The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-04-04

stops so many times, only to be laughed at by the pinhead who has done it, tha'
 we finally conclude to pay no attention
 to 1t, and then some unfortunate crea
 ture pays the penalty for all their fool ishness. Of course the villagers say that engineer on engine so-and-so was
 the cause of old MT. Soand-So being | killed on the track near town, Wheel
 the real cause of it has been that 6
 number of their smart young men ano ' women have been continually doing l just as the old man was at the time he | was caught. Indeed of different legls- l latures spending their breath framing
 laws to make a railroad pay for a pig l they kill, it would be better sense to l pass laws making it a penitentlary off, l fense for person knowingly to remain | on the track as near as one thousand feet to an approaching train.
 1 Another kind of fool is that one | who will get out of his wagon as the | train approaches, leave his wife to hold the lines, while he gets as close to l the train as possible in order to get 8 better look at it. This is almost daily | occurrence, and while the team be- | comes unmanageable and runs off with i the wagon and family, the fool hus- band waves his hand to every man in sight on the train, only to look around, after the train has passed, to see his | children scattered over the sage brush. l know a rushing train, as it dashes over the country must be beautiful sight for the rural districter, but a look
 at it does not pay for runaway team with a mans family in if.
 II said little while ago that the big
 gest fool was the one who would stay
 on the track as long as possible, but don't believe he is any worse than that
 one who will pretend to you that there
 is something serious ahead of you. He
 will point down the track and make all
 sorts of knowing gestures and signs.
 He pretends that there is horse in a
 culvert, bridge gone, or something like
 that. Of course our training is such
 that all matters of that kind must be
 pondered over in a moments time. We
 are compelledato consider it, and the
 fool by the track may be giving 1t just
 at a time when something critical is be-
 ing considered in matters of our meet
 ing orders. Many wreck is caused
 primarily from this cource and while the engineer gets discharged for the
 wreck which has cost several lives, perhaps the real cause of it was the
 unnecessary and lying signal given by
 the idiot near the track. Of course we do not see anything one hundred feet from the right of way, but then these smart idiots stand right near and give their signs. After while so many like this deceive us that it is like the boy who was looking after the sheep. When the cry of the wolf comes in earnest we pay no attention to it.
 Another idiot that is pretty plentiful is the one who puts things on the rail- nails and small iron articles and the likee. Of course little things like that don't amount to much within theem- selves, but children will see that done and hear older ones tell of it, and after a while some little fellow puts on a larger thing, and wreck is the result The idiots who have been in the habit of putting small articles on the rail could not be made to believe that they were the primary cause of the wreck, oh no; but they are just the same.
 T ran across fool just the other day | that seemed to be something new. At least it was the first time anything like l it was ever played on me. It was at a blind siding, where our fast train did | not stop, and he wanted to stop us so | he could get on. As we pulled in sight | of the switch there was man with his | foot apparently caught in the frog. | This is a horrible affair, and of course slowed down and stopped just in time to save the poor fellow, only to have him laugh an idiotc laugh and make a run for the coaches. My fireman was a bg husky fellow, and I sent him after he idiot. l held the train just twenty seconds, and you never saw so much blood come from one mans nose in your life. The husky fireman pounded lim would throw him up and kick him IS he came down, showed his head in he earth, twisted his legs and bent his neck sidewise, and finally wound up by Jumping him out next to the fence. He will not stop another train in that way.
 There is form house near the track lbout two hundred miles out One day We were late, and I was making about mile a minute down the long hill here, when a little tot about three years old stood up in the center of the rack and started to run away from us.
 was right on it before I saw it. The fireman saw the child at the same time. Nothing on earth could save the dar- ing, and knew it, but I seized the whistle and blew it like crazy man, at he same moment reversing and open ng the throttle wide. To my amaze nent, calf, frightened by the whistle, umped into the middle of the track,
 md looking back at us, as they will all ways do for q few feet, ran square into he tot and knocked it clear of the rails $ the calf itself went under the engine. Come, now, Jim, you have hugged it ong enough get on and let's be going" vas the first words I understood after aw the little fellow between the rails.
 gave the child to its mother, who had ome screaming from the house near