Connecticut western news., 1910-07-28
THERE WAS FUN AT THE MOCK TRIAL.
TRACK WALKING
 IS DANGEROUS

A fellow with heavy jag" went staggering across the tracks, opposite the Canaan depot, Saturday, just as train was backing up to the station, and had not bystauder noted his condition, and helped him to the platform, he would undoubtedly have been knocked under the train and killed. Several cases have happened of late where men were killed in walking railroad tracks hereabouts, and the custom is one in- volving grave danger. The Poughkeep- sic News Telegraph hits the nail squarely on the head when, ill commenting on this same difficulty in its field, when it remarks that it is not generally under stood how large 8 proportion of the deaths and injuries on the railroads of this country is due to the risks wilfully taken by trespassers who persist in us- ing the right of way of a public thorough fare. The annual reports of the last eleven years show that in this period I05, ,000 persons were killed or injured and that of this total about 50,000 were killed outright. The large ratio of fatal ities to injuries, which is several times larger than the ratio that obtains in the case of accidents to passengers and em- ployees, suggests that practically all these accidents were due to trespassers being struck by moving train. The re- cords of the commission show that ill 1898, 4,063 trespassers lost their lives on l American railroads 1; that five years later 5ne number of killed was 5, 900, and that m 1907 it rose to 5,6l2 that is to. say.
 'n every day of that year an average 6f over fifteen people lost their lives entirely through their own folly in trespassing on the right of way of the railroads. Figures compiled by the Pehnsylyania | Railroad alone show that 465 trespassers lost their lives on that system lines in l899, and 78l W ere killed in 1901; while in 1907 the number reached 915, an aver age of about three for every business day of the year. In the last named year ChIs company inaugurated a vigorous 1anpaign against trespassers and as 8 result the number of fatalities in 1908 was reduced to 757.
 There is no country in the world where the loss of life due to trespassiug on railroads approaches these figures, not even if we take into consideration che smaller mileage of the railway systems ln Europe and elsewhere. The difference Is easily explained. It is due to the stringent laws in Europe against Grespassing, to the careful policing of the tracks, and especially to the fact that violations of the law are invariably punished. Here ill the United States conditions are exceedingly lax. Some of the railroads, and notably the one re- ferred to above, endeaYor to enforce tine | law against trespassing on railroad prop. erty. The Pennsylvania Company eA- hibits thousands of warning signs along the right of way but unfortunately the actual punishment of persons violating the laws against thus tresL assing has been iufrequent the cost of imprison- ment often deterring the local courts from holding those who have been ar rested by the watchmen.
 The fatalities and injuries arc most frequent where the railroads pass through manufacturing districts in which the tracks are lined with factories1 The railroad frequently offers the short est cut between the factory and the home, and statistics show that men of the laboring class, artisans and their wives and children, are annually killed by the hundred. Evidently the remedy tor this shocking slaughter, which stands as a district reproach against the civiliza- tion of America, is to be found in the thorough cooperation of city and country authorities with the railroads i'll the rigid enforcement of the law against trespass.
 So long as the public realizes that warning placards, railroad watohmen and laws against treApass are subject to the caprice of local magistrates who lock with lenient eye upon offenders, tres- pasSers will continue to walk on Il @ track and this horrible annual roll of deaths and injury will continue to in- crease.