Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1855-09-04
WARRINGTON NEWS AND GOSSIP.

days since, or towards indemnifying those rem
dered father, mother, husband or brotherless
at the same time and by the same cause. The
Journal of Commerce, in an article showing
the Justice of holding them responsible for
what they have done in this case, adopts the
intimation first produced in other newspapers,
that they have cunningly prevented legislation
by the General Assembly of New Jersey SINH
liar to that which has been enacted by every
other State in the Union, by which such cor
porations are made responsible in dollars and
cents for whatever damage they may infict
on individuals
We have no idea, in the present rational
state of the public mind upon the subject of
holding railroad corporations responsible for
the injuries they inHict on the public after that
fashion, that any statutes at war with the plain
principles of the common law, they may have
been able to purchase from the venal Legis-
lature they have SO long owned, will be Judged
| by the Supreme Court to be operative against
| the rights of citizens of other States of the
Union. For the last twenty years that corpo-
ration, by sheer and avowed bribery, has En-
tirely controlled the New Jersey Legislature,
causing them not only to become the most cor
rupt legislative body in the worldly in
ducing them to buy and sell legislation, like
besf in the market-but they have bought from
| them the enactment Of statutes which are
plainly violative of the constitution Of the Uni
ted States, in laying special tax on the citi-
Gems of other States. by specially exempting
the citizens of their own State from its opera
ton.
In that action they have justly become the
great beacon, warning the people of the United
States against the dangerous tendencies Of
mammoth joint stock companies with special
privileges trenching on the equal rights of all
others, and bargaining with their influence
and money not only for more special privileges,
but for verdicts and judgments against law,
reason, and the rights of all with whom they
come in contact before courts and juries. From
one end of the Union to the other, chartered
joint stock companies stand in bad odor,
| through intrigues with the New Jersey Legis.
lature of the Camden ard Amboy Company,
as now constituted, with that patent Demo-
crat, Com. Stockton, at its head. Through its
success in this, work, its stock is worth fifty per
| centum above par; showing that its profits are
| enormous Yet, though doing heavier (more
| proftable) passenger business than any other
similar company in the United States, it has
been found impossible to induce it to establish
ordinary guards against the sacrifice oflife on
| the part Of those who travel over its road.
One Of the victims of the late catastrophe,
| a MIR. Gillespie, who, with bis wife, his only
| near connection, now lays at the point of death
| from injuries received On that occasion, we
| hear has made will, leaving property, val
| ued at something more than half a million, to
| be expended for the benefit of society, by ded
| icating it to defray the cost of suits brought
| by the manned On that occasion, and the heirs
of the killed, to obtain proper indemnif,atiOn
from the company. The public at largo will
indeed rejoice if they are made to pay even
| the original cost of their road, for the grand
result at Burlington of their many outrages on
law, justice, honesty, truth, legislative integ-
rity, and, in this case, on the lives Of the COM
munity.
| The Spaakership.-Sincet the defeat Of Gen.
| eral Cullom, in whose favor we have every
reason to believe that Mr.. Campbell, of Ohio,
had agreed to relinquish his pretensons to the
| Speakership Of the next House Of Representa-
l tives, the "well- posted men all over the
country have been at loss to determine
whose prospects for the position are best. Mr..
Havens's pretensions are certainly assuming
more Importance. But for his late adhesion
| given to the project for the repeal Of the Ne
braska bill, of which policy he was decided
| opponent up to the close of the last session, ne
might have commanded a respectable south
| ern vote, in an emergency. The fact that he
and his immediate clique at home lin New
York; have become repealers, however, settles
the question that he may not calculate on
| southern votes even in his own know Nothing)
ranks; as southern Know Nothingism in the
next House is destined to eat most FIRE, or we
are very much mistaken.
Of all the Congressional friends Of Mr.. Fill
more, none other is so obnoxious to Mr. Sew
ard and his supporters, as we'll as to the party
| of which Mr.. Giddings has the honor of being
the leader in the House hall, as Mr. Haveps.
No movement, on his part, identifying himself
with the cry for the repeal Of the Nebraska
bill, can possibly reconcile them to him their
bitterness against him as the recent leader of
what they politely term the " Northern Wing
doughfaces," being unconquerable-irrecon-
cilsble. Though some noise may be made
over his prospects, not long hence, the public
may certainly understand, in advance, that
it is destined to amount to nothing-literally
nothing-when the voting comes on.
MIR. Washburn, Of Maine, would discharge
the duties Of the position with ability. But
his ultraism, as party man, must defeat all
hope that he can carry 4 Northern vote out
side Of "the Republican party in the Hall;
while his so well known anti-slavery or free
soil proclivities arc an insurance against his
reception of single Southern vote from either