“If I had been so foolhardy as to jump off while the train was in motion, without doubt, many a court in the land would hold that I did it at my own risk, and, if hurt, could coolly tell me that for my gross imprudence I had nobody but myself to blame,[355] if, however, they had stopped but for a moment, I would have run the risk of being injured by their starting before I was quite off, for then they would have been liable,[356] and I would have done so if the train had been moving slowly.”[357]
“But,” said my legal luminary to me, sotto-voce—for he was afraid to draw attention to himself again—“if a passenger is induced to leap from a car under the influence of a well-grounded fear of a collision that would be fatal to limb or life, it seems to be regarded as well settled that he may recover against the carriers, even though he would not have been hurt in the slightest degree, had he philosophically remained quiet.”[358]
Another man wanted the conductor to stop the train because he had just discovered that he was on the wrong track; but this favor was refused, and the stupid fellow had to pay the full fare to the next stopping-place.[359]
By this time we had reached the Junction, and friend Smith and myself and several other persons got out to take the cars of the one or the other of the two other companies whose lines here cross. The stations of the three companies are all open to each other, and the passengers of each pass directly from the one to the other, “no pent up Utica contracts their powers” of pedestrianism, the whole area being used as common ground by the travellers on all three roads. While here, a porter of the B. and E. Co., who was trundling a track laden high with luggage, let a portmanteau fall off and injure the toes of one of our fellow-travellers who was on the part of the platform owned by the B. and E. Rw. Co. on his way to the terminus of the other line. (I afterwards heard that the court held that the negligence being an act of misfeasance by the servant of the company in the course of his employment, the maxim respondeat superior applied, and that the company were liable; but the judges doubted whether the railway would have been responsible supposing the man had been injured from the state and condition of the platform, as he had no business on it.)[360]
As I was trudging along an ugly dog of the cur tribe, with a noli me tangere expression of countenance, dashed past me and rushed up to an innocent-looking individual, seizing him violently by the posterior part of the most indispensable portion of a man’s attire, and judging from the row the fellow kicked up, by something more sensitive than pantaloons as well: shaking vigorously, the dog detached a piece of cloth and drew a little blood. The victim had a heavy stick in his hand, and the little doggy’s lively career was stopped then and there. I remarked to the man, “My friend, if you find out that that unfortunate puppy belonged to the company or to any of their servants, sue them for damages; if not, don’t trouble yourself to do so unless you can show that they were able to dispose of the fractious animal and did not do it.”[361]
Shortly after we were again under way a little excitement was occasioned by an altercation between the conductor and a man who had not fully made up his mind (whether owing to the magnitude or insignificance thereof, we cannot say) how far he intended to ride, and so did not wish to settle for the present. The strife of tongues waxed warm, and the sound of the conflict rose high above the rattle and the din of the train.
The conductor said that if he did not at once pay the fare to some place or other he would have the pleasure of walking there. The man still hesitated, so the official pulled the check-rope, and on the stoppage of the train proceeded to eject the traveller, who at the last moment tendered a $20 gold piece, and told the conductor to take the fare to the next station (some $1.35). The latter declined now to receive the money, and put the man off, leaving him alone in his glory, breathing curses loud and deep.[362] Doubtless the official was justified in so doing, as in a somewhat similar case the court said that even an officer at a ticket office might reasonably object to an offer of a $20 gold piece to pay a fare of $1.35, on account of the trouble and risk involved: and that a person rushing into the cars without a ticket has no reason to expect that he will find the conductor prepared to change a $20 gold piece, for he relies upon receiving tickets from the passengers, or, if money be paid to him instead, he expects that it will be paid with reasonable regard to what is convenient under the circumstances.[363]
I may as well inform the general public here, that it is considered a reasonable condition for railway companies to require passengers to procure tickets before entering the train.[364]
My friend was just beginning to dilate upon the subject of ejecting passengers, when his voice was drowned by a crash, a scream, and a general uprising of our fellow-travellers. I verily thought within myself that there was a collision—that we were off the track—that—that—that, I don’t know what I did not think in the few moments that elapsed before I saw that it was only a fight between some men who had been indulging deeply in that cup which inebriates and brutalizes as well as cheers. The conductor soon arrived and quelled the disturbance. In this case, fortunately, it was not necessary—as it may sometimes be—for him to stop the train, call to his aid the engineer, the firemen, brakesmen and bellicose passengers, and leading the way himself—like some valiant knight of the Middle Ages—expel the disturbers of the peace, or else show by an earnest experiment that to do so was impossible.[365] If this latter contingency were to happen, the conductor must either discontinue the trip, or give the other passengers an opportunity of leaving the cars; otherwise the company will be responsible for the acts of the rioters.[366] A conductor is not bound to wait until some act of violence, profaneness, or other misconduct has been committed before exercising the power reposed in him of excluding or expelling offenders.[367] Of course he is never bound to receive passengers who will not conform to reasonable regulations, or who from their behavior, state of health or person, are offensive to the other travellers.[368]
Carriers of passengers are just as responsible for the misconduct of their living freight as they are for the mismanagement of the train. They must exercise the utmost vigilance in maintaining order—that first of Heaven’s laws—and in guarding passengers against violence; or if not, they must pay for the consequences. In one case, they had to pay for the eye which a passenger lost, through the quarrel of some drunken men.[369] In another, for an arm broken in a shindy between votaries of Bacchus.[370] All disorderly and indecent conduct is to be repressed, and those sons of Belial who are guilty thereof must be excommunicated, or expelled, with Puritanic severity.[371] No one should be permitted to travel in a car, who so demeans himself as to endanger the safety, or interfere with the reasonable comfort and convenience of other passengers. But a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a whited sepulchre, a serpent disguised as an angel of light, cannot be refused transport; nor need a conductor remove a too-far-gone dissenter from the principles of J. B. Gough, if he is neither disorderly nor offensive, nor if he remains quiet after admonition. If there is nothing in the condition, conduct, appearance, or manner of a passenger, from which it can reasonably be inferred that he means mischief, the company will not be liable for any sudden attack he may make upon another passenger.[372]