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 be compassed. A great turmoil was cre- ated ; and a general panic ensued, which the Ministry in vain endeavoured to allay by an examination of the coin at the mint, and the issue of a certificate of its purity signed by Sir Isaac Newton. Swift's fourth letter turned the agitation into the desired channel. Declaring that a people long used to indignities soon lose by degrees the very idea of liberty, he boldly and clearly defined the limits of the prerogatives of the^Crown, asserted the in- dependence of Ireland, and the nullity of those measures which had not received the sanction of the Irish Parliament. " He avowed his entire adherence to the doctrine of Molyneux ; he declared his allegiance to the King, not as King of England, but as King of Ireland ; and he asserted that Ireland was rightfully a free nation, which implied that it had the power of self- legislation ; for, ' government withovrt the consent of the governed, is the very de- finition of slavery.' " ^'^ All parties in Ireland combined in resistance to the obnoxious patent ; the Lord-Chancellor denounced the coin ; the Lords-Justices refused to sanction its circulation ; Parlia- ment voted addresses against it ; most of the grand juries at quarter sessions con- demned it ; Primate Boulter lamented " that the people of every religion, country, and party here are alike set against Wood's halfpence, and that their agreement in this has had a very unhappy influence on the state of this nation, by bringing on in- timacies between Papists and Jacobites, and the Whigs." Neither the Duke of Grafton nor his successor. Lord Carteret, was able to quell the agitation ; a reward of £300 was in vain offered for the dis- covery of the author (who was well known to be Swift); the grand jury refused to find a bill against the printer; public feeling grew stronger every day; and at last Walpole was compelled to cancel the patent. Mr. Lecky says : " Such were the circumstances of this memorable contest — a contest which has been deserved- ly placed in the foremost ranks in the annals of Ireland. There is no more momentous epoch in the history of a nation than that in which the voice of the people has first spoken, and spoken with success. . . . Before this time rebellion was the natural issue of every patriotic effort in Ireland. Since then rebellion has been an anachron- ism and a mistake. The age of Desmond and of O'Neill had passed. The age of Grattan and of O'Connell had begun. Swift was admirably calculated to be the leader of public opinion in Ireland, from his complete freedom from the character- istic defects of the Irish temperament. His writings exhibit no tendency to ex- aggeration or bombast; no fallacious im- ages or far-fetched analogies ; no tumid phrases, in which the expression hangs loosely and inaccurately around the mean- ing. His style is always clear, keen, nervous, and exact. He delights in the most homely Saxon, in the simplest and most unadorned sentences. His arguments are so plain that the weakest mind can grasp them, yet so logical that it is seldom possible to evade their force. . . After the Drapiefs Letters, Swift published several minor pieces on Irish affairs, but most of them are very inconsiderable. The principal is his Short View of the State of Ireland, published in 1727, in which he enumerated fourteen causes of a nation's prosperity, and showed in how many of these Ireland was deficient. He also brought forward the condition of the country indirectly, in his amusing pro- posal for employing children for food — a proposal which a French writer is said to have taken literally, and to have gravely adduced as a proof of the wretched con- dition of the Irish. His influence with the people, after the Drapiefs Letters, was unbounded. . . There are few things in the Irish history of the last century more touching than the constancy with which the people clung to their old leader, even at a time when his faculties had wholly decayed ; and, notwithstanding his creed, his profession, and his intoler- ance, the name of Swift was for many generations the most universally popular in Ireland. He first taught the Irish people to rely upon themselves. He led them to victory at a time when long oppression and the expatriation of all the energy of the country had deprived them of every hope." ^" Swift's scornful feelings towards the native Irish have been much exaggerated. In a letter addressed by him to Sir Charles Wogan in July 1732, we fiud the following estimate of the Irish Catholics abroad and at home : " I cannot but highly esteem those gentlemen of Ireland, who, with all the disadvantages of being exiles and strangers, have been able to distinguish themselves by their valour and conduct in so many parts of Europe, I think above all other nations, which ought to make the English ashamed of the reproaches they cast on the ignorance, the dullness, and the want of courage in the Irish natives ; those defects, wherever they happen, aris- ing only from the poverty and slavery they suffer from their inhuman neighbours, and the base, corrupt spirit of too many of 510


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Author:Melesina Chenevix Trench

Works

 * Leadbeater Papers (1861)
 * Remains, Selections from Journals, Letters, and other Papers (1862)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Author:Melesina Chenevix Trench


text: User:Theornamentalist/Sandbox

title: User:Theornamentalist/Sandbox


text:
User talk:92.232.78.16

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title: User talk:92.232.78.16


