Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1873-12-12
The Right to Sit.

There is no doubt whatever in any mind
but that of a railway director, of the pas
senger's equitable right to the usual sit
ting accommodation on a train wherein
he has paid his fare. And at the rate at
which judicial decisions on the subject
are accommodating, there will soon be as
81 little doubt of his legal right. The ques-
ton lately came up IN an Indiana court,
with the result of confirming former pre-
cedents The passenger in this case, find
ing all the cars of the train on which he
had embarked completely filled, refused
to give up his ticket unless he was pro-
vided with a seat To this bold defiance
the conductor made the usual response by
stopping the train, and causing this obsti-
nate, recusant, and rash contemner OF the
divine right of railway corporations to be
pitched out, with his baggage, upon de-
serted part of the road. For this little in
diligence of arbitrary power on the part
of its agents, the railway company had
the pleasure of paying $4,000 in damages,
although it appears in evidence that no
seat could have been furnished the plain
tiff, in consequence of the crowded condi-
ton of the cars. The court ruled that the
purchase of ticket was in effect the pur-
"a chase of a seat, and that having taken the
passengers fare the company was bound
to provide him with the usual and proper
accommodation.
We wish that the determined stand of
this Indiana plaintiff had more imitators.
AS we have said, the principle on which
he won his case is generally conseded,
e and is, indeed, founded on common sence
and common justice. as we'll as common
law. The passenger buys his ticket with
the understanding and expectation that
he is to have seat for his money, and the
company sells it knowing it to be taken
with that proviso But they count upon
the timidity or sluggishness so character.
istic of the American public, to enable
them to break their contract with impuni-
ty, and they do so break it constantly
with entire indifference to right or justice.
Few persons SO cheated have the nerve to
do more than urge feeble remonstrance,
which is quickly silenced by threat of
election Fewer still, having braved the
risk and unpleasantness of the alternative
threatened, have patience or wealth enough
to carry their grievances through the
courts.
Thus this wrong has become so fortified
by usage and prescription that passengers
%. SO put upon hardly realize that they are
wronged, and conductors have become
educated into the notion that in enforcing
the imposition they are exercising an I'M
questionable right And so far has this
spirit of submission on the one side justi-
fed the spirit of encroachment on the
other that as is we'll known, on one of the
roads leading from this city it is COM
mon practice to curtail the ordinary sit
ting accommodation on its most crowded
trains, that passengers may be forced into
special high-priced cars, where seats are
given them at an exorbitant advance on
the legal rate of fare. And on this, as on
other roads, suburban residents we'll know
it is common experience for way -passen-
gers to have to stand through an entire
journey Of one, two or three hours. 1t is
fair to admit that Inconvenience of this
sort may often result from an honest mis-
calculation on the part of the officials, for
which they are not really to blame. But
their honesty in such cases would be less
doubtful if they received protest or COM
plant in a more becoming spirit. For
such miscalculations the company, not
the public, should suffer But we never
yet heard of an instance where company
Offered to refund to passenger, with
whom it had thus broken faith, the value
OF the seat out of which he had been de-
frauded, or of conductor who failed to
eject such passenger upon his refusal to
pay. Therefore, we believe that if this
Indiana example were more generally fol-
lowed, such miscalculations would occur
less often, or, if they occurred, would be
accepted more tolerantly, if not remedied
more QuiCkly,-N Y Times,