it is the company's duty to maintain a fire for such purpose. A failure to provide such accommodations is prima facie evidence of negligence.17 In Texas, this duty is made obligatory by statute.18 So it is the company's duty to see that chairs or benches in the waiting room, which it knows to be defective and liable to cause injury to passengers, are either repaired or removed.19 The question of whether suitable retiring places must be provided in stations does not seem to have been definitely determined in America, although in Kentucky it is required by statute that railroads provide "a convenient and suitable waiting room and water-closet at all cities and towns. ''20 In England, on the other hand, it has been held that retiring places are not necessary adjuncts of railway stations and the mere fact that railway companies make a charge to their passengers for the use of retiring places at their stations is not in the absence of undue preference, a breach of their obligations under section 2 of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 1854, to "afford all reasonable facilities for the receiving and forwarding and delivering of (passenger) traffic"; and the railway commissioners have no jurisdiction to enjoin railway companies to provide free retiring places and desist from making a charge for the use of them.21 It seems hardly possible, however, that this English view will be adopted as the law in America, for the custom has been so universal in America to provide suitable retiring places in stations at cities and towns that it should now be recognized as binding on all railway companies. In the case of smaller villages and ham 17. Railway Co. v. Wilson, 70 Ark. 136, 66 S. W. Rep. 661, 91 Am. St. Rep. 74. 18. Railway Co. v. Cornelius, 10 Tex. Civ. App. 125, 30 S. W. Rep. 720; Railroad Co. v. Pevey, 30 Tex. Civ. App. 460, 70 S. W. Rep. 778; Railway Co. v. McCutcheon (Tex. Civ. App.), 77 S. W. Rep. 232. 19. Railway Co. v. Humble, 97 Fed. 837, 38 C. C. A. 502; affirmed, 181 U. S. 57. 20. Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Commonwealth, 102. Ky. 300, 43 S. W. Rep. 458, 53 L. R. A. 149. (Must be suitable for both men and women.) 21. West Ham Corporation v. Railway Co., (1895) 64 L. J. Q. B. 340. lets the custom is probably otherwise. In any event, if a retiring place is provided, the railway company will be liable for any injury to passengers due to its failure to use ordinary care in maintaining or repairing it.22 The length of time that waiting rooms and retiring places must be kept open is quite often regulated by statute.23 In the absence of statute, however, they must be kept open a reasonable time before the arrival or after the departure of trains.24 What is a reasonable time is a question of fact for the jury under the particular circumstances of each case. 22. In Jordan v. Railroad Co., 165 Mass. 346, 43 N. E. Rep. 111, 32 L. R. A. 101, 52 Am. St. Rep. 522, the plaintiff went to the defendant's passenger station to take a train. She bought a ticket and passed into the ladies' toilet room. There was no light in any part of the station, except the ticket office. The door of the toilet room was open. The plaintiff had often been there before and was familiar with the place. When she felt with her hand for the seat she failed to find it, and fell through an opening in the floor and was injured. "The opening of the station," said the court, "for the sale of tickets upon a train which was about to pass over the railroad, and the condition of the station at the time, were an invitation to persons to come there if they wished to take a train; and the maintenance of the toilet room for a long time previously, the door of which was then open, was an invitation to lady passengers to enter if they wished to use it. The plaintiff was a passenger and the defendant owed her the highest degree of care consistent with the proper management of the business in which it was engaged. . . The existence of a dangerous hole in the floor of the toilet room, under the circumstances, was evidence of negligence on the part of the defendant." 23. Railroad Co. v. Laloge, 24 Ky. L. Rep. 693, 696, 69 S. W. Rep. 795, 62 L. R. A. 405; Railway Co. v. Cornelius, 10 Tex. Civ. App. 125, 30 S. W. Rep. 720; Railroad Co. v. Pevey, 30 Tex. Civ. App. 460, 70 S. W. Rep. 778. 24. Railroad v. Laloge, supra. A rule requiring the waitingroom to be closed after the departure of a train, and to remain closed until 30 minutes before the departure of the next train is reasonable. Waiting rooms are not a place of lodging and accommodation for those who are not passengers. Phillips v. Railway Co., 124 N. C. 123, 32 S. E. Rep. 385, 45 L. R. A. 163. But where the agent had knowledge that an intending passenger had missed his train, owing to the negligence of the agent in furnishing him proper directions, such person having a recent wound, and the night being cold, the station should have been kept open for him until the arrival of the next train, and the carrier was Sec. 932. Same subject-Baggage rooms.-Baggage rooms at a railway station, when open for the reception and delivery of passengers' baggage, are not private rooms, as against owners of baggage who are permitted to enter. In its relation to the public, the company is represented by the baggage master or other employe whom its puts in charge of a baggage room; and, if an owner of baggage enters upon the invitation or by permission of the baggage master, it is the invitation or permission of the company. Whether one who goes in by permission does it only for his own benefit, or for the advantage of both parties, must ordinarily be a question for the jury. Undoubtedly if a passenger enters a baggage room against the express regulation of the railroad company, and without the permission of the baggage master, the company only owes the same care to him as to an ordinary trespasser; but if the company by itself or its baggage master invites a passenger into the baggage room, it is its duty to see that the room is made safe and is without danger.25 Sec. 933. Same subject-Liability for unsafe platforms.It is the duty of the railroad company to so construct its platforms that they shall be reasonably safe for use by passengers, and to so locate them in relation to the railroad tracks that they will afford safe and convenient means of exit to and from its cars for all its passengers, including both old and young and feeble and delicate people, as well as the strong and the robust.26 Thus it would be negligence on the part of the held liable for turning him out and closing the depot. Coleman v. Railway Co., 138 N. Car. 351, 50 S. E. Rep. 690. quires that it shall be suitable and safe. As a general rule, where an appliance, such as a platform, is not obviously dangerous, has been 25. Railroad Co. v. Griffin, 80 in daily use for years, and has Fed. 278, 25 C. C. A. 413. 