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User talk:Geraldglover

— billinghurst  sDrewth  15:07, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

title: User talk:Geraldglover


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User:Theornamentalist/Sandbox2

Unformatted
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title: User:Theornamentalist/Sandbox2


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Page:Cartoon portraits and biographical sketches of men of the day.djvu/107

 {| width=300px
 * +Dramas in order of production.
 * The Ladies' Battle||Translation.
 * The Village Tale||Three-act drama.
 * The Lost Husband||Four-act drama.
 * Masks and Faces ||Two-act comedy.
 * Gold||Drama, five acts.
 * Two Loves and a Life ||Drama, four acts.
 * The King's Rival ||Comedy, five acts.
 * The First Printer ||Drama, three acts.
 * The Courier of Lyons||Drama, three acts.
 * Honour before Titles||Drama, three acts.
 * It is Never too Late to Mend||Drama, five acts.
 * Griffith Gaunt||Drama, five acts.
 * Foul Play||Drama, five acts.
 * Dora||Pastoral drama, three acts.
 * The Double Marriage||Drama, five acts.
 * Put Yourself in his Place||Drama, five acts.
 * The Robust Invalid||Comedy, three acts.
 * Shilly Shally ||Comedy, three acts.
 * }
 * It is Never too Late to Mend||Drama, five acts.
 * Griffith Gaunt||Drama, five acts.
 * Foul Play||Drama, five acts.
 * Dora||Pastoral drama, three acts.
 * The Double Marriage||Drama, five acts.
 * Put Yourself in his Place||Drama, five acts.
 * The Robust Invalid||Comedy, three acts.
 * Shilly Shally ||Comedy, three acts.
 * }
 * The Double Marriage||Drama, five acts.
 * Put Yourself in his Place||Drama, five acts.
 * The Robust Invalid||Comedy, three acts.
 * Shilly Shally ||Comedy, three acts.
 * }
 * Shilly Shally ||Comedy, three acts.
 * }
 * }

This list shows that Charles Reade is the author, or joint-author—in four plays and one novel—of nineteen different stories, ranging in length from one-third of a volume to four volumes: and of eighteen dramatic works.

Now it certainly argues some want of real knowledge or study in the critics of the day, that they cannot assign his place, whatever that may be, to this writer. They can place inferior authors, but they really and honestly have no notion where this man stands, either as a novelist, or dramatist, or both. Perhaps it may tend to clear this absolute fog enveloping the judgment of the critics, if we descend from the indefinite to the definite, and compare him with a writer of acknowledged excellence. We are so fortunate as to possess in this country a novelist who, if contemporary criticism were to be trusted, is the greatest writer of fiction the world ever saw. With regard to Shakspeare, contemporary criticism has left but two remarks in print, both of them unfavourable. Corneille was so often lashed, and so little praised, that he has left a line behind him to celebrate the fact:


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Page:Cartoon portraits and biographical sketches of men of the day.djvu/108

 Molière was denounced as a plagiarist; Voltaire was well lashed; Scott did not quite escape; Bulwer has been severely criticised; even Dickens was always roughly handled in certain respectable prints.

But George Eliot is faultless. This is the sober and often repeated verdict of every quarterly, monthly, and daily critic in the empire, except of one writer, who tried to stem the torrent of adulation in the 'Quarterly Review,' and failed because, being no critic, he selected certain of that excellent writer's beauties, and held them up for faults.

Now perhaps some people will open their eyes if we tell them that this prodigious writer often borrows ideas from Charles Reade, and sometimes improves them, sometimes bungles them. But, as in matters of art it is sometimes kind to open people's eyes, we shall assure you that this is so; and moreover that in a single instance the two writers have come into competition on fair terms, and the comparison is so unfavourable to the favourite, that the said comparison, though obvious, has always been dexterously avoided.

In 'It is Never too Late to Mend,' published in 1856, one of the situations is as follows: Good Mr. Eden, having to deal with a hardened thief, goes down on his knees in that thief's cell, and prays aloud for him; and softens him a little. In 'Adam Bede,' good Dinah goes on her knees in the cell of Hetty, an impenitent criminal; and softens her a little.

Reade uses few words, after his kind; and Eliot uses many words, after her kind. But amplification is not invention: the inventor and the only inventor of that famous scene in 'Adam Bede' is Charles Reade.

Mr. Eden preaches a sermon in the gaol. The author shuns the beaten track, and gives the very words of the sermon.

