The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1871-08-17
Tho Conclusion Of the westneid Inquest
A Righteous Verdict.

Righteous Verdict.
After six days investigation Of the most
! exhaustive, searching and careful character,
before Coroner Keenan, and a jury of eleven
experts, verdict has been rendered censur-
surfing, without any attempt at equivocation,
the officers Of the Staten Island Ferry Com
pany for the lives lost and the hideous multi
atoms inflicted in the terrible explosion on
board the Westfeld The verdict could not
have been couched In stronger words, and
Coroner's warrants were at once issued for
the arrest of the President, Superintendent
aud engineer of the company. We are thus
promised that these men, whose hands are black
| with the stain Of hundred murders-cOm-
mitted, too, from that meanest Of all motives,
the greed of lucre-shall not only answer for
their guilty negligence by pecuniary penalties,
bat shall also he erralgned before criminal
tribunal, and answer for their misdeeds at the
peril Of their liberty and, perhaps, even OF
their lives. The testimony already taken will
be at once placed in the hands of the District
Attorney, who will put it into proper shape
and present the case to the Grand Jury.
These gentlemen will, doubtless, return true
bill of indictment. We have no wish to advo-
cate vindictivs prosecution, but hungry and
INSCRIPTIONS milllonnaires must DO taught in
some efectual way that they must not gamble
away the lives of their fellow citizens against
the cost Of replacing damaged boiler.
This verdict comes at singularly oppor-
tune time, so far as these individual culprits
are concerned. About week ago the in
spectors examined another of the Staten Island
boats-the Middletown-and discovered that
its boiler was In even a more alarming state of
decay than that of the Westfeld before the
explosion. This curiously corroborated Mr..
vanderbilts voluntary confession, that the
boiler Of the Westfeld was in his opinion, the
best on any of the boats Of the company. The
Middletown boiler was so rotten that slight
tap of the inspectors hammer In several places
crashed through the plates of iron. This took
place only week ago and, having been duly
chronicled in the newspapers and commented
upon, it was generally supposed that the Mid
dletown would not be used again until she had
been re6tted with new boiler and thoroughly
overhaued and repaired. But the managers
of the company are too hardened by long
familiarity with the crime of risking other peo-
pies lives TO indulge In any such weak-minded
folly. Yesterday morning, only few hours
before the giving in by an impartial jury of
this ri ghteous and deserved verdict this same
boat, with the same old boiler, cobbled over
with few additional patches, was again put
on the ferry. Scarcely ever was there more
impudent defiance than this flung down
to an awakened and indignant public.
Nothing apparently can teach these
men common honesty and common
humanity short of term in the State Prison.
or, in cases of aggravated guilt-such guilt as
would be involved in a fatal explosion on
the Mddletown-the ignominious death upon
the scaffOld of an assassin. We hope, too,
that in this instance there will be NO yielding
to influence, political or pecuniary, in favor of
the more wealthy culprts. We want to see the
jus! penalty of the crim1 visited upon every
guilty head; but it would be wicked and
shameful infamy to punish the poor ignorant
negro engineer with heavy term of imprison-
ment, while his employers are allowed to 60
scot free.
We look upon this verdict as grand and
imposing vindication of the American people
from the charge 80 often brought against them
Of being Indifferent to the sanctity of human
life Sneers at this assumed trait in our
national character are almost daily launched
against us in every European journal that
speaks out the Old World distrust of free
institutions. 'You pirate about liberty" say
they, ''and you have it, Your poor citizens
are free to kill each other In the public streets,
and your rich citizens are free to risk for
gain hundreds of lives in dilapidated steam
boats or over rotten railroad bridges But
the true cause of this terrible insecurity of
life has been not our inhumanity, but our
excessive good nature as people. We pity
the victim of brutal ARRAY; and our SEN
sibilities are wrung by the spectacle of
hidecus holocaust such as that of
the Westfeld. But when we come to
punish the parties responsible for such crimes
our good nature again steps in, and we transfer
our sympathy from the victim to his assassin.
We are afraid that In a couple of months time,
if Mr.. Vanderbilt and his fellow officials are
convicted of criminal negligence and are SEN
fenced to some heavy penalty, they will have
vast number of sympathetic apologists, even
among the very men who now express the
profoundest detestation of their crime. 1t is
virtue to be merciful but it is vicious
injustice to the murdered dead to overflow
with leniency to cold-blooded monsters who,
so far from repenting of their former offences,
complacenty run the hazard of repeating
them.
The recommendations of the jury embody
pretty well all the salient points esta blished in
the testimony brought before both the Coroner
and thu Sunarviany Tnsnacfnrs Tho hmm a,