The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1865-09-04

Railroad and 0teombOat Massacre ana
Coronsrs' Juries-Thres Recent YER
diets.
Tho twelve men who sat four days to in
quire into the facts Of The disaster ON the Long
Island Railroad have concluded their labors
and have given Us, instead Of . verdict, seven
opinions. These opinions are models of
amiable nothingness, and every one Of them
that hints shadow Of oulpability il immedi-
ately followed by another, Of equal weight,
generating the accused person. There is one
point upon which the jury appeared to be of
one mind-that is, that the five men were
killed by collision Of two trains. This re-
markable point was the only one upon which
they could agree. One little knot Of the jurors
had backbone enough to say that the collision
was produced by the carelessness Of the CON-
ductor and engineer Of the mail train, where
upon an individual juror jumps up and shouts,
~ exonerate from all blame the conductor Of
the mail train and the engineer of the said
train" And 80 these twelve go through the
case, making little deeper the common inn
preston that Of all our social shams there is
none so lamentably painful as that Of the coro-
ner's jury.
Five men, 1t IL tolerably certain, came to viO-
lent deaths by this disaster, and even the rail-
road company will admit that they were not
killed in the regular course of railroad bust
ness Encouragement and arrangement Of the
regular order must, therefore, be assumed from
this fact, and the prominent feature Of this de-
was that the mail train was en- the
track near Jamaica ct time when 1t had no
right there whatever. This is said also Of the
express train; but that train was only two min
utes, II any, out Of its regular time, and the
rules allow four minutes for variation in
watches. That train, theh, b baanaeless; but no
such thing. can be said q the other Tho mail
train had no right to b. whore il was at that
time. or within thirty minutes o. that time, and
it's being there was the main cause Of the dis
aster. Whose fault is it that It was theref II
is the fault of the president Of the road, of the
Of the road and Of the conduc-
tor Of that train--assuming that conductor
has the same control Of train that captain
has OF q steamboat. The train could only have
been there by fhilure to observe the printed
rules, and the president and superintendent are
to blame for failure in the observance of those
rules. II appears that they winked at such
failures every day, though conscious that every
time . train LEFT OF its ume the, lives Of every
one on II were put In jeopardy. This was
suoh . notorious delinquency Of the manage
ment that they cannot plead any special over
sight for this case. Il was common fault that
lay with those persons to correct, and they
did mot correct It. Knowing all the possible
consequences they permitted this laxisy in rela-
ton to rules. and BY such permission become
responsible for tho consequences; and one Of
them is this accident
The conductor Of the mail train Is responsi-
bio, because he clearly and palpably ran his
train on chance, when he knew that that
chance involved the possibility of Q collision,
and the possible murder Of every man, woman
and child on the two trains. Not only has no
conductor the right TO take suoh chance, but to
take it indicates Q reoklessness Of thought and
q disregard of responsibilities that is next to
murder. And this il just the important point
in relstion to railroad disastsrs We must, by
some means or another, correct this reckless
habit of thought on the part Of mon in suOh po-
sitions, and We must give them good reason to
weigh the consequences to themselves, II not to
the passengers When they are tempted to
take the chances and 60 ahead, knowing that it
is doubtful whether 10 do 20 u safe, the con-
sideration that any little misadventure will fall
heavily on them may make them favor the
safe side This conductor ran his train without
the margin Of minute. He counted that he
could get TO Jamaica in fourteen minutes. and
he knew that the express train would leave
that place In fourteen minutes. He counted so
closely that there was no possible room for the
variation of watches, although he knew that
four minutes ought to be so allowed at that
very point. If he had allowed there the four
minutes required by tho rules he would have
soon that he only had ten minutes in which to
traverse q space that required fourteen. He
would have stayed at Winfield, and been safe
Bat he chose the other plan and went ahead
and this conductor one juryman "exonerstes, y
and ten consider Careless" .,....,.
The verdict In the Arrow case Is also made
up Of nothing stronger than oensure. The jury
"criminally censures" the inspectors for giving
certificate, and censures the owners Of thu
boat for "gross oarelessness" in using suci
boilers. If the jury consider that Il was "gros'
carelessness" on the part Of the owners OF tn
boat to use the boilers that were In her, they
must suppose that the owners were aware
the imperfect condition Of the boilers, ant
knew that they were not safe. Otherwise Their
was no carclessness, for 1t was not mere ail
ure TO notice the condition Of the boilers, rs tn
inspectors evidence shows But II the owner
we're aware Of tho state Of the boilers. and ye
ran their boat full Of passengers every day,
"csrelessnesp the word for IT. Or ii careless