this is done many of the troubles and difficulties the railroads now labor under will pass away, and that the additional expense caused by such increase will be saved many times over by a general reduction in operating expenses, especially in waste and damage.

Accidents should be divided into four classes:

First. Unavoidable accidents, or those caused by the act of God, the public enemy, or by some miscreant who takes up a rail, misplaces a switch, or puts an obstruction on the track.

Second. Accidents to passengers, outsiders trespassing or not trespassing, caused by the carelessness or wantonness of the injured or some other person for whose act the railroad is not liable, or by the failure on the part of the State or municipality to make and enforce proper laws and ordinances to prevent stoning trains and trespassing on the premises and cars of the companies.

Third. Those caused by the want of care, foresight, or supervision on the part of the management of the company.

Fourth. Those caused by the carelessness, thoughtlessness, or neglect of employees.

Neither employees nor company can be held to blame or can prevent accidents resulting from the first and second causes, and fortunately for the reputation as well as the treasury of the companies over one-half of all the fatalities and a large proportion of the seriously injured come under the second class, and until the life and limb of a trespasser (10 per cent or 1,000 of the 10,000 killed and injured on the railroads of this country every year being children under fourteen years of age) are considered to be of some value to their families and to the State, they will not only continue to occur, but will increase each year as our population and traffic grow.

Accidents caused by carelessness, thoughtlessness, or neglect of employees are the large majority of all that happen, and if we could eliminate them, or one-half of them, there would be little cause for complaint on the part of the management of the companies, or criticism on the part of the public, and the claim agent would have a bed of roses instead of the busiest and hardest worked office on the road, and I believe that when the employees really understand the matter many of them will be eliminated.

We should bear in mind that it is not the great train accidents that make the large majority of the total deaths and injuries on the railroads of this country, about which so much is said in the public press, but it is the little cases that are unheralded in the press, or in the courts, that make the totals so large; the little things that are happening every day, on every railroad in the country, which go on happening every year in the same old way, and they are the cases which could and should be avoided by the exercise of greater care and thoughtfulness—more of them come from thoughtlessness than any other cause. My experience leads me irresistibly to the conclusion that after all it is the man, not the safety appliance, that we must depend on to prevent accidents, as has been demonstrated by any number of cases that have occurred at points where the track has been lined with safety appliances.

The Cause

INJURIES TO PASSENGERS

Injuries to passengers for which employees are at fault, and which could and should be avoided, result from collisions, derailments, improper handling and management of trains and stations, and I will, by way of illustration, cite a few cases which have occurred and tell you how, in my opinion, they might have been avoided.

We will first take those caused by collisions:

In a dense fog and on a part of the division and at a time when trains were thick, with a knowledge that he had followed No. 112 all the way from Thornton, the engineman was so careless as to run by two automatic signals set at danger, a flagman, and into No. 112, and three lives go out and 20 odd are injured. Could anything be more reckless? Do any of you want to ride behind that kind of runner or be on a train in front of him, even if you have your life insured and your home paid for? Will we not all agree that such a man is unsafe and unfit for the service? And in view of the dense fog and the number of trains moving, should not trains have been blocked a station apart? It is an absolute protection against accident, which the time interval is not. And when you enginemen see a signal against you, think of the wrecks you have known of since you entered the service, and stop; take no chances. If you can't see the signal, if your view is obstructed by smoke or steam so that you can't see the track beyond the smoke or steam, stop or slow down until you know it safe to proceed. And don't do as was done in the second case mentioned above, but slow down to such a speed that you can stop within the range of your vision. In case of doubt always take the safe course. If you know a man with defective vision and so little regard for the lives of others as to try to remain in the service with that defect, you owe it as a duty to yourself, to your family, the passengers, and other employees, as well as to the company, to report him to the proper officer before and not after an accident occurs. Some day there will be a law requiring frequent examination of the vision of trainmen, but until that time comes we should all do the best we can to guard against such men.

Next we come to accidents caused by making a switch of cars containing passengers without the engine being attached to the car:

Everyone knows that it is unsafe to handle a car containing passengers without the engine being coupled to it and air-brake in use, and that Rule 10[1] expressly prohibits such work, yet in this case it was done by men long in the service, who probably had done the same thing before without accident and without being caught, so they chanced it once too often, and the cost in this case would pay many times over for the time they had saved before. It is just as unsafe to switch caboose cars in which train crews are resting or cars loaded with horses and cattle or emigrant movables in that way, and it ought to be stopped. If it was, there would not be the injuries to trainmen or damages to live stock that we have now from that cause.

We all have no end of trouble with circuses and theatrical troupes traveling in their own cars, many of which ought to be in the scrap heap. These cars should never be accepted, no matter who is in them or what notice you may have received about the runs to be made with them, unless the brakes, running gear, and everything connected with them are in good repair, but when you do take them, handle them as carefully as if they contained dynamite, and get them off the line without accident. When you find such a car on a track which you are obliged to use—it should when possible be set on a track not used for switching—either