The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1883-07-20
A Sleeping.Car Decision.

The recent decision of a Western
court that passenger whose money is
stolen while he is asleep in sleeping-car
is entitled to recover from the railway
company the amount stolen is one OF
great Importance. The court took the
ground that when company charges
an extra price for furnishing ''sleeping
facilities to travellers the company is
bound to protect them while they are
asleep.
The mere fact that by this decision q
railway company is bound to protect its
sleeping-car passengers from robbery is
not the most important feature of the
case. Now that = court has declared
that the extra price charged for sleep
ing-car tickets implies that passengers
who pay the extra fare are to be fur
nished with sleeping facilities and pso-
tected in the use of the same, it follows
that this protection can not be confined
to protecting the pockets of travellers.
The traveller must be protected in his
right to sleep. Unless the sleeping-car
is place in which traveller can sleep,
the railway company which sells Sleep
ing-car tickets is obtaining money under
false pretenses. Unless the traveller
who has bought sleeping-car ticket
has opportunities to sleep he is defraud-
ed. He must be protected in using his
facilities for sleeping-in other words,
the company must not only supply
beds, but must make it possible for peo-
pie to sleep in them. Let the public
snorer heed this grand and glorious lie.
cision, for it is fraught with his utter
and deserved extinction.
1t is notorious that few men ever man.
age to sleep when travelling in a sleep
ing-car because of the snorers with
which it is infested. Hitherto no salts
factory method of dealing with these
miscreants has been devised. Occa-
sionally an impulsive man from the
Southwest rises up at midnight and kills
snorer amid the enthusiasm of hss
bold and philanthropic men, but in
most parts of the country the law in its
present defective state does not sustain
man in killing a public snorer. The
evil, however, can now be abated by
process of law. A passenger who is
kept awake by snorer has only to cue
the railway company for damages. s1e
can plead that he bought ticket en-.
titling him to a reasonable amount OF
sleep, and that, inasmuch as the COM
pany failed to protect him from snorer,
he received no value for his money.
Any intelligent court would at once de-
eide in the plaintiffs favor, and thence
forth railway companies would keep a
watch on persons suspected of snoring
and prevent them from perpetrating
their intended crime.
The day of deliverance draws near.
Soon our sleeping-cars will be placarded
with the announcement that "PaSsen-
gers are forbidden to snore." The por-
ter will patrol the aisle of the car from
ten o'clock p. m. until six a. m. He
will instantly wake up any man who
ventures to snore, and, if the scoundrel
repeats the offense, will expel him from
the car. Thus sleeping in a sleeping
car will become possibility for honest
men, while snorers will be driven either
to reform, to stay at home, or to travel
by some other means than car fur
nished with facilities for sleeping" hut
with no facilities for snoring.-N. Y.
Times.