118 HISTORY OF THE GRANGE MOVEMENT; OR, 



ploying the necessary force and no more ! Such a 

 charge concerns every person in the community ; for it 

 seems that any of us, for disobedience to a, non-existent 

 rule, may be brutally dragged from a railway car, and, 

 seeking redress, shall be informed by the court that the 

 railway company is responsible only for ' excess of vio- 

 lence.' 



" The examination of the superintendent having been 

 concluded, the counsel for the railroad stated to the 

 court that the victim of Mr Coleman's carnivorous 

 ferocity had been discharged from the road immediately 

 after his mifortune ; that diligent search had been made 

 for him, but in vain. By one of those dramatic felici- 

 ties, so frequent in fiction and so rare in real life, just 

 at this juncture a telegram was brought in announcing 

 that the bitten man had been found, and would arrive 

 on a train due in ten minutes. The judge granted the 

 delay asked for, and the spectators brightened up in 

 anticipation of new and measurably tragic revelations. 

 The delay was brief. In a few minutes the door of the 

 court room was thrust open, and in rushed the witness, 

 breathless with haste. A brisk, bronzed person he was, 

 self-contained and self-satisfied, with locomotive gait, 

 and a habit of gesture suggestive of brake-rods. He 

 mounted the witness stand, was sworn, and delivered 

 his direct testimony with easy indifference, coupling his 

 sentences as he would couple cars, with a jerk. This 

 is his story in brief: ' The conductor c'm out the car 'n' 

 said, " 'S man in there want ye t' take out." Went in 

 the car, and he said, " That's th' man : put 'yn out ! " 

 I jes' took 'im up and carried him out through the car 

 out on t' th' platform th' dep6t, an' took 'n' set 'im.down, 

 an' never hurt him a mite.' 'Did Mr. Coleman bite 



