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An action for damages for personal injuries is rarely brought against a railroad company in which the defence is not set up that the injuries resulted from the plaintiff's negligence, or at least contributory negligence on his part. And to maintain this position, the company is often driven to the very extreme of ingenious quibbling. This truth is illustrated by a case recently tried in New Jersey. The suit was brought by a dentist against the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Company. While going from Hoboken to Madison, he was riding in the car next to the engine. This car was divided into two compartments, of which one was used for baggage and the other was intended for smokers. The plaintiff had been playing a game of cards, and was smoking a cigar. He had just risen to put on his overcoat, when the car in which he was riding came into violent contact with another car. The plaintiff was thrown forward and then backward with such force that he bit in two the cigar that was in his mouth. He walked home with some difficulty, and after a few days' confinement, during which he was attended by a physician, he attempted to resume his business of dentistry. He was not, however, able to do so, and was soon prostrated from injuries to the spinal cord. He became paralyzed and incapable of attending to his business. Of course, the company pleaded that the plaintiff was wholly to blame for the injuries that he had received, and, among other things, contended that the forward smoking car was not the safest place on the train, and that hence every passenger must take the consequences of being there. The court soon disposed of this quibble, and ruled against the company on all the other points raised by it. "The railway company," said Judge Nixon, "is responsible for the safety of its passengers in any place which they have provided for their transportation. If a passenger takes the risk of a ride upon the engine and gets hurt, it is his fault, and not the fault of the company, as they have not agreed to carry passengers safely upon the engine. But a smoking car is intended for passengers, where they can indulge their tastes and appetite without offending the olfactory nerves of their more fastidious (shall I say more cleanly ?) fellow passengers." The jury showed their appreciation of the company's defence by giving the plaintiff a verdict for $12,000.-N. Y. Times, July 29, 1880.

THE CITY BUDGET.- -WHAT THE TAXPAYERS MUST CONTRIBUTE TO RUN THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT.

The following table shows the cost of running the city government this year, the amount asked for, for next year, and the amount allowed the various departments in the provisional estimate made by the commissioners of the Sinking Fund:

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The estimates for 1881, as given above, are now before the

Board of Aldermen, who have by law fifteen days in which to consider them. The figures must then be returned to the Sinking Fund commissioners, who have until the last day of December to make the final estimates.

CHURCH TOWERS.

The towers of Cologne Cathedral are now the highest in the world, the height they have attained being five feet higher than the tower of St. Nicholas Church, in Hamburg, which has hitherto been the highest edifice. Ultimately, they will be fifty-one feet ten inches higher. The Cologne Gazette gives the following as the heights of the chief high buildings in the world: Towers of Cologne Cathedral, 524 feet eleven inches from the pavement of the cloisters, or 515 feet one inch from the floor of the church; tower of St. Nicholas, at Hamburg, 473 feet one inch; cupola of St. Peter's, Rome, 469 feet two inches; cathedral spire at Strasburg, 465 feet eleven inches; Pyramid of Cheops, 449 feet five inches; tower of St. Stephen's, Vienna, 443 feet ten inches; tower of St. Martin's, Landshut, 434 feet eight inches; cathedral spire at Freiburg, 410 feet one inch; cathedral at Antwerp, 404 feet ten inches; cathedral of Florence, 390 feet five inches; St. Paul's, London, 365 feet one inch; ridge tiles of Cologne Cathedral, 360 feet three inches; cathedral tower at Magdeburg, 339 feet eleven inches; tower of the new Votive Church, at Vienna, 314 feet eleven inches; tower of the Rath-haus, at Berlin, 288 feet eight inches; towers of Notre Dame, at Paris, 232 feet eleven inches.

MEDICAL ITEMS.

