100 HISTORY OF THE GRANGE MOVEMENT; OR, 



under the law, but in reality they make themselves 

 superior to it, and when occasion suits them, they do 

 not hesitate to violate and defy it. They claim the 

 right to manage their road for their own benefit only, 

 and are utterly regardless of the rights of others. The 

 sole object of the directors is to wring money from those 

 who are forced to use the line, and the public, for whose 

 convenience the road is supposed to have been built, 

 are denied the simplest privileges. Scarcely a day 

 passes that some individual's rights are not violated by 

 these companies, and if the injured party is bold enough 

 to carry the matter before the courts, he has a hard 

 task before him to obtain the simplest justice. He has 

 to encounter the immense power of the road, backed 

 by its wealth, and the chances are ten to one against 

 him. He will either be beaten by the money of the 

 corporation, or he will be forced to drag his case along, 

 at ruinous expense, until he abandons it in despair. 



A fair specimen of the disregard of the railroads for 

 individual rights was afforded a few years ago in the 

 case of Mr. John A. Coleman, of Providence, Ehode 

 Island. This gentleman was shamefully maltreated 

 and thrown from a train on the New York and New 

 Haven Railroad, and thereby injured for life, merely 

 for demanding to ride over the road with a ticket for 

 which he had already paid, instead of buying a new 

 one. The case is so characteristic that we shall let 

 Mr. Coleman tell the story in his own words : 



"About four years ago" (the matter occurred in 

 1868), says Mr. Coleman, "I purchased a ticket from 

 Providence to New York via Hartford and New Haven. 

 At New Haven my business detained me until too late 

 in the evening to resume my journey by rail. I there- 



