“Crude and uncultured, of course,” added Barry. “But, take such a face and figure as that, plus clothes and social training—she is already reputed to have brains,—and you would have a social queen. Gad!”
He turned his eyes away, as if to rest them for a moment on some less fascinating object. The clergyman did not seem to consider that his companion’s remarks called for any reply from him. People who knew Barry as well as Mr. Farrar did seldom took him very seriously.
The attorney for the plaintiff rose to make the concluding address to the jury. He had not the logical grasp of the case that his opponent had displayed, but he was more plausibly eloquent. He appealed more to the sympathies of the jurors than to their reason. He grew fierce in his denunciation of the greed and heartlessness of corporations in general, and of this corporation in particular. He became dramatic in his vivid description of the accident, and tearfully pathetic in depicting the future that lay before this man with the crushed body and the clouded mind. He called upon the jurors, as men of intelligence and conscience, to look to it that domineering wealth should not escape its just obligations to one whom it had carelessly crippled and cast aside; on whose home rested to-day the dark shadows of unspeakable pain and distressing poverty.
At the conclusion of his address many men in the court-room, including some of the jurors, wiped furtive tears from their eyes, and all of the women were openly weeping; all save one, the wife of the plaintiff. She did not weep. Her glowing dark eyes were tearless and triumphant. She looked into the sympathetic faces of the jurors and read their verdict there before they, themselves, had considered it. She knew that her long fight for justice on behalf of her crippled husband and herself was approaching its victorious end. Why should she weep?
Then Judge Bosworth began his charge to the jury. He gave a brief history of the case. He dwelt upon some of its more important phases as revealed by the evidence. He laid down the general rules of law governing this class of cases. He passed upon the requests of counsel for instruction to the jury. He said finally:
“Counsel for the defendant company has asked us to charge you that ‘under all the evidence in the case the verdict of the jury must be for the defendant.’ This is correct, and we so charge you; and, in doing so, we say that, except in the case of a common carrier, the uniform rule is that when recovery is sought on the ground of negligence of the defendant, the burden of proof is on the plaintiff, and in an action against an employer some specific act of negligence must be shown. No defect of any kind was shown in the elevator, nor was there any evidence which would justify a finding that it was unsafe for employees to use. Its falling was not shown to have been due to the breach of any duty owed by the employer to his employees. With the friction brake on it the engineer could have controlled it, and the only rational conclusion is that, instead of doing so, he carelessly let it drop with resultant consequences to this plaintiff which are not to be visited on the employer. This is one of those regrettable industrial accidents for which, in the present state of our laws, there appears to be no remedy in the way of compensation for injuries received.
“While the plaintiff is not charged with any contributory negligence, and while he has our undoubted sympathy, we cannot permit him to recover against a party that clearly has not been at fault. You will, therefore, in the case of John Bradley against the Malleson Manufacturing Company, render a verdict in favor of the defendant. It will not be necessary for you to leave the box. Mr. Gaylord,” to the prothonotary of the court, “you will please take the verdict of the jury.”
But before the prothonotary could get to his feet, Juror No. 7, sitting first in the front row, arose and addressed the court.
“Do I understand your Honor to say,” he inquired, “that the jury has no right to decide whether or not Mr. Bradley is entitled to damages?”
“No right whatever,” replied the judge. “In this case the law governs that question, and the law is exclusively for the court.”