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 were frightened off by a train, and their direction changed. After running some two miles the other way, they again went upon the track, and were killed by another engine. The court very properly held that the accident at the ash heap was not the proximate cause of the death of the horses. There was an all-sufficient subsequent intervening cause in that case. And the case in 117 Pa. St., and 11 Atl. Rep., is similar in principle. A street car was stopped to enable a passenger to get on at the rear platform. Just as the passenger reached the platform, the driver, suddenly and without notice, whipped up his horses to avoid a runaway team. The sudden start threw the passenger back on the ground, and she was injured by the runaway team. The court held that the negligence of the driver in suddenly starting the car was not the proximate cause of the injury. In this case, too, there was a subsequent intervening cause. These cases from Pennsylvania reiterate and confirm the rule first announced in that court in Railroad Co. v. Kerr, 62 Pa. St. 353, and repeated in Hoag v. Railroad Co., 85 Pa. St. 293, as follows: "The immediate, and not the remote, cause is to be considered. This maxim is not to be controlled by time or distance, but by succession of events. The question is, did the cause alleged produce its effect without another cause intervening, or was it to operate through or by means of this intervening cause?" In this case the injury-the hurt-was caused by the switch stand, and that alone. It is true that if any one of a great many circumstances that preceded that injury, including the crowding on the platform, had never occurred, plaintiff would not have been where he was, and would not have been injured; but no one of these circumstances was directly or indirectly the cause of the injury. The intervening cause, to be a shield to defendant, must be such as to actually break all connection of cause and effect between the negligent act and the injury. To be a superseding cause it must alone, and without the slightest aid from the act of defendant, produce the injury, and to be a responsible cause it must be the culpable act of a responsible party. Shear & R. Neg. $s 31, 32, and cases cited. But the direct connection of cause and effect between the improper switch stand and the injury remains un-