Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 7.djvu/73

 SBOWN V, HEMPHI8 & C. B. CO. 61 �clearly inadequate to fasten upon her the imputation con- tained in the plea that she was "addicted to lascivious and profane conversation and immodest deportment in public places." The conductor, it is said, swore that she was talk- ing through the window to two "low-down men," and when he ordered her out she said, "l'il be derned if I do;" and it is urged that she did not contradict this in her proof. The court does not remember whether she specifically contradicted the conductor or not, but the proof was all submitted to the jury, the witnesses were before them, and they were. the judges of the facts. She proved that at weddings, parties, pic -nies, and all manner of social gatherings, among the most refined and elegant women of Corinth, she was em- ployed to serve refreshments and wait upon the "virtuous ladies, wives, mothers, and daughters, and their husbands and fathers," and to nurse them in sickness. If this be so (and there is not the least doubt of it) where she and her reputation are best known, it is difficult to see how her pres- ence in a "ladies' car" could be offensive to entire strangers, or even to those to whom she was known at home. On this occasion she sat in one end of the car alone, two or three other women being in the otherend, the remaining passengers \)eing men without female companions, among them the gov- emor of the state, who testified to her good behavior then and at all other times in public. �On proof like this I do not see how the jury could have found otherwise than a wrongful exclusion, except upon the theory already discussed that the mere presence of an un- chaste or "kept woman," as she was called by certain wit- nesses and some of the counsel, is a suificient justification for exclusion from this particular car in which otherwise she was entitled to ride, and an obligation on her to ride in another car, assigned not to women of her class particularly, but which was offensive to her because smoking was allowed in it, and because it was crowded with passengers traveling at lower rates than she paid, and that, too, while she had, ao- cording to contract, the right to as pure air and as good accom- modations as other women traveling on a first-class ticket. ��� �