“By the way,” said a gentleman, who had been listening attentively to all the conversation; “can any of you gentlemen, who seem to have the whole law appertaining to railways at your finger’s ends or the tips of your tongues (whichever expression be the more correct or implies the greater knowledge), tell me whether it is safe for one to promenade from one end of the train to the other for the sake of exercise or to see who is on board? Down in New York State the jury must decide whether it is right so to do, in order to find a seat.”[519]
“Out west,” said the Chicagoian, “It has been decided that passengers have no right to pass from car to car, unless for some reasonable purpose;[520] and heaven only knows what twelve enlightened men from the body of the country would, in their wisdom, deem to be reasonable.”
“Humph, you don’t seem to have a very high opinion of juries,” said the representative of that class, who had already joined in the conversation.
“I rather think not; who could, when they elaborate such queer decisions from their brains and shew such ignorance. I know one case where an intelligent jury brought in a verdict of ‘guilty’ against the plaintiff in a libel suit; of another, where, at the close of a lengthy trial, the foreman coolly asked the judge to explain ‘two terms of law, namely plaintiff and defendant.’ Many of them would be decidedly improved were occasional punishment inflicted as in the good old days of yore, when sometimes a juryman was fined and had his nose split; and the usual fate of a disagreeing jury was to be put into a cart and shot into the nearest ditch.”
Our train had been released from bondage and under weigh for some time, and just at this juncture the conversation was stopped by a collision taking place. Fortunately the drivers of the approaching engines had discovered the danger some time previously; they were, therefore, enabled by putting on the breaks so to deaden the speed that the trains barely touched each other—gently kissed, as it were—and although some of the passengers were jerked forward in an uncomfortable manner as if they had been suddenly punched in a sensitive part, still no persons were seriously hurt except two. One of these unfortunates was the newsboy, who in passing from one car to another was thrown to the ground and had a leg badly crushed; the other was a beautiful little child of some three or four summers who had been playing with a lady and was knocked violently down, and in falling hit his head against the side of a seat. From his pure white forehead a purple stream was slowly trickling, dyeing his golden ringlets, as he lay unconscious upon his weeping mother’s knee. While some tried to restore the child, and others to console the parent, I took a business-like view of the transaction, and “with all the homage due to a sex of which I am enthused dreadful,” as Col. Morley of the Parisians would say, I approached and said,—
“Madam, each drop of that child’s blood is worth money; you may lay the foundation of his future fortune now in the days of his youth by recovering damages against the company for the injury they have done to him;” she heeded not, but I continued. “Why, in one case a child two years old was wandering on a track and being run over by a train lost a leg and a hand, and the jury gave it $1,800;[521] why, that sum put out at compound interest would—”
“Oh, you horrid man,” exclaimed the mother, “to talk that way. But I did not buy a ticket for him, and I should have, as he is over three years old.” And the mother’s grief broke out afresh, as she thought she had lost this golden opportunity.
“Don’t trouble yourself, madam, that makes no difference, the contract made with you when you bought your ticket was that both you and your child should be carried safely, and if there was any misrepresentation on your part as to the little sufferer’s age, although it might render you liable for the fare that should have been paid, or for a penalty, still it does not alter the position of the company, and they were and are bound to carry you and the little dear safely.”[522]
“Ah!” sighed the mother, “if that nasty woman had only held him up, and not have let him fall,—perhaps the jury will say she ought to have done so?”
I was glad to see that the thought of the almighty dollar was applying a golden salve to the mother’s wounded heart, if not to the boy’s forehead, for I hate tears, crocodile or otherwise, and was therefore willing to enlighten her ladyship as much as possible, especially as I make it a constant practice to give advice gratuitously (when I think it won’t be paid for), and putting down the usual charge for it to the account of my charitable disbursements; so I said:—