“All very well,” I replied, “if I had been the size of the little husband no bigger than a thumb what was put into a quart pot and made to beat a drum, but Mr. Thomas Thumb himself, if he had been on top, could not have escaped from that tree. However, your master is liable to me for the injuries I have received.”[147]
“No, he isn’t,” surlily replied the Jehu, “because I say if you had staid quiet you would not have been hurt.”
“Even if that were so, it would make no difference, as I entertained a well-founded apprehension of being decapitated by that ugly branch.”[148]
I argued not, however, with the man, but limping back to the coach, remounted to my elevated seat, accompanied by the prayers and entreaties of my wife, not to blight her young life by exposing myself to any more such frightful risks outside, but to come within where she was sure there was plenty of room; but I preferred the fresh air and fine view aloft to the close musty smell and narrow field of vision down below.
When again under way, my fellow-passenger, who by sitting on the box with the driver had avoided the collision, began to tell me of his grandmother, one Mistress Elizabeth Dudley, who on one occasion was an outside passenger to the Cross Keys, Chelsea. When in front of the gateway leading to the stable-yard of that inn, the coachman requested the travellers to alight, as the passage into the yard was awkward. As Mrs. Dudley did not wish to soil her pumps in the dirty road, she said she would rather be driven into the yard. Coachee told her to stoop, and then lashed up his horses. The coach was 8 feet 9 in. high, and the archway only 9 feet 9 in., and Betsy, not being able to squeeze herself into the interstice of twelve inches, received a severe injury by having her back and shoulders knocked against the archway; she recovered, however, with £100 damages.[149]
I said: “Of course, to excuse the driver from responsibility, it must always be shown that the plaintiff was guilty of negligence which contributed directly to the injury.[150] I remember one case where a man was asked by the driver to ride inside a coach, and told that if he remained outside it would be at his own risk; he treated both the request and the hint with silent contempt, and being injured by the overturning of the carriage, sued the owners and got damages, as it appeared that the accident occurred from the negligence of the driver, and that the position of the obstreperous man in no way contributed to it.”[151]
“It is clearly settled,” returned my new made acquaintance, “that a driver, or his master, although he does not warrant the absolute safety of his passengers is, nevertheless, answerable for the smallest negligence;[152] and that the proprietor is also responsible for all defects in the coach, even though they be out of sight and not discoverable upon an ordinary examination, as a sharp fellow once proved.”[153]
“An American, however, in gall and bitterness was told by a court, that carriers, although bound to use the utmost care and diligence to prevent those injuries which human care and foresight can guard against, still are not liable for injuries happening through hidden defects which could not from the most careful and thorough examination be discovered.”[154]
“Yes,” interrupted my friend, “but in the State of Illinois, a Potter, who owned a stagecoach, was held liable for an injury to a passenger, which resulted from the breaking of an axle-tree, through the effect of frost.”[155]
“Long ago the courts in England held that a man established a primâ facie case by proving his taking passage in a coach, his coming to grief while in it, and the injury he sustained; and then that the proprietor must show, if he could, that his vehicle was as good as a vehicle could be, and that the driver was as skillful a handler of the reins as could be found.”[156]