316 DUBOIS— OBSERVATIONS ON THE [April 23, 



when the plaintiff is poor and the defendant in comparative affluence 

 and still more especially when a corporation. Quite apart from the 

 traditional attitude toward the so-called soulless corporation a class 

 of circumstances may put the defendant at a great and unfair dis- 

 advantage. 



The case of the plaintiff who slipped on a curbstone and claimed 

 that a sunken brick pavement compelled her to so step on the curb 

 as to slip, is in point here. The very fact that the photographs are 

 handed about and continually referred to, that witnesses have seen 

 that condition there for years, that the woman's leg was so sprained 

 by her fall as to prevent her making her living as heretofore gradu- 

 ally works upon the minds of the jurors because no one can say that 

 none of these things are so. 



I remember seeing nothing very bad in the photographs at first 

 but the incessant references to the lines of the picture (I now see) 

 exaggerated in my own mind the dangers from such conditions at a 

 crossing. Some of the jury were particular to say that they be- 

 lieved in discouraging the legal traffic in damage suits but they also 

 believed that sidewalks should not be allowed to become a menace 

 to the walking public. Small compensation was therefore agreed 

 upon by the clumsy process of averaging the vote. 



A few weeks later I went, out of curiosity, to see the place itself. 

 I am quite confident that as a casual pedestrian the slight sinking of 

 the bricks and the slope of the curbstone would never have attracted 

 my notice. The photographs were in a sense true and in a sense un- 

 true. The proportions of the street were distorted and the view- 

 points were selected for a purpose. Much was made, at the trial, 

 of the rounded curb which had been worn that way by the grating of 

 heavy wheels against it on the corner. The rounding never looked 

 bad to me on the photograph but as I think back to an objective 

 view of my own mind during the trial, excusing the photograph's 

 supposed untruth as being too small or perhaps not properly posed 

 to show the real danger, I see how gradually I began to think against 

 my real judgment and see untruly. And now in its very presence the 

 stone itself looked no worse to me than did the photograph at first ; 

 and I am bound to wonder why if this pavement and curb were 

 entirely to blame there are not such accidents going on all over the 