George Eliot profits by this, and gives her Dinah the very words of a sermon. And in one respect she goes beyond her original: for her sermon is fuller, and has a distinct merit, being composed—with great heart and beauty of—homely English, often Saxon, and nearly always monosyllabic. But she falls behind in one thing—she makes Dinah preach her sermon to strangers; and that shows a want of constructive art.

Charles Reade has since returned to his own invention, and has made his Rhoda Somerset preach a remarkable sermon, at which those personages


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 to us real persons we know well: the France, Italy, Holland, and Germany of the time of Erasmus are faithfully reproduced. The interest never flags: there is always something to command attention and excite curiosity. 'The Cloister and the Hearth' is one of the most scholarlike and learned, as well as one of the most artistic and beautiful, works of fiction in any language. This splendid production can only be compared with the best books of one author Walter Scott. And in all things it is as good as 'Kenilworth' and 'Ivanhoe:' in some points it is better. Although we place two of Charles Reade's books first in their respective classes—'Foul Play' in the class of novels called sensational, and 'The Cloister and the Hearth' in that of the purely imaginative—yet his books, taken throughout, are of more even merit than those of almost any other novelist. They are written in English as pure, as simple, and as truly Saxon as any this century has produced: in a literary style—nervous, vigorous, and masculine—with which the most captious and partisan critic cannot find any fault.

Read him: resign yourself to the magic spell of his genius, and be lifted above the cares of everyday life into the regions of imagination, peopled by his real creations. You may be trusted then to draw your own conclusions as to the merit of his books.

By the million readers of the time to come, Bulwer, Dickens, Thackeray, and Reade will be handed down to fame together in every English-speaking country.

To the scholar and the man of culture, 'The Cloister and the Hearth' may possibly be dearer than the humorous and wonderful creations of Dickens's fertile genius, or the life-like characters and satirical digressions of Thackeray.


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Page:Englishmen in the French Revolution.djvu/87

Rh wind of treason. The prisoner, too, had sheltered his brother's emissary, the Irish Presbyterian minister Jackson; had corresponded with Jackson in Ireland, signing his name backwards way (Enots), and had forwarded to the Government garbled extracts from his brother's letters; but Lord Lauderdale, Sheridan, and William Smith, M.P., testified that he was merely a weak enthusiast, anxious to give himself airs, yet sincerely desirous of a peace with France. Rogers, called as a witness for the prosecution, and asked as to the prisoner's loyalty to the King and regard for his country, evasively answered that he had always thought him a well-meaning man, and he was not pressed to say more. The prisoner was acquitted, and, after a fortnight's detention for debt, retired to France, where he became steward to an Englishman named Parker, at Villeneuve St. George.

J. H. Stone would scarcely have been acquitted, for in a document read at the trial he spoke through- out of the French as "we," and of the English as "you," thus identifying himself, as Chief Justice Kenyon remarked, with France. In a published letter to Dr. Priestley, he made some caustic comments on the prosecution, incidentally extolled the Girondins, and declared his dissent from Paine's religious views and his belief in an enlightened Christianity. In November 1796 he confirmed a report that Dr. Priestley intended to settle in France. Priestley, he said, would have made France his home


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68 in 1794 but for the Terror, and Stone was keeping his books for him. While still an ardent politician, and in the confidence, if not in the pay, of the Directory, Stone had by this time started afresh in business, and became one of the chief printers in Paris. In 1805 he brought out an edition of the Geneva Bible; he published several English reprints, and he undertook a costly edition of "Humboldt's Travels." This work, which must have made him acquainted with Humboldt, ruined him, and in 1813 he had to hand it over to Smith, likewise apparently an Englishman. He had been even reduced, in 1811, to applying to Madame de Genlis for repayment of the 12,000 francs advanced for her husband's escape. Madame de Genlis professed ignorance of the loan, and inability to repay it, but assured Stone of her esteem and gratitude; yet in her memoirs the treacherous woman represents him as having wronged her. He is described by Charles Coquerel, his quasi-nephew, as of abrupt and eccentric manners, enthusiastic, ever ready to render a service. He published, under the name of Photinus, a letter to Du Fossé in defence of Unitarianism. He was naturalised in 1817, simultaneously with Helen Williams, and died in the following year. His tombstone in Père Lachaise, "the last tribute of a long friendship," describes him as an enlightened champion of religion and liberty. A now fallen


