Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1910-01-07
FRIDAY, JANUARY 7, 1910.
RISING TIDE OF INDIGNATION
AGAINST CHAUFFEURS.
Lone Roll of Deaths Due to Reck-
less Driving Has Exhausted
Public Patience.
[ From the New York Tribune. ]

From the New York Tribune.]
Murder as fine art was not possible
when De Quincy wrote his famous bro
chure. There could be only crude assas-
sination on a small private scale. To-
day there is wholesale killing by
automobile chauffeurs, done in the
broad light of day, with artistics
features never before obtained. To de-
stroy life in city thoroughfare while
travelling at fast gait before the
eyes of hundreds of horror-stricken
spectators, and to have the enterprise
spiced with just trife of danger in
makingi the gateway" must afford
the keenest pleasure to certain goggled
ghouls who lean over the steering wheel
of the motor car.
Accidents? There are plenty of bona
fide accidents, more or less tinctured
with criminal negligence, but there is
evidence to show that certain number
of car drivers cultivate taste for bone
cracking. 1t would not be surprising if
science discovered, one of these days,
that motor murder is a specific form of
human peversion and depravity-
haps disease, but none the less a men
ace to society Speed mania might be
considered an early phase of the devel-
oped malady
The total automobile casualties in the
United States equal the casualties in
several dangerous trades put together
They look respectable compared with
the figures for the railroad industry
1t is estimated that a hundred persons
are injured or killed by automobiles
every day, or 36, 800 in year. In grea-
ter New York there We're some thirty
casualties in the month of November
last and about fifty in the proceeding
month. October made a banner" rec
ord of no fewer than fifteen killed
The percentage of deaths compared
with injuries is larger than the proper
ton which obtains in modern war con-
Quoted with scientific killing instru-
ments.
There are recent incidents which sus-
tam the theory that some automobile
drivers take pleasure in their deadly
work On November little girl
named Jennie Bernstein, seven wears
old, living at No. 70 East Hath street,
was roller skating in Park avenue with
other children, when an auto-cab with
four persons in it struck her The ma
chine was evidently speeding. For the
childs body was tossed forward in the
air distance of at least fifteen feet.
1t was as if human being were gored
and tossed by maddened bull.
RAN OVER PHOSPHATE BODY.
Horrified as the spectators were by
what they had seen, they were unpre-
pared for what followed. The chauffeur
might have been expected to do one of
TWO things; to run away directly or to
stay and aid his victim. He did neither.
Without swerving or slackening speed
he went straight ahead and ran over the
prostate body of the child, as if to COM
plete the job and make sure that no life
remained in the small human figure on
the pavement. After this he put or
extra speed and vanished.
Such combination of tossing and
crushing, when inflicted on dogs and
chickens, is often witnessed in the
country, but is rare in the city.
-
On November % another cruel chauf
feur did his best to eXtinguish the life
OF young woman at Broadway and
l3nh street. 1t was a rainy evening
and the young woman. Alice Mohen a
stenographer had stepped out of the
subway station and raised her umbrella
to cross the street. Along came the
Minotaur on wheels and knocked her
down. Her hair and clothing were
caught in the front part of the car and
she was dragged and showed along the
wet pavement at a rapid clip. She
screamed and several spectators shout
ed.
Was the driver of the car deaf OF
blind, or both? He could not help
knowing that human being was being
dragged under his vehicle and that she
was at least partly alive. At any rate,
he kept on going Miss Mohen was
dragged for block, shrieking all the
time, and then her clothing became de.
tatched from the machine and the dri-
yer sped on leaving her lying in the
street,
l11 haG1i 61I tRat the driving