20d

THE ASHTABULA DISASTER.

action upon the probability that all or nearly all the otherswould retain their position and do the duty for which theywere designed, instead of giving each member a positiveconnection with the rest, which nothing but a direct rupturecould sever. That the railway company used and continuedto use tiiis bridge about eleven years, during all which timea careful inspection by a competent bridge engineer couldnot have failed to discover the defects. For the neglect ofsuch careful inspection, the railway company alone isresponsible. That the responsibility of this fearful disasterand its consequent loss of life rests upon the railway com-pany, which, by its chief executive officer, planned anderected this bridge; that the cars in which the deceasedpassengers were carried into the chasm, were not heated byheating apparatus so constructed that the tire in them wouldbe immediately extinguished whenever the cars were thrownfrom the track and overturned; that their failure to complywith the plain requirements of the law places the responsi-bility of the origin of the lire upon the railway company;that the responsibility for not putting out the fire at thetime it first made its appearance in the wreck, rests uponthose who were the first to arrive at the scene of the disas-ter, and who seemed to have been so overwhelmed by the fear-ful calamity that they lost all presence of mind, and failed touse the means at hand, consisting of the steam pump in thepumping-house and the fire engine Lake Erie and its hose,which might have been attached to the Steam pump in timeto save life. The steamer belonging to the Fire Depart-ment , and also the Protection fire engine, were hauled morethan a mile through a blinding snow-storm, and over roadsrendered almost impassable by the drifted snow, and arrivedon the ground too late to save human life; but nothingshould have prevented the Chief Engineer from making allpossible eflorts to extinguish wliaf fire there remained.For his failure to do this he is responsible. The personsdeceased, whose bodies were identified and those whosebodies and parts of bodies were unidentified came to theirdeath by the precipitation of the aforesaid cars, in whichthey were riding, into the chasm in the valley of Ashtabulacreek, left by the falling of the bridge, as”aforesaid; thecrushing and burning of cars aforesaid, for all of whichthe railway company is responsible.”

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