THE FARMER'S WAR AGAINST MONOPOLIES. 121 



auxiliaries, and the bite was transferred to his right 

 arm. Being a draughtsman, I had measured the car, 

 and was ready with a drawing to show that the new 

 theories of the defence as to the method of taking me 

 out left just three inches for the movement of each 

 stalwart brakeman as he walked at my side. 



" I suppose that I need give no extended report of 

 the argument of the road's counsel. He took the high- 

 est ground the ground that the public had no right to 

 question the management of the road ; that the company 

 owned it, and had the right to manage it as any other 

 property is managed by a private corporation ; that is, 

 he denied the fact that the public is virtually a partner 

 in railroad companies, which it creates and lifts into 

 power by grants of franchises and land. Indeed, this 

 distinction between public and private corporations has 

 been carefully ignored by the judiciary of the country; 

 and to this the present alarming domination of railroad 

 corporations is mainly traceable. 



"I may say, for the encouragement of those who 

 look to the courts for deliverance from a railroad tyr- 

 anny, whose bonds the judiciary seems willing enough 

 to rivet, that, in every trial, my counsel carried the 

 jury with him, one single juror of the forty-eight ex- 

 cepted. This juror was said to have been formerly an 

 employe* of the New York and New Haven Railroad. 

 The action of the several juries, so far as the public is 

 concerned in it, is satisfactory and cheering ; for it indi- 

 cates unmistakably that the spring of railroad power in 

 our courts is not in the deliberate judgment of intelli- 

 gent men ; but the judges' charges were in effect re- 

 statements of the arguments of the counsel for the 

 railroad touching the general question of the rights and 



