i38 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



while, instead of this reform which you seem to think of primary im- 

 portance, I should be obliged if you would diminish the occasion for 

 appeals, by making your laws such as it is possible for me to know, or, 

 at any rate, such as it is possible for your judges to know ; and I 

 should be further obliged if you would give me easier remedies against 

 aggressions, instead of remedies so costly, so deceptive, so dangerous, 

 that I prefer suffering the aggressions in silence. Daily I experience 

 the futility of your system. I start on a journey expecting (foolishly, 

 I admit) that, in conformity with the advertised times, I shall just be 

 able to reach a certain distant town before night ; but the train, being 

 an hour late at one of the junctions, I am defeated am put to the 

 cost of a night spent on the way, and lose half the next day. I paid 

 for a first-class seat that I might have space, comfort, and unobjec- 

 tionable fellow-travellers ; but, stopping at a town where a fair is 

 going on, the guard, on the plea that the third-class carriages are full, 

 thrusts into the compartment more persons than there are places for, 

 who, both by behavior and odor, are repulsive. Thus in two ways I 

 am defrauded. For part of the fraud I have no remedy ; and, for the 

 rest, my remedy, doubtful at best, is practically unavailable. Is the 

 reply that, against the alleged breach of contract as to time, the com- 

 pany has guarded itself, or professes to have guarded itself, by dis- 

 claiming responsibility ? The allowing such a disclaimer is one of your 

 countless negligences. You do not allow me to plead irresponsibility 

 if I give the company bad money, or if, having bought a ticket for the 

 second class, I travel in the first. On my side you regard the contract 

 as quite definite ; but, on the other side, you practically allow the con- 

 tract to remain undefined. And now see the general effects of your 

 carelessness ! Scarcely any trains keep their times ; and the result 

 of chronic unpunctuality is a multiplication of accidents and loss of 

 life." 



" How about laissez-faire? I thought your notion was, that the 

 less Government meddled with these things the better ; and now you 

 complain that the law does not secure your comfort in a railway-car- 

 riage, and see that you are delivered at your journey's end in due time. 

 I suppose you approved of the proposal made in the House last ses- 

 sion, that companies should be compelled to give foot-warmers to sec- 

 ond-class passengers." 



" Really, you amaze me. I should have thought that not even or- 

 dinary intelligence, much less select legislative intelligence, would 

 have fallen into such a confusion. I am not blaming you for failing to 

 secure me comfort or punctuality. I am blaming you for failing to en- 

 force contracts. Just as strongly as I protest against your neglect in 

 letting a company take my money, and then not give me all I paid 

 for, so strongly should I protest did you dictate how much con- 

 venience should be given me for so much money. Surely I need not 

 remind you that your civil law in general proceeds on the principle 



