vided against" the accident, if due to air currents. The 

 evidence was, however, that the railroad company might 

 have made this accident impossible, by the simple expedi- 

 ent of obeying the law. The lawful limit of speed was 

 six miles per hour. The Court, on a first hearing of the 

 case on appeal, reversed the trial court, because of other 

 evidence— not that of the experts — improperly admitted. 

 In all the trial no railroad man controverted the 

 experts' declaration, although the company might have 

 summoned many of its own oldest employes to testify on 

 that point. Yet, when the case was tried a second time 

 and again resulted in a verdict against the company, the 

 Supreme Court attacked the experts it had approved in the 

 first reversal and threw out their uncontested evidence. 

 The record of reversal stands, an attack upon the charac- 

 ter of two worthy gentlemen and honest, scientific investi- 

 gators, against which they have no redress, for they can- 

 not even attempt a defence in the record in which they 

 have been wronged. Professor Nipher's paper, just pub- 

 lished by the Academy of Science, contains the over- 

 whelming scientific demonstration, beyond all doubt, that 

 every word to which he and Professor Woodward testified 

 was true. Train suction is a fact and train suction is 

 sometimes, at certain speeds, strong enough to draw a boy 

 or even a grown man, under the wheels. The thing is as 

 well demonstrated as that two and two make four. But 

 the Supreme Court of Missouri — wonderful Missouri, 

 where they must be "shown" and even then they deny the 

 truth — says that there "aint no sich thing!" Talk about 

 Rev. Jasper's "the sun do move!" Talk about the mythi- 

 cal Papal bull against the comet! The Missouri Supreme 

 Court decides that the physical laws of the universe don't 

 exist, so far as that august assemblage is concerned. It 

 is apt to decide against the solar spectrum, against the law 

 of gravitation, against the sphericity of the earth, or 

 against the multiplication table, any old day. But, great 

 though the Missouri Supreme Justices may be, superior 

 though they be to the facts of science, it is fortunate 

 that experimental determinations of wind pressure are not 

 likely to be affected by legal opinions — themselves, often, 

 fearful and wonderful examples of wind pressure — that 

 such pressures do not exist. The profound jurists of the 

 Missouri Supreme Court are reminded that there is nothing 

 in history to indicate that any proposition in mechanics 

 was ever either established or reversed by legal opinions, 

 by offensive personalities or by a combination of both. 

 Professor Nipher's brochure is Galileo's E pur si muove 

 over again. And it had to happen in Missouri. 



