Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1871-08-01
woRCEsTE R
TUESDAY. AUGUST 1, 1871,


A calamity more distressing than tina
which appalled, New York on Sunday has hard
ly ever occurred in that city. 1t was terrible il
the number of its victims and the wretched con
ditiou of Disagreement and agony in which i
left those who survived the explosion. The
cause is not yet clearly ascertained, and per
haps the official inquiries of the coroner and
the Inspector of steamboats, may fail TO reveal
it. 1t is impossible yet to state the total mum
Der killed. Some confusion is introduced into
the accounts by the attempt to discriminate be
tween those killed instantaneously, or whose
life was extinct when the bodies were recovered
and those hopelessly injured, who survived in
agony only few minutes, or an hour or two at
most When the latter are included among tn c
wounded the list of killed is correspondngly
reduced. Without regarding the distinction,
for which there is no reason, certainly not less
than fifty, probably not far short of twice as
many, have lost their lives by this feanully sud-
den and painful calamity.
As in all such cases the air is full of clamors
for a victim. Somebody by his carelessness,
ignorance or incompetence, must have been the
cause of all this suffering, and the public voice
demand that he should be found and heavily
punished for his fault. This demand is regu-
larly made whenever disaster of unusual
magnitude shocks people out of their habitual
indifference; but the demand, though clamor-
Gus, is not nearly so resolute and pertinacious
as it seems. The public seems for time an
angry and memorable avenger, whom it is inn
possible successfully to temporize, whose wrath
ba NV mia
ishment inflicted upon the real or apparent
offender. But, in fact, the public rage, genuine
enough at the time, is very transitOry passion.
Its clamors will die away of themselves in
few days, even if absolutely nothing is done to
pacify it. The public has generous instincts
and capacity for righteous anger that does it
credit, but it is too easy tempered and too busy
to see that the indictments registered in its
wrath, are followed up to the punishment of
the offender.
After every casualty accompanied with much
loss of life, we hear from many quarters a de-
mand for investigation and punishment, with
the assurance that if a severe penalty were in
Tariably exacted from the person found to be in
fault, such disasters. would be much less fire.
quent. The demand is very reasonable, but the
inference that punishment, however severe, fol-
lowing inevitably upon every instance of an un-
intended but ayoidable disaster would greatly
diminish the number of such calamties,
seems to us a mistake. 1t is not the casu-
atty, but the heedlessness which caused it,
that is culpable; the latter may be, and proba-
bly, has been repeated hundred of times before it
proved fatal. The offender has no desire to in
jure people; he does not expect to do it; very
likely he is himself one of the victims Of his
own folly; if he escapes, mo one is more dis
tressed than he at the appalling consequences of
his acts; penalty to be visited upon the author
of fatal accident has no terrors for him, for he
does not expect to be exposed to it. He runs
his chances of the punishment as well as of the
other consequences of his conduct.
much surer way to prevent the occurrence
of such disasters is to make heavily punishable
all earelessness or improper conduct of any per-
son sharing the control of a public conveyance
that might possibly cause death or personal in
Jury, even though no such result has followed;
that is, impose the penalty upon the criminal
conduct, and not make its infliction depend upon
contingency which may or may not result
from such conduct. In applying this princi-
pie 10 Steamboats,, each should be fire.
quently inspected, and, if it is found in a
dangerous condition, the engineer and the own
ers, if they knew of its condition, should be sent
to the penitentiary. In like manner an engineer
who lets the water in his boiler get dangerously
low, or the pressure dangerously high, the
switehman who leaves his switch misplaced, the
signal man who omits to give the proper signal
even though the fault is discovered before any
evil consequences ensue, should be made liable
to severe penalty, which should be serupulous-
ly exacted. The certainty or the strong proba-
bility that the punishment would follow the
fault, might make men in responsible positions
more careful and travelling safer.