Connecticut western news., 1913-01-16
SCORING THE AUT0IST
Hartford Writer Reviews Fatalities or
 the Year.

the Year.
 Discussing the probable action along the line of automobile legislation during the present session of the General As- sembly, Fred Q. Norton, the Hartford cor respondent Of the Shore Line Times says the assembly will make a 1918 model of an automobile law calculated Co suit the retiring and modest gentlemen who own or operate motor cars and who. in this vicinity, are crying to Heaven at the injustice of city ordinance which prohibits them from stationing their cars in front of fire hydrant." He states that during the year just closed there were 55 fatalities in Connecticut alone, "a figure" he says sarcastically. "of which the automobile clubs have reason to be proud. Presumably they are, for no protest has been made by them or by their lawyers regarding the results"
 The writer notes that the first victim of that year was n woman who was killed by the car belonging to Senator George NJ. Llnders, aud theN case was "nolled by the time the matter reached the superior court The last was 10 years old boy in Hartford, Dec 2i, and the gentleman whose car killed him got his icense back from the state secretary before the beginning of this glad new year SO that the annoyance to hun was but trifiing.
 "Thirteen of the persons killed were children, one was blind man, two were Civil War veterans and three were over 70 years old, facts that tend to in- dicate that law will, before long, be proposed for the licensing of pedestrians instead of automobilists and the streets may be closed to infirm persons and children of tender gears on the ground thnt they constitute menace to traffic. Sixteen persons who were killed in auto accidents during the past year were either operating cars or were passengers in them and for the death of these the few surviving pedestrians should not be sorry as those without hope. Like ths once famous Steve Brodie the drivers took chance and that proved to he where they made mistake. and if 1t proved fatal one, they are no more do- funct than the thirteen children who were killed.
 Sudden and violent deaths are in- vestigated by medical examiners and other officials of various sorts who are more or less rewarded by grateful com. monwealth for thelr services and SO all of the 55 have been the subject of inquiry and,up to the present time, just one dri- yer of car has been punished. He was a taxi-driver who ran down and killed a workingman at the corner ol Main and Asylum streets one evening in October and he was sentenced to spend SIX months in jail and he must Slso pay one of the most clever criminal lawyers in the state, which will be more or less painful proceeding. Perhaps it might bo added that another chauffeur. whose car killed child in Waterbury, was brougln into court and was fined si0. not for killing the child, but for failing to have his hunters license-as it were-iR his possession when he did it. He has prob ably learned his lesson by this time.
 Suppose the truckmen or hackdrivera in the state or even the motormen on the trolley cars, had run down and kill ed some fifty persons in single year, does anybody suppose that all of the drivers, truckmen or motormen but one would have gone scot free? What is manslaughter if committed by poor man, is likely to become simply an un- avoidable accident if wealthy man or his servant is concerned, wherefore most auto organizations have in their employ l'skillful lawyers whose business it is te see that only accidents and not crimes occur IL the best families"