Page:McClure's Magazine volume 10.djvu/37

Rh a blast furnace of the narrow cut. We could only hope that they had been mercifully killed at once, and not slowly roasted alive, as so many have been, and will continue to be while railroads exist.

I remained in hospital about a week, during which time both the coroner and



the company's lawyer took my affidavit as to what I knew of the orders by which we were running. I knew nothing about them, but I observed that the company's attorney appeared anxious to have me remember having heard that we were to meet and pass train 31 at Brookdale and appeared very much disappointed when I was unable to do so.

Brookdale was the last switch that we passed before the collision. It was claimed by the company, and admitted by the conductor of train 31, that their orders read, "Meet and pass train 28 at Brookdale." Our orders should have stated the same passing-point, and the company's witnesses all swore they did; they even produced the operator's copy, with Simmons's signature attached, in proof. Simmons swore the signature was forged; but as it corresponded with others which they produced on former orders, this statement had but little effect.

Both Simmons and the engineer swore that their orders read "Daly's;" the flagman stated that Simmons invariably read the orders to him, asked him how he understood them, explained them if necessary, and then filed them on a hook in the caboose, where they remained open to inspection until fulfilled, when he put them in his desk, to be returned to the train-despatcher at the end of the trip; he also swore that our order read "Daly's." The engineer said he always read his copy of all orders to the conductor, to be sure they understood them alike; he then filed them on a hook in the cab, and when the hook was full threw them in the firebox.

Asked by the company's attorney if he made a practice of reading his orders to the fireman and head brakeman, he said no; but if they asked what the orders were, he told them, and gave them any information they asked for. For this neglect to read orders to every man within reach he was severely censured by both the lawyer and the coroner, although there was no rule requiring him to do so. "For," said the lawyer, "if you had done so, probably some of those men might not have been quite so pigheaded as you are, and would have remembered that Brookdale was your meeting-point."