The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1886-12-24
RAILROAD ACCIDENTS.

I RAILROAD ACCIDENTS.
Dead Men Cheaper to the Companies than
the Wounded and MANNED.
Railroad accidents have, in the eyes
If stock spectators, merely CONNER
,ial aspect. When terrible calamity is
learned OF, Wall street wants to know
how many cars have been wrecked, how
many lives have been lost. but especi-
ally how many people has been injured.
The especial stress laid on this last
would not be understood by the ordinary
lay brother who is outside of . railroad
office, unconnected with q law Office,
and who is not stock brokerage expert.
The passenger who is killed IN rail-
road smash up costs the railroad COM
pany Just $4,000. This is settled law.
Decision after decision has been made
and legal fight has followed legal fight
until it is now accepted by litigants of
all sorts that IS. 900 can be collected as
damages for the death and no more.
But while the courts have argued that
for the protection of railroads damages
for death shall be limited, by one of
those unaccountable inequities Of which
the law is full. no limit has ever been
set on the sum that a passenger can sue
for who has received simply an injury.
And so a broken leg may cost a railroad
corporation $5O,OOO; q broken arm,
300. 900; but the children can only col
lect 5000 for the loss of their father;
the widow can get no more for the loss
of her husband. Dead lawyers count
no more than tramps, dead milliOnaires
bring after railroad wreck 50, O0O:d dead
labOrers cost the railroad Just as much.
If millionaire, however escapes alive
from smashup. he can probably get
for his broken arm $4,000. while the
laborcr who escapes alive gets only
$500 for his. This is law. Wall street
is on to it. and really expressed itself
gratiiied the other day to learn that in a
terrible wreck all had been killed; none
injured.
The most frightful railroad accident
that ever occurred in the West was
within ten miles Of Chicago. and right
out on the prairie where there was no
excuse for it. 1t was thirty years ago,
when the Michigan Central and the
Michigan Southern were fighting each
other, both at this end and in the East
They crossed at right angles at Grand
Crossing. There had been a big fight
when one laid its rails across the others.
Whenever two engineers passed down
there they glarcd at each other. Trains
used to race for the right of way. and
there was the most utter recklessness.
A Michigan Southern train, loaded
down with cmigrants. was approaching
Chicago along one line and a Michigan
Central was racing along the other.
The former got there first, and was half
way across when the Michigan Central
engine plunged right into the center OF
the train load of human freight. There
never had been such a sacrifice of life
by a railroad acc:dent before. Men and
women and babes were ripped and torn
and burned. 1t was this massacre that
created the law compelling all engineers
70 come to dead halt at all cross
ings.
The Ashtabula accident is said to have
cost the Lake Shore $1,000. 900. paid
out to the families of the dead and to
the sufferers from wounds. 1t made
millionaire Amasa Stone crazy and led
him to cut his throat in his bath tub.
1t was his bridge at Ashtabula that
the Lake Shore train went through, and
engineers declared that the pattern was
bad.
In 1880 Captain Prindivillc left Detroit
in q Canada Southern train for Chicago.
Just the other side of the Wclland canal
4 broken rail caused the engine to
plunge Off the track and to upset. Every
car in that train went over On its side,
some of them on their backs. Not q
passenger was injured. The Captain
says that it was the most complete
wreck he ever saw, and that it was mar
velous that no one was killed. An
agent of the company came rushing
along in few hours in a special
with an attorney. Instantly. the Cap
tain says, the whole train load of people
who had been returning thanks to God
we're taken with spinal difficulties and
all kinds of horrid injuries Of one sort
or another. He detected a young fcl-
fellow who had sat next to him, and
who had laughinglv been congratulate
ing himself on his escape. backing his
eyes with mud. The railroad agen:
wrote check for one hundred dollars
for that sly young man on the >pot. The
others got checks in proportiOn.-Chi-
sIgo Mai.