Coroner's juries are, beyond a doubt, a very good institution, and were established for a good purpose; they investigate sudden deaths, while the matter is still fresh, before the cause has become hidden or obscured by lapse of time, and in most cases they undoubtedly arrive at a just conclusion; but in cases of railroad accidents, I never yet knew one that was not unjust, to a greater or less degree, in its verdict against employees of the company on the train at the immediate time of the occurrence.
I know that in saying this I fly into the face of all the newspapers of the land, for they have a stereotyped sneer in these words, "Of course nobody was to blame," at every coroner's jury that fails to censure somebody, or to adjudge some one guilty of wilful murder. Nevertheless I believe it, and unhesitatingly declare it. Most generally it is the engineer and conductor who are censured, sometimes the brakemen or switchmen; but rarely or never is it the right one who is branded and placed in the newspaper pillory as unfit to occupy any position of trust, and guilty of the death of those killed and the wounds of those wounded. As to an accident that could not be avoided by human forethought, that idea is scouted, and if a coroner's jury does ever so far forget what is expected of it by these editors—who are the self-elected bull-dogs of society, and must needs bark or lose their dignity—why no words are sufficiently sarcastic, no sentences sufficiently bitter, to express the contempt which they feel for that benighted coroner's jury. To be sure they know nothing, or next to nothing, of the circumstances, and the jury knows all about them. To be sure, iron will break and so will wood; the insidious frost will creep in where man cannot probe, and render as brittle as glass what should be tough as steel; watches will go wrong, and no hundred men can be found who will on all occasions give one interpretation to the same words. But what of that?
Why, the bare idea that any accident upon any road can happen, and some poor devil of an engineer, conductor, brakeman or switchman not be ready at hand, to be made into a pack-horse on whom to pile all the accumulated bile of these men who, many of them, have some private grudge to satisfy—the idea, I say, is preposterous to these men, and they fulminate their thunders against railroad men, until community gets into the belief that virtue, honesty, integrity or common dog sense are things of which a railroad man must necessarily be entirely destitute; and they are looked upon with distrust, they are driven to become clannish, and frequently, I must confess, any thing but polite to the traveling public, whose only greeting to them is gruff fault-finding, or an incessant string of foolish questions. But are they so much to blame for this? Would you, my reader, "cast your pearls before swine?" and can you particularly blame men for not being over warm to the traveling community which almost invariably treats them as machines, destitute of feeling, for whose use it pays so much a mile? Railroad men, though, are not impolite, nor short to everybody. Ask a jovial, good-natured man, who has a smile and a pleasant word for everybody, and I'll warrant he will tell you that he gets treated well enough on railroads; that the engineer answers his questions readily; that the brakeman sees that he has a seat; that his baggage is not bursted open every trip he takes, and the conductor does not wake him up out of his sleep every five minutes to ask for his ticket. But ask a pursy, lordly individual, whose lack of brains is atoned for by the capacity of his stomach, who never asks for any thing, always orders it, and who always praises the last road he was on, and d—s the one he is now on; or ask a vinegar-looking, hatchet-faced old maid, who has eight bandboxes, a parasol, an umbrella, a loose pair of gloves, a work-bag and a poodle dog, who always has either such a cold that she knows she "shall die unless that window in front is put down," or else is certain that she "shall suffocate unless more air is let into the car," and who is continually asking whoever she sees with a badge on, whether the "biler is going to bust," or if "that last station ain't the one she bought her ticket for?"—ask either of these (and there are a great many travelers who, should they see this, would declare that I meant to be personal), and they will tell you that railroad men are "rascals, sir! scamps, sir! every one of them, sir! Why, only the other day I had a bran-new trunk, and I particularly cautioned the baggageman and conductor to be careful, and would you believe it, sir? when I got it, two—yes, sir! two—of the brass nails were jammed. Railroad men, from the dirty engineer to the stuck-up conductor, are bent on making the public as uncomfortable as they can, sir!" Reader, take my advice, and when you want any thing, go to the proper person and politely ask for it, and you will get it; but don't jump off and ask the engineer at every station how far it is to the next station? and how fast he ever did run? and if he ever knew John Smith of the Pontiac, and Buckwheat of the Sangamon and Pollywog road, one or the other, but really you forget which; but no matter, he must know him, for he looked so and so. Take care; while you are describing the venerable John Smith, that long oil-can may give an ugly flirt, and your wife have good cause for grumbling at your greasy cassimere inexpressibles; or a wink from the engineer to his funny fireman, may open that "pet cock," and your face get washed with rather nasty feeling water, and the shock might not be good for you. Don't bore the conductor with too many questions. If you ask civil questions, he will civilly answer you; but if you bore him too much by asking how fast "this ingine can run?" he may get cross, or he may tell how astonishingly fast the celebrated and mythical Thomas Pepper used to run the equally celebrated and mythical locomotive, "Blowhard." I started this article to tell a story illustrating my opinion of coroners' juries, but have turned it into a sort of homily on the grievances of railroad men. No matter; the story will keep, and the traveling people deserve a little talking to about the way they treat railroad men.
ADVENTURES
OF
AN IRISH RAILROAD MAN.