3i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



lessness, forgetfnlness, or lapse of conscious thought, the duties 

 of that post should be sustained. 



Does any one for a moment suppose that, if there had been a 

 second officer whose business it was to inspect that Wabash switch 

 and see and certify that it was properly set, or that if the Yonkers 

 brakeman had been followed by a second signal light fifty yards 

 in the rear, either of those catastrophes would have occurred, or 

 any of these recent rear-end and siding calamities ? 



When, ordinarily, human life is taken, the whole machinery of 

 the criminal law is exercised to bring the offender to justice. But 

 here a score of persons are put to death, or to a torture the like 

 of which exists not elsewhere in any portion of our globe, either 

 civilized or savage torn, mangled, crushed, scalded, burned and 

 it is held excusable as an " unavoidable accident.'^ 



To say that these things are a necessary part of the progress 

 of mankind is a libel on civilization. To declare them unavoid- 

 able accidents is, for the most part, to assert that which is not 

 true to attempt a justification through what we know to be false. 

 Accidents they are not. They are simply criminal maladminis- 

 tration. 



When one's life is sacrificed, or when one is maimed for the 

 remainder of his miserable years, it is of little import to the suf- 

 ferer or to his family whether it be the result of criminal intent 

 or of criminal neglect. The shade of difference is not so very 

 clear between life needlessly taken and life purposely taken. 



Since the foregoing was written, the death-angel has pursued 

 his appalling railway harvest with unabated fury, seventy-seven 

 deaths and one hundred and eighty-four mangled in thirty days, 

 being the record for the United States, so far as heard. 



From the general facts as given in the public prints, these 

 calamities, like those above referred to, and like the most of 

 those now occurring, appear to be attributable to " the men '' and 

 not to " the road." There have also appeared in the public press 

 some explanatory or apologetic statements from officers of several 

 roads, some of which are worthy of attention as expressing the 

 views of the officials into whose care the public intrusts its wel- 

 fare ; none of which, however, give it any assurance of any greater 

 degree of safety. 



An officer of the New York, Lake Erie, and Western is re- 

 ported as saying, " I can not explain the unusual number of acci- 

 dents just now "; adding, however, "the train-dispatcher's duties 

 have become very much more exacting." This means, if it is in- 

 tended to mean anything, that the fault lies in the train-dispatcher, 

 not in the road or machinery. 



One of the superintendents of the New York Central says : 

 " Railroad accidents are like epidemics ; they can no more be fore- 