26. Eichhorn v. Railway Co., 130 Mo. 575, 32 S. W. Rep. 993; Dotson v. Railroad Co., 68 N. J. L. 679, 51 Atl. Rep. 827. The law does not determine how or of what material a platform shall be constructed. It only re uniformly proved adequate, safe and convenient, it may be continued without the imputation of negligence. Railroad Co. v. Hobbs, 58 Ill. App. 130. Evidence as to the unsound condition of the platform at points other than the point where an ac railroad company to construct its platforms so far below the lowest car steps that passengers are compelled to make dangerous leaps to reach either the cars or station platforms.27 So also, it would be negligence to have such a space between the platform of the station and the platform of the car that passengers are likely to fall between them and be injured. cident occurs when it is confined to defects in the immediate vicinity of the place of accident is competent, as tending to show that the carrier was put on notice and yet failed to exercise proper diligence to keep its platform in safe condition. Railroad Co. v. Wyatt, 104 Tenn. 432, 58 S. W. Rep. 308, 78 Am. St. Rep. 926. 27. Foy v. The Railway Co., 18 C. B. (N. S.) 225. In this case, Bovill, Q. C., for the railway company, urged that if the plaintiff, instead of jumping from the first step, as she did (there being two), had turned herself around and availed herself of the assistance of the second and of the handles upon the car, she could have let herself down with more ease and without injury. But Williams, J., answered that "in the present fashion of female attire, the mode of descent suggested by the learned counsel would be scarcely decent." Had the accident happened to one in male attire, the argument would have been unanswerable. Railroad Co. v. Wingate, 143 Ind. 125, 37 N. E. Rep. 274. See also, Truesdell v. Erie R. Co., 99 N. Y. Supp. 694. The fact that the platform is 18 inches below the lowest step of the car is not in itself such negligence as to authorize a recovery. Railway Co. v. Frey, 25 Tex. Civ. App. 386, 61 S. W. Rep. 442. It is a matter of common knowledge that many depot platforms, especially in large cities, are on a level with the railroad track and that some of them are cinder platforms. Whether a particular platfrom was suitable and sufficiently elevated for the use of passengers is a question of fact. Care and caution in its use in such case relate to "foresight," and not "hindsight." The care required as to a platform is ordinary and not extraordinary. Railroad Co. v. Hobbs, 58 Ill. App. 150. It is negligence to have the passenger platform higher than the steps of a passenger coach, and to require passengers to get into a baggage car and pass from thence to the passenger coach. Turner v. Railroad Co., 37 La. Ann. 648. Constructing a platform 26 inches below the level of the lower steps of the cars, "thus compelling the alighting passengers, even women and children, to leap from the steps, like chickens from their perches," is negligence on the part of the railroad company. Tex. 25. It may be negligence to require the passenger to alight on a small box placed on the ground. Missouri Pac. R'y Co. v. Wortham, 73 Whether or not such space is large enough for a passenger to fall into is a question of fact for the jury.28 To construct a platform between railroad tracks which is so narrow that passengers are compelled to stand dangerously near a train has been held to be negligence for which the company is responsible in case of injury;29 but where the platform is constructed so as to afford plenty of room to stand in safety, it is clearly not negligence to build it so that the nearest edge cannot be occupied in safety as a standing place while trains are passing.30 This question, however, is generally interwoven with so many other facts to be taken into consideration that where it is shown that cars overlapped 28. Railroad Co. v. Treat, 179 Ill. 576, 54 N. E. Rep. 290, affirm ing 75 Ill. App. 327; Randolph v. Railway Co., 106 Mo. App. 646, 79 S. W. Rep. 1170; Gabriel v. Railroad Co., 66 N. Y. Supp. 301, 54 App. Div. 41. In such case where the carrier undertakes to show that it had carried a very large number of passengers from the same depot without accident, and inquires of different witnesses whether or not any accidents had occurred or come to their notice, it is not error for the trial court to permit the passenger to prove in rebuttal by a witness that the witness had met with an accident at the same place when attempting to enter the carrier's train before the happening of the accident to the plaintiff. Railroad v. Treat, supra. 29. So where a passenger, while standing upon a platform of the road, was struck and killed by a passing train, it was held to be the grossest negligence to place the platform for passengers in a narrow space between two tracks at a point where a "fast train" passed without stopping, the cars on each track overlapping the platform and leaving a very narrow space for the escape of a person standing on it. This was said to have been an imperfection or defect in the road, and the carrier was made responsible for the killing. Pennsylvania R. R. v. Henderson, 51 Pa. St. 315. The railway company is bound to construct safe platforms and of sufficient size to allow safe egress from ordinary trains, and it is neg ligence to so construct its platform that a passenger standing on it is liable to be struck by a passing train. Union Pac. R'y Co. v. Sue, 25 Neb. 772; Hulbert v. Railroad Co., 40 N. Y., 145; Warren . Railroad Co., 8 Allen, 227. See. also, Lake Shore R. Co. v. Ward, 135 Ill. 511, 26 N. E. Rep. 520; Young v. Railroad Co., 171 Mass. 33, 50 N. E. Rep. 455, 41 L. R. A. 193. 30. Railroad Co. v. Mahara, 47 Ill. App. 208; Dotson . Railroad Co., 68 N. J. Law, 679, 54 Atl. Rep. 827; Matthews v. Railroad Co., 148 Pa. St. 491, 24 Atl. Rep. 67. |