586 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



aware that the employer or such superior already knew of the said de- 

 fect or negligence. 



The amount of compensation recoverable under this act may not 

 exceed such sum as may be found to be equivalent to the estimated 

 earnings, during the three years preceding the injury, of a person in 

 the same grade employed during those years in the like employment 

 and in the district in which the workman is employed at the time of 

 the injury ; but under our various State laws, when interpreted by ju- 

 ries, the measure of damages is usually severely onerous, if the em- 

 ployer be a railroad corporation, and, even when such cases are appealed 

 to higher judicial tribunals, the tax costs are very heavy. In Ger- 

 many, railroads whether owned or controlled by the Government, or 

 owned and managed by corporations are not only legally compelled 

 to assess their employes for the benefit of authorized relief funds, but 

 are required to contribute thereto from their corporate funds gener- 

 ally in amounts equaling the premiums collected from their members ; 

 and conformity to this regulation is invariably required in all the work- 

 ing departments of the roads. 



In Great Britain, it has become quite general for employers to seek 

 release from personal liability, or from costs for damages or partial in- 

 demnity, by either subscribing to the several employes' liability insur- 

 ance companies or by wide-spread attempts to evade their responsi- 

 bilities under the law by inducing the workmen to contract themselves 

 out of the act. Several other methods of securing release from liabil- 

 ity have been devised, the most prominent of which, perhaps, is the 

 length to which defendants go in the appeal courts. 



The employes of most American railroads are incessantly con- 

 fronted with petitions for charitable contributions in aid of their fel- 

 low-workmen and companions overtaken by misfortunes, which almost 

 always involve others dependent upon them for the necessities and 

 comforts of existence. Such appeals to people too generally living in 

 the presence and under the dread of the embarrassments and evils 

 incident to interrupted wages can seldom be ignored, though often 

 their alms frequently materially encroach upon the previously mort- 

 gaged incomes of men engaged in pursuits than which few are more 

 exacting, and that taxed their abilities and time to such an extent as 

 precluded the possibility of supplementing through extra labor wages 

 reduced by competition to barely living rates. The higher officials of 

 the company are constantly importuned in the same direction, and the 

 contributions they feel constrained to make sometimes reach consid- 

 erable sums. The recipients of such charity naturally experience a 

 sense of humiliation ; their self-respect is lowered, and upon recovery 

 from sickness or injuries they too frequently resume their occupations 

 handicapped by the discontent and restlessness of debtors, to whom 

 such condition is too novel and harassing to be borne with equanimity. 

 From this results constant anxiety to better their condition, and it 