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Rh stone beside it seemingly marks the spot where Helen Williams was interred nine years later. It is now time to speak of the lady who shared his struggles and poverty, and who may have been secretly married to him by their friend Bishop Grégoire, though it is not easy to understand why they were not legally and publicly united. Helen Maria Williams, whose date and place of birth have puzzled biographers, but are cleared up by her letters of naturalisation, was born in London in 1769, and was consequently just of age when she went over with her mother and sisters to witness the Federation of 1790, "perhaps the finest spectacle the world had ever witnessed." A precocious girl, she had published a story in verse at twelve years of age, and an Ode on the Peace at thirteen, and she had been introduced to and flattered by Dr. Johnson. Enraptured with the Revolution, the Williams's settled in Paris in 1791, and Madame Roland, one of Helen's earliest acquaintances, used to take her to the Jacobin Club at the time when Brissot and Vergniaud harangued there. Madame Roland would fain have seen her married to her own admirer. Deputy Bancal, nineteen years Helen's senior; but she pleaded the recent death of her father, a retired officer, and evidently did not reciprocate his attachment. Yet Madame Roland wrote to Bancal:—

"Either I understand nothing whatever of the human


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Page:Englishmen in the French Revolution.djvu/90

70 heart, or you are destined to be the husband of Mademoiselle ——, if you manage properly, and if she remains here three months. Constancy and generosity can do anything with an honest and tender heart which is unpledged." Bancal, destined to become a Catholic mystic, proposed on Christmas Eve 1791 the prohibition of all public religious ceremonies, as also of all reference in schools to a future state. Helen persuaded him to vote for saving the King's life; and his was no fleeting fancy, for in 1796, on his release from Austrian dungeons, he got Bishop Grégoire to repeat his offer of marriage; but by that time Helen had found her elective affinity in John Hurford Stone. The Williams's Sunday-evening receptions were attended by the leading Girondins. Vergniaud there rehearsed his parliamentary speeches, and Barère shed tears—probably sincere at the time—over dissensions and excesses which made him sigh for his provincial quietude. Their upper story in the Rue de Bac gave them a partial view of the attack on the Tuileries, and they with difficulty persuaded their porter to admit a wounded Swiss, who implored a glass of water, drank it, and expired. An idle story that Helen callously walked among the bodies of the victims gained currency in England, and induced Boswell to expunge in the second


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Rh edition of his "Johnson" the adjective "amiable," which he had originally applied to her. Amiable, strictly speaking, she may not have been—she was too dogmatic for that; but, far from being callous, she was horrified at finding corpses in the Tuileries gardens, whither she had ventured on the assurance of everything being quiet, and hastily retreated. She wrote against the Jacobins in letters to English journals, twice visited Madame Roland in prison, and was intrusted by her with papers which the fear of domiciliary visits compelled her to destroy, together with documents of her own. In October 1793, the author of "Paul and Virginia" was drinking tea with the Williams's, and describing his projected paradise at Essonne—he had married, or was about to marry, Félicité, daughter of Didot, the great printer and typefounder, who had a paper-mill in that village—when a friend rushed in with tidings that all the English were to be arrested as hostages for Toulon. The next day was one of painful suspense. By evening they had heard of the apprehension of most of their English acquaintances, but still hoped their sex might exempt them. At 2, however, commissaries arrived, hurried them out of bed and to the guardhouse—a sort of lock-up—where they passed the rest of the night. Thence they were conveyed to the Luxembourg, where the porter, a Swiss Protestant, who remembered having seen them at church, was kind to them.


text: Cartoon portraits and biographical sketches of men of the day/Dion Boucicault


text:
Author:George Darley

Works

 * Nepenthe
 * Errors of Ecstasie
 * Sylvia, or The May Queen
 * Thomas a Beckett; ADramatic Chronical
 * Popular Algebra
 * Familiar Astronomy (1830)
 * I've been Roaming

title: Author:George Darley


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Page:Englishmen in the French Revolution.djvu/92

72 The prisoners, mostly English, took turns in making the fire and sweeping the rooms, and those who could not afford to send out for dinner cooked their own. The Williams's had family prayers at night in which Lasource, the eloquent Protestant pastor, and Madame de Genlis's husband, both destined to the guillotine, joined. They had also joined in composing "a little hymn set to a sweet solemn air," which formed part of these devotions. Many, however—of the French prisoners, at least—were less serious, and were addicted to cards, music, and even love-making. Indeed, a scandal in which an outsider and a female prisoner were concerned occasioned an order for the separation of the sexes, and, while the men remained at the Luxembourg, forty Englishwomen were sent to the English Conceptionist Convent. The Blue Nuns, themselves prisoners in their own house, and compelled to convert their flowing robes into gowns and their veils into bonnets, were very kind to their distressed countrywomen, and Sister Thérèse struck Helen as the nearest approach to angelic purity she had ever seen. Exercise in the garden was allowed, and friends could speak to them through the grating, whereas at the Luxembourg they could not stir beyond the threshold, and could be seen by friends only at the common-room window.

