The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-09-04
NOT GUILTY OF NEGLIGENCE
NORTH JERSEY TROLLEY OF-
 FIOIALS ACQUITTED.

Judge Orders Jury to Discharge Them
 If the Rules Made by Them Had Been
 Kept the Disaster Would Not Have
 Happened. \
 Newark, N. J., Sept. 3.-Granting the motion of. counsel for the defendants, the County Oyer and Terminer court here to-day directed the jury in the trolley accident cast to render verdict favorable to the executive committee of the directors. the four operating off, cers of the North JerseyStreet Railway company. Nine school children lost their lives in that accident. and it was solght to hold the officers of the com pany liable on the charge of criminal negligence. Tn obedience to the court the jury rendered a verdict if acquittal.
 Thus ends an anomalous case. It had been argued in support of the motion to direct a verdict of acquittal that the officers under trial had not neglected their plain duty in felonious manner, and that they had not shown an evil
 disregard of duty, or reckless disre- gard of the lives of passengers. With this tl1e three justices agreed. The states prosecutor, they said, in the ev- idence offered, had not placed the fault. for not sanding the tracks. which was the thing that would have prevented the accident. upon the companys direc- tors or superintendents It was also held by the court that if the rules made by them had been obeyed, the Clifton avenue disaster would not have oc- lcurred.
 | There appears to be a popular disap- pointment over the outcome, but neith- CT the judges nor. so far as can be llearned. the jury, could see, first, that negligence on the part of the indicted officers had been proved: nor. second, that there was such disregard of an Imperative duty as to indicate an evil Intention and acareless indifference to causing mortal injury. Emphasis was | laid on the word "criminaln by the jus I tices. The decision. of course, has no l bearing upon the liability in civil suits
 for damages of the men acquitted to- 1 lday.
 l The indicted men were Alexander J.
 Cassett of Philadelphia, John D. Crim- \ mins os New York. Edward E. c.
 Young of Jersey City, pr. Leslie D..
 Ward. Elisha B. Gaddis and J. Roose- Ivelt shanley of Newark, directors; and
 David Young, formerly general superin- tendent: Charles M. Shipman, former
 superintendent; Arthur w. Pratt, road- Imaster; James Smith, division superin- i tendent, and Richard Eick, assistant di- Ivision superintendent.
 MT. Cassett's only comment on the
 result was that after all he as a rail- road man had done in abolition of
 grade crossings, he had felt that his po- sition during the trial had seemed lstrange. MT. Crimmins said that the de- I fendants had been advised that the early motion to quash the indictments I of the members Of the executive com
 lmittee was likely to prevail in view los precedents and decisions. In that I event, however, the brunt of the trial lwould have fallen upon the three su- and the roadmaster, and lit was agreed that all should stand to- lgether.
 The public prosecutor, when asked I after the verdict if he would press the I case against the subordinates of the company, said; T am only following the indictments of the grand jury They si did not indict the motorman, nor the inspectors, nor any of those handling
 the cars of the road at the time of the laccident..'