Morning journal and courier., 1881-11-30
LOCAL NEWS.
Railroad Commissioners.

The Lives and Limbs Of Brakemen-A
 Hearing Yesterday - About Thirty
 Specimens Examined-The Next Legfs-
 lature and the Bralkemen.
 The railroad commissioners held Q hear ing at their office in the Capitol at Hartford yesterday. There was busy scene present. ed. All the commissioners were present sur rounded by models of car couplers-car couplers to the right of them, left of them, and in front of them. The tables were laden with car couplers; the floor was filtered with couplers. There were inventors pres- ent from all parts of the United States, and each, either personally or by representative, exhibited his model. explaining it's workings and answering questions with explanatory replies concerning them. The three com- missioners were in session hearing statements and examining models from ten o'clock till one, when they adjourned for dinner, and at two they resumed the work. stenographic reporter from New York was at the commis sioners' tables, and Clerk Utley, of the rail- road commissioners, was constantly busy re- ceiving new arrivals of inventors and open ing telegrams announcing that more were en route to be present at the hearing. The world is to be the gainer by this hearing and the skill of the inventors, for Connecticut has decided substantially to pass law re- quiring some approved coupler to be adopted for use on the roads in the State. Hardly newspaper can be picked up which has not some item telling of a mutilated brakeman-or his death being caused by be- ing damned between the cars while coupling them The array of such accidents is sicken- ing and the State of Connecticut has done humanitarian act in causing the whole sub ject of car couplers to be thus investigated by the railroad commissioners, the commis- sioners to report at the next Gent rAl Assem- bly the result of their labors. It is estimated by a contemporary that at least ten brake men are killed in the United States every day, or 3,650 during the year. Twice that number are set down as injured while on duty, making ,000 brakemen who are killed or injured during the year. Life insurance companies generally decline to take risks upon the lives of brakemen on freight trains at any rate and charge an extsa per cent. on brakemen of passenger trains. The reason given for the discrimination be- tween the two classes of brakemen IS that linen on passenger trains have great many lives intrusted to their care, and consequent 1y have a greater responsibility resting on them, and hence are not so liable to meet with accidents" Accident insurance can be obtained by brakemen on freight trains, but. the rates are much higher than for men en- gagged in the ordinary callings of life. A Tpreferred risk, :" such as merchants, sales men (not traveling), lawyers editors, etc., is taken for about one-fourth what it costs to insure freight brakeman.
 One of the couplers shown yesterday was the automatic cam acting car coupler, the in- vention by W. L. Everit, Esq, of this city. It is model of simplicity in it's working, and beside the great merit of simplicity is auto matic and adjustable to different cars of diff ferent heights. It was freely accorded by observers a high place among the many shown and is highly skillful invention. Another New Haven exhibit of much merit was the Hohenstein car coupler, shown by