The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-04-12 00:00:00

MILTON V. HARGREAVES.

Mr. WORTLEY opened the pleadings and Mr. COWLING
stated the case for the plaintiff. The plaintiff in this case
was William Hulton, Esq., a gentleman of considerable pro-
perty, residing at Hulton ; and' the defendant, Mr. Har-
greaves, is a carrier on the line of the Liverpool -and Man-
chester Railway. Mr. Hargreaves was in the habit of con-
veying goods along the railway which passes from Bolton
through Leigh to the junction with the Liverpool and Man-
chester line at Kenyon. Mr. Hulton had extensive collieries
and coke works at Leigh, and was in the habit of attaching
his coke waggons to Mr. Hargreaves's train, and in that way
sending them to Manchester by contract, Mr. Hargreaves
finding the locomotive power and attendants for his engine
and waggons. Mr. Hulton's empty waggons were also sent
by Mr. Hargreaves's train back to Leigh, in order to be re-
loaded. On the morning of the 30th November, 1837, Mr.
Hargreaves's train, with about fifteen waggons, left Man-
chester about a quarter-past six o'clock ; and when they got
to one portion of Chat Moss (alio& six milei on the way),
the axle of one of the carriages broke, and, of course, there
was a stoppage. In the course of a very short time, the
Grand Junction train, Which left' MancheSter at half-past six
o'clock, came up, and came into collision with Mr. Hulton's
waggons, which were in the rear of Mr. Hargreaves's train,
and materially dathaged'several of them ; and the action was
brought for the recovery °Nile amount paid for repairing
them. Three witnesses, the engineer, guard, and fireman of
the Grand Junction train; stiffed that when they got to Chat
Moss', with the-Birmingham -train, it was not until they were
within 30 or 40 yards of the disabled train, that they heard
the engineer of the Bolton train sliduting. He instantly shot
off the steam, and put on the break ; but could not stop the
train till the collision took place.
Mr. AI.i.XANDER (with whom was Mr. WIGHTMAN) ad-
dressed the jury for the defendant, and in doing so, contend-
ed that the accident was not owing to the negligence of the
defendant's servants. The fact, he believed, would turn out
to be that the servants of Mr. Hargreaves, having left Man-
chester a short time before the Birmingham train, when they
broke down on the moss, were on the look-out for the train
coming, and saw it at a considerable distance. One of them
(the fireman) took a small hand lamp, and proceeded a short
distance on the road for the purpose of making a signal to
the engineer of- the advancing train to stop. The light-got
extinguished, upon which he took the large signal lamp from
the last waggon, and ran two or three hundred yards on the
road to make- -another sig,nal. On the other hand, the en-
gineer of the Grand- Junction train, having no reason to ex-
pect an obstruction, would most probably not be on the
look-out.

The learned„gentleman called the fireman and engineer of
Mr: Hargreaves, who both imputed the blame (if any) to the
servants- bf the'Gi•and Junction Company. •
His Lc•Rnsiiwp, summed up the evidence on both sides ;
and at live minufes:past foUr o'clock, the jury retired to con-
sider their verdict. • .

The jury yre, at their own request, taken up to the Judge's
lodgings, about eight o'crock. They gave in a verdict for
the plaintiff on the first !issue and for the defendant on the
• second. : • - -