St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-07-10
THE TRIAL OF MIR. EGAN.

JOHN NJ. EGAN, CHRISTOPHER d.
0BRIEN and JAMES w. LUsK are three
men the like of whom one does not meet
in many long days journey, and even
if our handsome district attorneys case
had been a good one, he would have had
to get up quite early in the morning in
order to secure the conviction of the
president of the Kansas City road. The
average jury is not inclined to find
guilty of crime man whose face tells
the story of honesty, ability and good
fellowship, and least of all when his
cause is defended by lawyers who are
courageous, adroit, learned, genial and
popular. The Interstate commerce COM
mission invited the department of JUS
tice to tackle big task when it sug-
gested a fight against such odds.
But there was no case against Mr..
EGAN, anyhow. Civil suits can be won
on technicaIities, and pecuniary dam
ages assessed for reasons which appear
to the layman no better than play on
words. But the offenSe at issue before
Judge INA YER was of a serious charac-
ter, punishable by heavy fine or i'm
prisonment. There has to be some sub
stance in the accusation to make it
effective under such circumstances.
Courts of law are slow to brand good
men with the infamy Of criminal con-
vietion when their conduct has been
free from criminal intent, or when the
criminality of their acts can be estab-
Iished only by giving them strained
and unnatural construction.
The Kansas City road sold 5000
tickets from st. Paul to Chicago TO Mr..
PETscH for $4,000. If they were limited
tickets it had right to sell them at this
figure. If they were unIimite tickets,
MI. EGAN was guilty of the otfense
charged in the Indictment. The gov
eminent held that they were unlimited
because there was no limitation on the
time within which they had to be used.
The defence held that they were limit
ed because they were good for con-
tinuous passage only between the
points named on them and did not eX-
tend their owners the privilege of stop
ping over at intermediate stations as
unlimited tickets would. If the denial
of this privilege was sufficient to fairly
entitle ticket to the name of limited,
the conviction of Mr.. EGAN was lega
impOssibility.
The court said that a limited ticket
might be one limited as to time or one
limited as to the sort of privileges its
owners would be entitled to from its pos
session. The interstate. commerce COM
mission had not inedithe.term, and the
Kansas City road had the right to put its
own Interpretation on it. Its interpre-
tatiou was that a limited ticket was one
limited not as to time, but as to privi-
leges. The tickets sold Mr.. PETsCH
were therefore limited tickets, the sale
of them at 81 apiece was no illegal dis
elimination, and the jury was instructed
to acQuit the accused.
1t was a great trial. as famous in its
way as the recent attempt to hold Mr..
DEPEw liable for the accident in the
New York tunnel; and the result as
suggestive as the one in that case that
the criminal side-ef the court is not the
most effective side in which to try such
issues. No one, however, has suffered
in reputation by the experiment, and
Mr.. PETSCH seems to have netted a
profit of $3.50 on each of the 5000 tick
cts he bought, which is not bad thing
in the present state of the market.