The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1871-08-29
Railroad and Steamboat slaugnrer-Re-
corder Hnckett ON the Responsibility of
Common Carriers.

corder Hackett ON the Responsibility of
Common Carriers.
1t was only yesterday morning that we gave
our readers the particulars of the railroad
accidents In Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania
and now We have to add to them and to the
explosions before reported the disaster to the
Ocean Wave. What shall we think Of these
calamities, involving the sacrifice sometimes
Of a hundred, sometimes of fifty lives, and fol-
lowing 80 quickly one after another9 They
are certainly not the acts of God, in that sense
which frees man from any responsibility for
their occurrence. Nothing but the general
use of boilers like that which recently ex-
ploded on the westfeld-a boiler which was
at once old, wornout, cracked and patched
| and Of the most criminal careessness and
neglect in the running Of railway trains can
account for them. All idea Of responsibility
to the public and everything like
fear of justice seem to have for
saken the minds Of the persons at
the head of the powerful corporations which
control the carrying business of the country.
Looking only at their own interests and seek
ing only their own profits the officers of rail-
road and steamboat companies set themselves
above the law and speculate in the lives of tho
people. In consequence of this railroad and
steamboat disasters are common occurrence
and yet nobody Is punished unless, indeed, in
the occasional case of q subordinate compelled
to suffer for his saperiors. Within month
the deaths reported from these causes in diff
ferent parts Of the country have reached
nearly three hundred, and we have no assur-
ance that during the next month the mortality
will not be equally fearful. These facts
prompt us to demand the most thorough
inquiry into every disaster of the kind, and
the speedy and rigorous punishment of all
persons, rich and poor alike, who may be
shown to be responsible for the slaughter.
No proposition can be palmer than that the
responsibility of the managers and officers of
railroad and steamboat corporations will never
be properly appreciated until severe punish
ment is meted out to some of the most culpa-
BILE for the massacres which have become so
common. The Westfeld horror, and the
recent calamity on the Eastern Railroad, near
Revere, are the latest instances of this species
of homicide in peculiarly marked and mex
cusable degree, unless, indeed, the Ocean
Wave disaster is to be added to them. The
culpability and carelessness, or, rather, the
carelessness which makes culpability, could
not be more clearly fixed in either case. In
the one instance a patched and cracked boiler
was used by the steamboat company, the lives
of the passengers being daily imperilled till
the calamity came in all it's terrible details;
in the other train crowded with people was
allowed to go out of the depot at Boston half
an hour late and another and faster train to
follow in hot pursuit, neither the officers of
the company nor of the trains taking the
slightest precaution against accident. The
results of this criminal carelessness in both
cases have been told at great length in the
HERALD, our paper bearing evidence to-day of
the heedlessness and wickedness Of these
slaughters. And it yet remains to be seen
whether the Mobile slaughter was not as
wicked and needless as the others.
| The history of railroad and steamboat sac
! cdents" in this country presents long and
melancholy array Of woundings and deaths.
The McGill disaster on the Mississippi last
winter was terrible; but it fell short of the
horror of the West6eld explosion and of the
burning of the steamer Henry Clay on the
Hudson River in 1852 In the latter case
there were not less than seventy persons
killed, including among the number the Hon.
Stephen Allen, who had been Mayor of this
city, and Miss Hawthorne, of Salem, sister
of the distinguished novelist. On the finding
of the Coroners jury the captain and officers
of the steamer were brought to trial in Octo-
Der, 1853, before Judge Ingersoll, of the
United States Circuit Court, and, after trial
of fourteen days, they were acquitted. The
their passengers while racing with the steamer
Armenia, and whether they were guiltless, as
| the jury determined, it matters little, except
to say that many persons still express dissat-
isfaction with that verdict. In the case of the
Westfeld we trust no room for dissatisfaction
will be left. The character of Recorder
Hackett is the best guarantee that, in the trial
of Mr.. Vanderbilt and the persons indicted
with him, there will be, in the Recorders own
words, ''no room for after reproaches from
any quarter"
Recorder Hacketts charge to the Grand
Jury yesterday was as bold as 1t was neces-
sary. He is determined fearlessly to examine
into the culpabilty of the more educated per-
sons behind the engineer as well as into the
criminality of the engineer himself. Recog-
nizing the duty of these men as common car
rers, and fully aware that subordinates are
too often made the scapegoats for erring Off
Gals, he insists upon holding the officials, as
well as their subordinates, to the exercise of
the utmost vigilance, declaring that they have