Mr. Herzstein, M. D., after having attended a full course of lectures and graduating in our college of the session of 1879-80, and previously having studied and attended lectures in one of the most popular colleges in Germany, located in San Francisco, in March, 1880. He succeeded within a few weeks in establishing himself in quite a practice in both medicine and surgery, having resided for quite a length of time in Southern California,

previous to his locating in San Francisco, and being active, energetic and a thorough scholar, soon inspired his friends with the belief that he would make a fine teacher. He received and accepted the appointment of the chair of nervous diseases and physiology in the Medical College at Oakland, California, and is now laboring hard in delivering his first course of lectures. We wish him great success, and will guarantee that Prof. Bundy and colleagues will never have occasion to regret the selection which they have made to fill this chair. We learn that this college is meeting with great success. Their class will reach, as we are informed, about fifty students this winter. If this school is carried out in every respect as we believe it will be, it will receive the confidence and co-operation of the Eclectic Medical profession on the Pacific coast. Truly may it be said that medical reform took its way westward. We have our Eclectic colleges in the East, Northwest, South, and now finally on the Pacific coast. Who cannot say that Eclecticism, as regards her institutions, is not on the onward move? Thence we find schools in New York, Georgia, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and California, with an approximating arrangement in other States to create medical departments in the Universities of Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, etc.—Replications recently filed in Court of Common Pleas, No. 3, to answers submitted by the Eclectic Medical College of Pennsylvania and the American University of Philadelphia, aver that the above corporations have forfeited their charters, because of, first, the conferring of degrees upon persons not possessing the qualifications such as are prescribed by their charter; second, the sale of diplomas; third, the granting of degrees of doctor of medicine, and antedating such diplomas, in order to make it appear that the recipients had the right to practice medicine; and, fourth, the issuing of diplomas with forged signatures. After the replications were filed, counsel for both of the defendants confessed judgment of ouster in favor of the commonwealth, and filed, as a part of the record, a letter from Dr. Buchanan authorizing him to do so.— The trustees of the New York Orthopedic Dispensary and Hospital announce that Dr. Newton M. Shaffer, attending surgeon, will give a course of practical clinical instruction in orthopedic surgery at the institution, on Friday afternoon, at two o'clock, from Octo

ber 15 to December 17 inclusive, which will be free to members of the profession and medical students. The subjects treated will be as follows: ankle, knee and hip joint disease; Pott's disease in the cervical, dorsal and lumbar regions; club-foot, knock-knee and bow-legs; and lateral curvature of the spine.-Dr. J. McDowell's death vacated the chair of anatomy in the St. Louis Medical College, which is now filled by Dr. H. H. Mudd, a graduate of the college, and for some years associated in practice with Dr. J. T. Hodges. During the last eight years he has been demonstrator of anatomy in the college, which position he still holds. During the winter of 1879-80, Dr. Mudd made a number of experiments on the cadaver in regard to the best position for litholapaxy, and as a result of his experiments attaches much importance to elevating the pelvis while the stone is being crushed, and depressing the pelvis while the fragments are being evacuated.—The new Eclectic Medical College of Indiana, at Indianapolis, has a fine beginning. We learn that the leading physicians of that State are friendly to the enterprise, and promise to co-operate with it. If this is true, there is no reason why that growing State will not have as fine a college as any State in the West. Several wealthy men who feel peculiarly proud of their State are now considering the propriety of funding this college, sufficiently ample to place its success beyond a possibility of failure. "Go on, governor!"— The enterprise of starting another old school college in this city has been abandoned for the present, as several of the parties who were to become occupants of the chairs of different departments have quite unexpectedly been provided for; hence good feeling once more prevails among the loving brethren. Twenty-four teachers in one college, with from three to six private examiners, certainly will supply the demand for the present.-Would it not be well for the respective teachers in the medical colleges in this city to examine the students personally upon their own lectures, in place of farming out this duty?-What has become of the diploma mill in Cincinnati ?-We learn that the double-headed medical college at Louisville has divided, and that two distinct colleges are now working as colleges should. We referred to this in the previous number, and are very glad to state this fact.-The effort to establish an Eclectic chair in the Universities of Michigan

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