The Sun.
London, England, 1851-08-15 00:00:00

Qsblltinit 112'6
'
LONDON, FRIDAY, AUGUST 15, 1851

We feel it our duty to direct public attention to
certain portions of the judgment delivered by Mr.
&CEEB, the magistrate, at the Greenwich Police-
court, on Saturday last, in dismissing a charge.
brought by certain of the servants of the South-
E tstern Railway Grmpany against Lord RANBLAGO
and Mr. RowAND for an assault and for obstructing-
them in the execution of their duty. In thus di•
recting the attention of our readers to certain dicta of
Mr. SECKER, we beg it to be distinctly understood
that we cautiously abstain from giving any opinion
on the subject of the charge brought by the railway
servants against Lord RANELAGEI, or on the cross
charge brought by his Lordship against them,
which last will have to be investigated by a
jury, to whom alone it belongs to determine, amidst the
mass of conflicting evidence, to whose statements
and to what extent they choose to attach credit, and
who will possess the great advantage of being enabled
to watch the manner of the witnesses as they re-
spectively give their evidence. The dictum of Mr.
SACKER, however, has nothing whatever to do with
the credibility of the witnesses on one side or on the
other; it proceeds upon the assumption that whosoever
has purchased a railway ticket has thereby acquired
an absolute right to be upon the platform of the
railway, and to force himself into any train into
which it may please him to force himself, and
that, regardless of the fact, that such rushing to the
platform, and such forcing into the train, may, in
many instances must, endanger human life. In giving
his judgment, Mr. SECKEIt states that " the first part
of the transaction is a conflict arising between some
passengers at a railway station, and the officers who
are there placed to execute certain duties," and he
then proceeds as follows :
" With respect to the first, I am called upon to con-
vict two passengers, what their condition in lie may bo
it matters not, for assaulting and obstructing officers of
the railway while is the execution of their duty. In order
to convict them of any such offence, it seems to me that I
must first believe that those officers were in the execution
of their duty, and that, being so, they were obstructed
by the defendants. Now, in my opinion, the officers
were not in the execution of their duty ; and it is for
this reason that I have had it put in evidence that
these parties who presented themselves at the railway,
and who are accused of attacking the officers, are en-
titled by the payment of a certain sum to be carried by
the railway company. By that payment the railtvGy
company contracted an obligation to admit them to the
piny°, m, so that they might avail thmselves of the
liceuse t, travel by their train, which they by such pay-
ment had obtained; consequently, these passengers were
entitled to have free ingress to the station and egress
trom ir,_ in order to make use of the train iu the fulfil-
ment of bat contract. These passengers, then, having
bsen permitted to pass the outer barrier, bad a right to
',xpect that the coast would be c.ear, and that they
w(.uld not find any one ints.rtering with them. 1 , then,
these passengers, having thus acquired this right to
pass, were improperly interfered with, can it be said
that those offic,rs who were guilty of such interference
were in the execution of their dill? I think not. There
fore, with respect to this charge-, iu which I am asked to
clnviet Lord Raneltgh and Mr. Michael Roe and, for
that they did unlawfully and wilfully obstruct William
Price and Thomas Witidows, bsiug • fficers of the South-
Eastern Railway Coi=any, they being iu the due exe-
cution of their ditty, I am of opinion that those nun
were not in the execution of their duty, and they, fore
the information must be dismissed, and I dismiss the
complaint accordingly."
It Mr. SECIEER be right in his judgment, then must
all railway companies in self-defence cease to issue
day-tickets; but we think that on reconsideration Mr.
SECKER himself will be inclined to greatly modify
his conclusions. The purchase of a day-ticket, for
example, gives the purchaser a right of conveyance
from the place of purchase to some other place and
back again within the period to which the ticket is
limited ; it gives him a right of passage across the
platform to the train by which he is to be con-
veyed to the place of his destination, but it is with
the company, and not with the passenger, that the
decision rests as to what that train shall be; and the
right of transit across the platform for a specific pur-
pose, gives no right of abiding on the platform, still
less does it give the ticket-holder any right to force
his way on to the platform when he has been dis.
tinctly told that the train about to start is full, and
that there is no room for him. Let us suppose for a
moment that Mr. SECKER is right in his view, and
then let us see "the confusion worse confounded"
which would in such case be the normal state of every
railway platform in the kingdom. A train comes
up and stops at a station, the persons on
the platform make a general rush and scramble to-
wards it; it is in vain that the officers endeavour to
preserve order, all these persons have paid for their
tickets, and have, by such payment, acquired, iiC•
cording to Mr. SECICER, the right- of remaining upon
the platform, and of having free ingress and egress to
the train ; it is in vain for the passengers already in
the train to remonstrate with the platformers, or to de-
clare that the train is full; the platformers have a right
to intrude themselves, and the police have not, accord-
ing to Mr. ShCKER, any right to interfere to preserve
order. If Mr. SEEKER be right then will every railway
platform become the scene of the most disorderly
and dangerous confusion, then shall we be horrified
by accounts of shocking accidents occurring through
the frantic eagerness and crass ignorance of plat-
formers, wilfully rushing into danger, notwithstand-
ing the remonstrances of the railway offijals, who,
thanks to the decision of Mr. &CZAR, will be unable
to do anything more effectual than to offer remon-
strances, and then will the columns of our
anti-rail way company nnitemporaries be filled
with the indignant remonstrances of persists
who, intending to go to Windsor, insisted upon their
right of enscoucing themselves in the next train,
which proved to be a Southampton one, and of others
who found themselves at Greenwich when they in-
tended to go to Brighton. Such must necessarily be
the result of depriving the railway cfficials of all
right of regulating admission to the platform, and of
giving the purchaser of a ticket immediate right of in-
gress and egress, whether the train about to start be
or be not the one intended for his conveyance. lii
the meantime we would suggest to the directors of
the railways the adoption of a plan which would
do much to prevent the recurrence of any more
RANELAGR adventures. We would suggest that the
passengers should be placed in large waiting-rooms,
in which notice should be posted, whenever a train is
full, that no more persons can be admitted on
the platform, but that another train will
start at such a time, in which precedence
will be given to those then in waiting
over those who may come afterwards. We are certain
that the adoption of some such plan as this would tend
materially to the comfort of the passengers, and
would at the same time facilitate to the officers of the
company the performance of the very onerous duties
which now devolve on them.

We wonder whether any members of the Peace
Congress were present at the recent review given
in Paris, in honour of the London visitors, and
if so, what impressions were made upon their minds
by that splendid display of military power. Up-
wards of 40,000 treops, in the highest condition of
discipline, executing a series of brilliant manoeuvres
with rapidity and precision, to the ecstatic delight
of the countless mass of spectators, must have shown
them rather forcibly that warlike preparations and
warlike ta-te are by no means at a discount in the
capital of France. It can have been no very encou-
raging prospect for the reception of their visionary
projects among our gallant neighbours. A single
city is found to turn out for a field-day almost as
many regular soldiers as ere appropriated to garrison
the entire of the British islands ; and with this visible
display of warlike force, and knowing the immense
resources possessed by the Republic, and by the
other rovers of Europe, we are gravely
besought to reduce our comparatively insignifi-
cant armament to a contemptible handful, and to
leave
ourselves at the mercy of others, relying wholly
in theirsting pacific and fraternal sympathies, and ostenta-
tiously dive
ti ourselves of the it gitimate means of
repelling aggression. As to the idea of maintaining
ihe high position which Et gland holds among the
nations--a position won by the energy and lifeblood
of her 60118—that is, we presume, abhorrent to their