Derailments due to defects of equipment for the 10 years ended June 30, 1913.1

1 Figures for number of persons killed and injured for years prior to 1911 are restricted to passengers and employees on duty.

Derailments due to defects of equipment for the 10 years ended June 30, 19131-Contd.

1 Figures for number of persons killed and injured for years prior to 1911 are restricted to passengers and employees on duty.

Derailments due to defects of roadway for the 10 years ended June 30, 1913.1

1 Figures for number of persons killed and injured for years prior to 1911 are restricted to passengers and employees on duty.

SAFETY APPLIANCES.

During the fiscal year ended June 30, 1913, 195 employees were killed and 3,361 employees were injured while coupling and uncoupling cars. The corresponding figures for the preceding fiscal year were 192 and 3,234, respectively. Casualties caused by collisions with overhead and side obstructions and falling from and getting on and off cars resulted in 721 deaths and 18,257 injuries to employees. The corresponding figures for last year were 704 deaths and 15,721 injuries.

From the tabulated summary appended to the report of the chief inspector of safety appliances to the Commission it appears evident that in many cases cars are hauled from terminals and repair points in a defective condition when minor repairs to safety appliances would render them conformable to the requirements of the statute. This is due to inadequate inspection and failure to provide repair facilities at all essential points. This inefficient inspection service was noted in the Commission's last annual report, and while the situation has recently been somewhat remedied there is still room for improvement.

Since the publication of the last annual report a considerable number of cars have been made to conform to the standards prescribed by the Commission in its order of March 13, 1911, pursuant to the provisions of the act of April 14, 1910. The ratio of the cars already equipped, however, to the total number of cars to be equipped is still unduly small, and unless the work of equipment is greatly expedited it can not be completed within the time prescribed.

During the fiscal year ended June 30, 1913, 191 cases, involving an aggregate of 626 violations of the safety-appliance act, were transmitted to the several United States attorneys for prosecution. Cases comprising 91 counts were tried in court, of which 56 counts were decided in favor of the Government. Of the remaining 35 counts originally decided in favor of defendants, appeals have been taken by the Government as to 31. The carriers confessed judgment during the year as to 448 counts. Penalties aggregating $56,800 were collected, and additional penalties in the sum of $19,800, in addition to costs previously assessed by the courts, were, on July 1, 1913, pending payment by the carriers.

The tabulated summary appended to the report of the chief inspector of safety appliances to the Commission shows the penalties paid by the various carriers for their respective violations of the safetyappliance, hours-of-service, and ash-pan acts, as reported by the Solicitor of the Treasury prior to November 1, 1913. This table shows an aggregate of all penalties collected as indicated of $480,962.14.

JUDICIAL INTERPRETATION OF THE SAFETY APPLIANCE ACT.

The Supreme Court of the United States in American Railroad Co. of Porto Rico v. Didricksen (227 U. S., 145) held that the safety applance acts were sufficiently broad to include railroads in PortoRico.

On April 17, 1913, the Commission passed an order "that a proceeding of investigation be, and the same hereby is, instituted by the Commission to determine the character and kind of equipment used in the transportation of passengers and property by common carriers by railroad in Porto Rico, the safety appliances now installed, and what further appliances are or may be required under the safety appliance acts, and ordered that the time within which common carriers by railroad in Porto Rico shall comply with the said safety appliance acts to any greater extent than they do at the present time be, and the same hereby is, extended to a date to be hereafter fixed by this Commission.”

In the case of Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Co. v. Brown (June 10, 1913, 229 U. S., 317; 33 Sup. Ct. Rep., 840) the Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals (185 Fed., 80) wherein the defendant in error, a switchman in attempting to uncouple some cars by means of an inoperative uncoupling lever had his foot caught in an unblocked frog and lost a leg. Mr. Justice McKenna, in delivering the opinion of the court said: "And the concession is made that in the Taylor case (210 U. S. 281, 52 L. Ed. 1061, 28 Sup. Ct. Rep., 616) and in Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Co. v. United States (220 U. S., 559, 55 L. Ed. 582, 31 Sup. Ct. Rep., 612), this court settled that the failure of a coupler to work at any time sustains a charge of negligence in this respect, no matter how slight the pull on the coupling lever."

On May 5, 1913, the Supreme Court dismissed for want of jurisdiction the case of Colorado & Northwestern Railway Co. v. United States, on writ of error to the District Court of the United States for the District of Colorado (229 U. S., 605). This case involved the application of the Federal safety appliance acts to a railroad which transports articles of interstate commerce operating entirely within a single State, and independently of all other carriers. Suit was originally instituted in the district court of Colorado and resulted in a verdict for the defendant. On appeal the judgment of the district court was reversed by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit (157 Fed., 321), the court holding that the acts applied to such a railroad, the test being the transportation of articles of interstate commerce. Petition for writ of certiorari being subsequently dismissed by the Supreme Court of the United States (209 U. S., 544), the case was retried in the district court, where a verdict was