Athanase Coquerel, a native of Rouen, settled in business at Paris, and already engaged to Helen's


text:
Hunted Down

 * Hunted Down, a novelette by Charles Dickens
 * Hunted Down, a work by Dion Boucicault

title: Hunted Down


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Page:Englishmen in the French Revolution.djvu/93

Rh sister Cecilia, after two months' untiring and perilous exertions procured the release of the Williams's, which seems to have been so clandestinely effected that there is no entry of it. They risked their lives by sheltering Rabaut St. Etienne, and after a time went to Switzerland, leaving behind Cecilia, now Madame Coquerel. Helen, who had gone to France as to a land of liberty, hailed the Swiss frontier as an escape from Inferno. Perhaps after all, Barère, whom she suspected of betraying her drawing-room conversations, committed one good action in his life, and facilitated her liberation and departure. She returned after Robespierre's fall; and in July 1796, Wolfe Tone, half displeased at thus losing his incognito, met "my old friend Stone of Hackney" walking in the Tuileries gardens with Miss Williams. He dined with them "very pleasantly." Stone "was very hearty, but H. M. Williams is Miss Jane Bull completely. I was quite gentle and agreeable." This probably means that Tone had to avoid interlarding his conversation with oaths, more suo. After Cecilia's death in 1798 Helen was like a mother to her two boys, one of them the future pastor, Athanase Coquerel père. She admired the Bonaparte of Brumaire, but loathed Bonaparte the despot, and was punished by him with a domiciliary visit and a night's captivity for ignoring him in her Ode on the Peace of 1802. Fox spent an evening with her in that year. The


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74 notorious Lewis Goldsmith tells an absurd story of Bonaparte having ordered her to invite Fox, in order to worm out his opinions, and of Stone having furnished the police with a full report of the conversation. Helen and Stone, he alleges, spoke strongly against Bonaparte's tyranny for the purpose of drawing Fox out, but the latter was very reserved. All this is certainly a fabrication. Helen laid by her pen till Napoleon's fall, and she welcomed the Restoration, with the English visitors which followed in its train. Lady Morgan, in 1816, found numerous guests at her Sunday-evening reception, but Stone's increasing embarrassments affected her, and she had to write, no longer for pleasure, but to eke out her resources. Athanase Coquerel, as Pastor Marron told Lady Morgan in 1829, was for a time in ignorance of her straitened circumstances. On learning them, he fetched her to Amsterdam; but separation from friends and Dutch habits brought on confirmed melancholy. He had to take her back to Paris, and settled a small annuity on her, but she died soon after her return, in 1827. An eye-witness of the greater part of the Revolution, acquainted with the leading actors, and a ready writer, she might have given us the best contemporary account of it; but her habit of moralising spoilt her as an annalist, so that of her numerous works not one has escaped oblivion, and even the few persons who may occasionally sing her hymn—


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Rh "While Thee I seek, protecting Power," are probably unaware by what "Williams" it was written. "Affected but kind-hearted" was the verdict passed on her by Mary Wollstonecraft, who, disappointed of joining Fuseli's proposed party to Paris, went thither alone in December 1792 for the purpose of learning French and of finding a situation as teacher for her sister. Walpole styles Mary a "hyæna in petticoats," because she attacked Marie Antoinette even after death; yet tears fell from her eyes when she saw Louis pass on his way to trial, displaying more dignity than she had expected. She unluckily met Imlay, heedlessly acted upon her theory of free-love, joined him at Havre in 1794, gave birth to a child there, and on business calling Imlay to London, returned with her infant to Paris. Hamilton Rowan, the Irish agitator, arriving shortly before Robespierre's fall, heard at some festival a lady talking English to a nursemaid carrying an infant, and made acquaintance with this by courtesy Mrs. Imlay. She remained in France till the following year, having, however, previously sent off her manuscripts, for had these been found, her life would not have been worth much; but her book


