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PROCEEDINGS.

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plaintiff or defendant, keep ever in mind the sacredness of our calling, and our sworn obligation, "Faithfully to discharge the duties of the office of attorney and counsellor at law." To every lawyer there come opportunities of smoothing prejudices out of his own client and urging upon him the course of honor, justice and mercy. To each lawyer it is given by his example and his speech to make fraud to skulk and cruelty to blush. Each may, if he will, by his own conduct be a reproach to the trickster, the charlatan, and the unscrupulous. By the attitude of the members of this association can the education of the public conscience be most encouraged, which will lead to a more enlightened sense of fairness and justice that will prompt quick and adequate compensation to those entitled, a speedy recognition of non-liability by those not entitled, and a most-to-be desired lessening and purification of necessary conflicts.

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APPENDIX B.

TABLE OF DEATHS FROM VARIOUS CAUSES IN SELECTED LOCALITIES IN YEAR 1900, PRE

PARED FROM FIGURES FOUND IN TWELFTH CENSUS 1900.

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Calif. 1,485,053

10,000 pop.

Deaths per

Deaths...

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2 .0322 3 .0202

.0523 15

.1295 842

1.1584 510

.1177

10

0137 2

.0262 67 .0436 65 1.4838 315 .0058

.1063 14 .1031 .4999 47

.4353 7

.0471

.0583

13

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67

.1063 91 .2797 5

.0336

.0583

0

2

.0028 이

0 368

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.8461 124

488

.6714 120

.3608 1,110 .3491 1,144

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2.8106 783

2.2780 3,157

5.0094 304 9.4522 576 3.8786

68 1.9837

CAUSES:

PROCEEDINGS.

PRESIDENT TULEY: Gentlemen, I see upon my memorandum the name of a well known Chicago attorney; you can not call him a young attorney for he is somewhat of a veteran at the bar, not in personal injury cases, but in general practice. He is a man of pronounced opinions and he has kindly consented to let us hear from him upon the subject under discussion,-Mr. Simon P. Douthart. (Applause).

MR. DOUTHART: Mr. President, and Gentlemen: The state loves the citizen because without the citizen the state can not exist, therefore the first of all law is the protection of the life, liberty and limbs of the citizen. I was more than charmed at his Honor, Judge Tuley's, discussion of equity this morning, but I cannot help but think that this is secondary to this question that is now before the house. As I interpret the subject, it is the wounding, the crippling, the killing of the citizen, and what the courts and lawyers say about it afterwards.

Let me burn this into the nerve center. A few years ago an old client came to my office and said, "My neighbor was killed on the crossing by the cars. I have taken out letters of administration and have gone as far as I can, and now I have come to you for help; what shall I do?" I said to him, "Go over to the claim agent of the company and see if you can settle it, because if you can settle it you do not need an attorney." "What shall I do when I go there, what shall I say?" "John, I will trust you to say the right thing at the right time, go on." John finds the claim agent, a discussion occurs and finally the agent says, "Well, how much do you think we ought to pay?" John says, "I don't know, I never killed a man." (Laughter). The discussion goes on and again the question comes, "Well, what do you think the company ought to pay?" "I don't know, I never killed a man; you have killed lots of them, and you should know something about it." (Laughter).

It is a serious question. I have a statement from a man

PROCEEDINGS.

who was fourteen years in the employ of a claim department in this city, so I give you this on information and belief; my information is good and my belief is strong. Eight thousand persons are injured by one traction company in the city of Chicago in one year. This man opened the claims as they came in. Multiply this by three and you will have twentyfour thousand persons injured in our county in one year. Of course many of these injuries are minor and many of them are settled, and few of them get to the jury.

A year ago this month I rode to the end of the trolley line in Liverpool, England; I talked with the motorman. The cars are like those we find here on the streets, only they are double deckers. I said to him

"How long have you been a motorman on this road?" "Seven years."

"What happens to you when you injure any person with your car?"

"I go to jail."

"Well, suppose it is not your fault, then what?"

"I go to jail anyhow."

"How many times have you been in jail in seven years?" "I never was in jail."

"Well, how many times have these other men that are driving cars through this city been in jail?"

"None of them have been in jail."

"Don't you injure people in Liverpool with these street

cars?"

"No."

Said I, "How fast are you allowed to run your cars?" "Six miles an hour."

So I concluded that this casualty list in the city of Chicago is caused by street cars running all the way from fifteen to thirty miles an hour on the grade through this city, among the adults and children. The law is that a steam car can run on grade no faster than twelve miles an hour; but the West

PROCEEDINGS.

inghouse Company have made a motor that will send these electric cars through the city at the rate of thirty miles an hour, and they actually run here in some places at the rate of twenty-five to thirty miles an hour on the grade. Do you expect that the casualties will grow less? And I thought at this time, when the traction question is before this people, when the question of the franchises is before this people, and how much remuneration the city should have is in our minds, I thought it was an opportunte time for some one to say that the question of the limbs and lives of our people should be thought of at this time, and the man who can suggest it so that it will take action in the form of legislation in this city will not have lived in vain.

About four years ago when there were not so many casualty companies and I suppose the lawyers here all know what the casualty company is formed, incorporated and endowed and set to work for, to fight the cripples

A VOICE: That is right.

MR. DOUTHART: One of these general agents of a casualty company told me, some years ago, that he received a report of a personal injury every twelve minutes during the day, coming out of the work shops, the machine shops, foundries and wherever these Yankee inventions are at work. Our last legislature passed a law that no child under sixteen years of age should be put to work at a machine where they cut the fingers off-one part of the business in this town-and yet it is known to every man that has arrived at the age of maturity that a boy of sixteen is about as careless and untruthful as any person on earth, and if they had put that limit at twenty-one or twenty-two, when the boy has arrived at the age when he can care for himself, there would not be so many fingers and arms taken off as there are in this city today. There is no doubt there is plenty of it in the city. You walk down the street and you meet the cripple, you see him with his shoe strings at the lamp post, with one arm off and

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