Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 7.djvu/70

 58 FEDBBAL BBFOBTEB. �habits of conduct, {vide 4 Pedebal Reporter 38,) and which, if the jury had found to be true, -would have been a good defence ; but insists that, on the f acts as proved, and under the general issue, it was entitled to a verdict, and should now have a new trial, because the court did not adopt that view. I cannot better present the principle upon which we were asked to try the case than by extracting it from the brief of defendant's counsel. "We submit," say they, "that nothing could be more repulsive and annoying to ladies, and their fathers, husbands, and brothers, than to know that whore& will be entitled to be seated by them in railroad cars ; " and again, "Why establish or miaintain a 'ladies' car' at all, if whores, and all other classes of improper characters, can get admittance there, and their exclusion therefrom can only be juStified from bad conduct at the time ?" This position wa& defended and illustrated by the argument ad hominem before the jury, and to the court, with great vehemence, and is not withont some force. Passing the question whether the jury on the facts would so designate this plaintiff, the argument, in nay opinion, is as -wholly unsound as if applied to prevent the characters described from walking on the same street with "ladies. " Nor do I see why it should not be applied to men as well as women, so as to exclude whoremongers, not only from the "ladies' " car, but from that in which "gentle- men" ride. But the experience of every man who travels dem- onstrates that, as a fact, no such classification is attempted ; and the proof was satisfactory that this company does not adopt it, and no regulation was proved that especially author- ized it. The conductor testified that he was instructed to keep out improper characters, which he considered would exclude prostitutes ; but defendant was challenged by plain- tifif's counsel to prove a single instance in which a woman had ever been excluded from their ladies' car for want of a reputation for virtue at home, and no such instance was offered, except the exclusion of this plaintiff twice before by this same conductor. On the other hand, the plaintiff proved that she had frequently traveled in the "ladies' car" on this road with other conductors, and had never been excluded ��� �