" "In persons grafted
with a serious trust," says Shakspeare "negligence is a serious crime."
And so it is.
STORY OF SAG BRIDGE.
In September, 1873, a conductor on the Chicago and Alton Railroad
started south with a freight train. He was to stop at a station a few
miles from Joliet and wait for the incoming passenger train from St.
Louis. He consulted his watch. That unhappy piece of mechanism told him
that he had time to reach the next station. He spoke to the operator of
the telegraph. That person could give him no information as to where the
passenger train was, and he, determining not to wait, pulled out. As his
train was still within hearing, the operator rushed to the platform
with the news that the passenger train had left the nearest station! The
operator knew that
TWO TRAINS WERE ABOUT TO COME IN COLLISION,
a knowledge that has sometimes deprived railroad men of their minds
forever. Soon the awful shock reverberated afar, and from nine to
fifteen persons were killed in a horrible manner. One of the most
prominent men of Chicago was scalded so that the flesh left his
skeleton.
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