 'She'll give you five quarts of milk if you feed her well.'

'Why,' quoth the judge, 'I have cows on my farm, not much more than half as big as yours, which give twenty quarts a day.'

The cow-owner eyed his new acquaintance very hard, as if trying to remember if he had seen him before, and then inquired where he lived. 'My home is in Iowa,' was the reply.

'Yes, stranger,' said the farmer, 'I don't dispute it. There were heaps of soldiers from Iowa down here during the war, and they were the worst liars in the whole Yankee army. Maybe you may have been an officer in some of them regiments?'

Without satisfying his interlocutor's curiosity on that point, the judge, we are told, 'slid for the court-house.'

THE FAIRIES

Where are the wonderful elves, and the fairy creatures bright?Where are the tiny things that danced in the pale moonlight?Danced in a magic ring, and fluttered in robes of white,Like motes in the sunbeam whirled, like leaves in the forest hoar.Hark to the sound of the sea, and the cry of the waves on the shore.Where are the dusky gnomes who toiled in the golden ground?So that the miners trembled hearing their hammers' sound,Hearing them tapping, tapping, delving in darkness bound,A thousand tapping hammers, beneath them hammering.Hark to the muttered thunder, the voice of the hidden spring.Where are the forest fairies, the elves in Lincoln green,Deep in the forest hidden, and never in cities seen,Sought for by timid maidens, on sainted Hallowe'en,The joy of all true lovers, a merry band were they!Hark to the hum of the bee, in the scented blooms of May.Where are the household fairies, who loved the embers' glow,Who played at games with the shadows flickering to and fro,But left no track on the sanded floor, no trace on the fallen snow,And filled up the little slippers the children left behind,Hark to the howl of the tempest, the moan of the stormy wind.The elves are waiting, waiting, for the golden days to come,When grief shall be known no longer, nor faithful love be dumb;Till the figures all are added up, and finished the mighty sum.Ah yes, they are waiting, waiting, till grief shall be no more.Hark to the rustle of raindrops, that kiss the deserted shore.