The Sun.
London, England, 1870-06-17 00:00:00

THE LOSS OF THE CITY OF BOSTON.

The Court of Common Pleas, yesterday, refused to make
absolute a rule setting aside an order of Mr. Justice
ißlackburn for a Mr. Jenkins to answer an
nterrogatory whether he wrote a letter to the
Ttmes asserting that the Inman Steamship Company sent
the City of Boston to sea overladen, and with defective
screw power. It was contended on behalf of Mr. Jenkins
that the answer, if in the affirmative, would tend to
criminate him, and, therefore, the Court was asked to
disallow it ; but it was held there were special
circumstances in the case to warrant Mr. Jus-
tice Blackburn in making his order. Mr. Jenkins
had, in an affidavit asking for a special commission to
take evidence at Halifax, acknowledged that he had
received the letter in question from a Halifax merchant.
The rule was discharged.

COMPENSATION FOR RAILWAY
ACCIDENTS.

The select committee appointed to inquire into the
advisability of altering the law with regard to giving com-
pensation for injuries caused by railway accidents, resumed
its sittings yesterday, when

Captain O'Brien, of the North-Eastern Railway Com-
pany, explained to the committee the character of the
investigation made by the directors in the event of an
accident. He thought that there were greater facilities for
carrying out the block system on the Metropolitan Rail-
way.than on any other. It would be impossible to carry it out
so completely on the North Eastern as in the Metropolitan
line on account of the mixed character of the traffic, the
necessity for shunting goods and mineral trains, and from
the amount of business to be done at the various stations.
In principle the block system was quite perfect, but the
difficulty lay in the application of the principle.
Almost all the accidents at stations took place
from a disregard of the signals. There were many
stations in which the present system worked so well, that
it was thought unnecessary to interfere with it. The
possibility of making the system perfect assumed the
whole case, but it brought with it its own
dangers. In point of fact, if the danger signals
were done away with on the line with which
he was connected, he should not like to retain
his situation, with the increased responsibility. He did
not agree with Mr. Oakley, that the block system would
prevent all accidents between stations, because in one
case in which it existed there was an accident ; but his
impression of what Mr. Oakley had said was that the
block system would prevent one passenger train from
running into another.

By Mr. Price : He did not think that the fact of the
block system being adopted on a line would in the least
influence the jury in the amount of damages they would
assess. He thought they simply acted on the principle
that it was the case of a rich company and a poor man.
By Mr. Lefevre : If a servant was injured and the man
was fit for work, they tried to keep him in his employ-
ment. If it were a case of death, they assisted his
family, but there was no legal claim on them, they looked
upon it as a case of charity. He could not say that there
was any specific improvement made in consequence of
accidents, because they mostly arose from negligence.
They were, however, always improving their line, and
some of the most valuable inquiries had taken
place in cases in which the accident had been
very slight, or had been altogether avoided, but
the system, if duly carried out, was quite sufficient
to ensure the efficient working of the line with a mini-
mum of accidents. In some cases the men were employed
a great number of hours, but he could not give an average
in consequence of the variation in the nature of their
duties. In some cases the duties were so slight that a
man might go on for twenty-four hours, but in others,
such, for instance, as the case of the men
who had to attend to the points at the
entrance of the King's-cross tunnel, he should
think six hours would be long enough. Certainly fifteen
hours would be too great a strain on him.
Mr. R. T. Mansell, the manager of the North London
Railway, stated that he had filled that situation for eight
years, and that previously he had filled the situation of
traffic superintendent on the Chester and Holyhead line,
and the London and North Western Railway. Mr.
Allport, manager of the Midland Railway Company, gave
evidence of a similar character. All the witnesses men-
tioned individual cases in which enormous damages had
been awarded to persons for supposed internal injuries,
but which turned out to be nothing at all.
The committee adjourned at four o'clock.