[499] Redfield on Railways, vol. ii., p. 237.
[500] Redfield on Railways, vol. ii., p. 238.
[501] See “Our Railroad Death-rate,” in Atlantic Monthly for February, 1876, by C. F. Adams, Jr.
CHAPTER XIII.
ACCIDENTS TO TRAVELLERS.
Standing on Platforms of Cars.—Room and Seats to be Furnished.—Over-crowding.—Riding in Express Cars.—In Caboose Car.—Rule in Illinois.—Walking through the Train.—Innocent Blood.—Damages to Infants and Juveniles.—Child’s Fare Unpaid.—$1,800 for a Baby’s Leg and Hand.—Negligence of a Nurse.—Travelling on Free Pass.—Conditional Liability.—Company Exempt.—Pat and Sambo.—Home again from a Foreign Shore.
Our Connecticut friend went out of the car and stood, on the platform, in defiance of the notice posted up on the door forbidding people to stand there; and gazing out into the storm and the night, he tried, like sister Ann, to distinguish whether there were any signs of relief coming to us in our benighted condition. As he, an omnivorous, breeches-wearing biped, balanced himself on his long slender legs and stretched forward his lean and lank corpus to look ahead, the engine gave a sudden puff and plunge, Conn. lost his balance and fell to the ground: the snow prevented much damage happening to his fragile body, but unfortunately his foot rested partly on the rail, and the wheel of the car badly crushed his big toe. The violent ear-piercing howls that issued from his tobacco-seasoned throat brought assistance very soon, and he was speedily helped back into the car; his damaged pedal member was dressed by a young member of the Æsculapian fraternity who chanced to be on board and seemed eager to show his surgical skill.
The injured man soon became violent in his denunciations of the carelessness of the company, in his threats of vengeance in the form of suits for damages. He was, however, suddenly checked in the outpouring of the vials of his wrath by one of the passengers remarking:—
“Perhaps you do not know that in these hyperborean regions people can claim no compensation for injuries received while on the platform of a car (or on any baggage, wood, or freight car), in violation of the printed regulations posted up conspicuously, and where there is proper and ample accommodation for the passengers inside the car.”[502]
“And there is a similar statute in New York State,” added another.[503]
“Yes,” I said, “no one can recover for an injury of which his own negligence was in the whole, or in part, the proximate cause.”[504]