Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1910-11-25

of the chauffeurs around the city.
my watchers, whom | have stationed
around the streets, are constantly re-
porting evidences of this carelessness.
Cars go along leaving clouds of oil
smoke enough to choke every one on the
street for several minutes, to say moth
ing of saturating and spelling their
clothes. That smoking business is
nothing but case of lack of care in
oiling the engine.
"And, too, chauffeurs have lately de-
veloped a habit of merely sounding
their horns when approaching a crowd
ed crossing without stacking their speed
one particle. | suppose every one on
foot should dispose of himself elsewhere
at once merely upon the sound of one
of those unpleasng horns that our
streets are made ugly with now.
Machines that stop before houses or
shops to wait for their owners to call or
make purchases often stand there with
their engines going full speed, adding
largely and needlessly to the fearful
noises in the midst of which unhappy
New Workers must try to live and
think.
81 have seen people who were calling
to take friend out in car, simply sit
there blowing their horn until the
friend, who might be dwelling away up
on the tenth floor, CHANGED to hear
them. This, of course, saves trouble
for the auto party, but how about the
patience of every one who lives in that
vicinity and who has to listen to that
noise, which occurs often late at night.
And talking about the still hours of
the night, do the auto drivers try to
| m q a q ykx1,,
scurrying through the quiet streets
long they may stop before house they
let their engines run on, snorting and
swapping.
They rush along sounding loud
screeches on their horns at the slightest
excuse. There is one crossing in New
York where the racket is most fearful,
and that is at 57th street and Sixth ave-
nue.. There is slope from Seventh
avenue to Sixth avenue and in the still
hours they coast down, giving a ire
mendous blast just before reaching
Sixth avenue, and then dash across the
car tracks at undiminished speed, every
thing rafting. When a car carries one
of those locomotive whistles the racket
is enough to wake the dead.
''All of these nuisances have notice
ably increased since the acquittal of
Rosenheimer, and, naturally enough,
since it has become evident that an auto
driver can do anything he wishes with
out being punished. A little boy over
on the East Side was run down last Sun
day on his way to Sunday school. He
dropped the penny he had for the plate,
and while STOPPING to pick it up a great
car swept over him. The little fellow
has not yet recovered consciousness,
and there is very little hope for him.
No one knows to whom the car be-
longed.
What measures do you propose to
remedy these alarming conditions?" he
was asked.
Nothing is really necessary but to
enforce the law for careful driving.
But in order to do this our streets will
have to be plentifully supplied with law
enforcers Already we have corps of
assistants in our secret service who are
doing excellent work in reporting reck-
less drivers and the numbers of their
cars to us and to the police.
District Attorney Whitman, when
seen at his Office with regard to the diff
ficulties the legal department finds in
enforcing the law forbidding wild driv-
ing in the streets said:
THE main trouble is with the law it.
self. 1t provides no speed limit. l
went to Albany to fight that statute,
but it was passed and is now embodied
in the much talked of Callan law. The
provision merely insists upon prudent
driving. Now every time an accident
occurs there is naturally an argument,
and one that there is absolutely no way
of settling legally, as to whether the
chauffeur was driving at reckless pace
or not.
at is silly-ther is no other word
for law to be left up in the air in this
fashion. Every law sets its limitations.
A transgressor, by the very root mean
ings of the word itself, describes one
who crosses over the line.
"A clever lawyer can always make
jury laugh by showing the absurdty,
for instance, of claiming that a child
who is 10 years 1854 days old is not in
telligent enough to give sworn testi-
mony before the law, but that child of
IA years and one day is intelligent
enough. True enough, that is the law.
and whereas it may have its unjust side,
there is no other way. The line must
be drawn somewhere in every law. A
theft of $24 and SO cents is minor of
fence, but if the thief had taken two
cents more he would have committed
grand larceny and would have been sent
to Sing Sing for it,
1.-The lawyer who opposed the prose-
cution in the Rosenheimer case the other
day made the jurors laugh over the idea
of setting speed limit to automobiles.
1t was very cleverly done and sounded
well, of course, but his theory was
absolutely nonsensical. Without a
definite speed limit set by law we are
absolutely powerless to prevent whole
sale murder in the streets.
This Office is doing all it can. The
Rosenheimer incident is by no means
closed. | hope yet to convict that man.
Many people have asked why we did
not prosecute him on charge of having
disobeyed the law in not having given
lis name and number. The reason is
at we had no evidence that he had run
d" ay without doing this until he admit
ted it himself while on trial for murder.
Something must certainly be done to
safeguard the streets. Automobiles are
a dangerous feature in our traffic and