Spirit of the age., 1853-06-01
The late Railroad Disasters
In contrast.

On no subject have we ever noticed such
condemnation exhibited through
The Press, from one extremity of our country
TO the other, as has been manifested concern
ing the destruction of human life by the re-
cent Railroad disasters. The indignation of
our people has been stirred up to its very
quicksands, and loud and boisterous is the
cry for vengeance upon the guilty perpetra-
tors The life of the chief actors in the /
bloody scene has been boldly cried for, law
fully or unlawfully, by great many-every
Director of the Road is proclaimed guilty of
a participation in the shocking tragedy, and
should be tried as accessory to the wholesale
murder, cry another wing of the press-visit
upon them the heaviest pecuniary penalties,
even to the payment of ten thousand dollars
for every life destroyed, and five thousand
for every one injured, demand third wing,
and all, every where, every body, is down on
them, ready to infict the most summary and
condign punishment. This is right, and we
unite in the demand for retribution. But
we have a destroyer in our midst who is daily
sacrificing more human lives than have been
destroyed by these awful disasters, and yet
we hear no thunderings of indignation-see
no signs of aroused vengeance-witness no
concern for the hundreds who are hourly
making the plunge through the draw-bridge
on the Railroad of Appetite into the dark
waters of everlasting destruction! How un-
accountably strange is all this apathy and
criminal Indifference to human life
In Connecticut, where the last most fear
full disaster occurred, the Legislature being
in session, his Excellency Gov. Seymour,
could not find language sufficiently strong to
express his horror and Indignation, and with
which to impress upon the lawmakers the
necessity for prompt action and severe pen
alties for such reckless sacrifices of human
life. All right and commendable, again.
But few days previous, the people of Con-
necticut memorialized the Legislature to pro-
tect them from the murders constantly in
ficted upon them by the Liquor trafc- then,
forsooth, Gov. Seymour could see that the
rights Of private citizens were about being
invaded-laws of doubtful and dangerous ten.
denotes were asked for, and should receive
no sanction from liberal minded Statesmen
What mockery What an insult to amen.
lightened free people! And some of the Press
of North Carolina are quoting such senti
ments with commendation, and holding them
up as patterns for us to be governed by; and
some Of our North Carolina Legislators cal
their fellow-Citizens " fanatics" who are ir
favor Of abolishing the evil by law. Now
we would ask, what man would object to
law, which should forever prohibit such &C
cidents as we had on the New York and New
Haven railway, above referredto? Would any
man object? Is there within the boundary
of our nation an individual who would op
pose law Of that description? Could there
be one found, who would stand up and say
that the man who would prevent all such ac
: cidents on railroads, or on steamboats,, o.
anywhere else, should be looked upon as
fanatic? We apprehend not. We canno
suppose how it could be; although this move
ment of ours is denominated all over the lam
by certain cliques, and certain influences, an
certain journals as fanatical These Raj
. road disasters must not be passed over light
: ly. So says the whole press, and out of eve
Il ry pulpit proceeds the same doctrine, and ey
/. cry gentleman of the Bar, and the entire il
dietary, from the Chief Justice of the 81
preme Court Of the United States, to tn
humblest associate Judge in any county Coul
!, of the land they all say, let this thing b
t stopped. Just think of the loss of life an
e laceration of limb by that accident on th;
o occasion. Some fifty Of our fellow men we1
o instantly dashed into eternity, as though the
h spirits had been winged with lightning, |
r carry them before Gods Bar. One hundre
$ and forty-six were either killed or maine
y for life 1t is not the thousandth part of IL
o tythe compared with what Run is doing
y our country day after day There a.
l. three times that many murdered by the ru
Ie traffic every year in North Carolina