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76 on the Revolution, mostly written in a gardener's solitary cottage at Neuilly, did not advance beyond a first volume, and this contains nothing that would be otherwise unknown. She does not relate her own experiences, and, writing for contemporaries more or less familiar with the facts, she moralises rather than narrates. John Oswald, as a fellow-vegetarian, was probably acquainted with Pigott, and, like him, did not see the end of the Revolution, but his end was more tragical. The son of an Edinburgh coffee-house keeper, he was apprenticed to a jeweller, but a legacy enabled him to buy a commission in the 43rd Foot, which he accompanied to India. He left the army, possibly on account of his political opinions, and in 1785 returned to England. He had become a vegetarian, thinking it cruel to take an innocent animal's life, and filthy to feed upon a corpse. He had a passion for travelling, had lived among the Kurds and Turcomans, and was acquainted with Arabic, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. Despising fashion, he dispensed with cravat and wig, wearing his hair à la Titus. In 1787 he published a volume of poems under the name of Sylvester Otway, a farce called the "Humours of John Bull" being inserted in it. He also started a magazine called the British Mercury, and issued some Radical pamphlets. The Revolution drew him to Paris, a dislike of creditors, according to some,


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Rh being an additional inducement. He joined the Jacobin Club, and Brissot in September 1792 suggested the conferring of French citizenship on him, but this was not acted upon. He translated Collot d'Herbois' "Spirit of the French Constitution," which he appended to an ode of his own on the Triumph of Freedom. He was one of the founders of the Chronique du Mois, a political magazine. Vegetarian though he was, he considered bloodshed necessary to the success of the Revolution. In March 1792 he placarded the faubourg St. Antoine with bills advocating the abolition of standing armies, all able-bodied citizens to be armed with pikes. He was commissioned to organise a regiment of volunteers, but found them very refractory, and being a stern disciplinarian, he had "almost as many enemies as soldiers in his corps." He had left his wife and three children in England, but he sent for his two boys, and made them drummers in his regiment. He was dispatched against the Vendée insurgents, but in almost the first engagement he and his sons perished. It is believed that they were killed by their own men. Another Englishman who fell with them may have been Dr. Maxwell, who in December 1792 joined the French army, and is not again heard of. Three months previously Maxwell started a subscription in London for the French, citing the Corsica subscription as a precedent; but his house was mobbed on the day


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78 the promoters were to meet. Maxwell slipped away unobserved, and Horne Tooke took the arrivals to his own house, where a considerable sum was raised, and an order for arms sent to Birmingham.

Another Scotchman, Thomas Christie of Montrose, paid three visits to France. He was of a Unitarian family, and was an old pupil of Dr. Price, who in the winter of 1789 gave him introductions to Mirabeau and Necker. Enraptured with the Revolution, he counted on the regeneration of mankind. As he remained six months, he probably joined Cloots's deputation. In May 1791 he went over again, became intimate with Danton, and on his return wrote an answer to Burke. In 1792 he was once more in Paris, and when the Assembly resolved on translating the Constitution into the eight principal European languages, Christie undertook the English version, which and the Italian were the only ones executed. He knew Mackintosh and Paine. He probably left just before the September massacres, for on the 9th of that month he married in London, and became a partner in his wife's grandfather's carpet-factory. In the spring of 1793 he was again in Paris, with his wife and unmarried sister. George Forster, the German naturalist who had accompanied Cook in his voyage round the world,


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Rh received great kindness from them, and accompanied them to the opera and in excursions to Louveciennes. Miss Christie was in love with a young Frenchman, formerly adjutant to Lafayette, who had taken refuge in England. The engagement was disapproved of by the family, and the young lady, who was in weak health, excited Forster's sympathy. She, in turn, commiserated his troubles. He was sent on a mission to Arras in August 1793, and on his return in the following November, the Christies must have quitted Paris, for he does not again mention them. Whether because the carpet-factory did not flourish, or because of a restless disposition, Christie went out to Surinam, and died there in 1796, at the age of thirty-five.


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Page:Englishmen in the French Revolution.djvu/101

 V.


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MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co.

Donald C. MacPherson, Respondent, v. Buick Motor Company, Appellant

Court of Appeals of New York

217 N.Y. 382; 111 N.E. 1050

January 24, 1916, Argued -- March 14, 1916, Decided

1. If the nature of a finished product placed on the market by a manufacturer to be used without inspection by his customers is such that it is reasonably certain to place life and limb in peril if the product is negligently made, it is then a thing of danger. Its nature gives warning of the consequences to be expected. If to the element of danger there is added knowledge that the thing will be used by persons other than the purchaser, and used without new tests, then, irrespective of contract, the manufacturer of this thing of danger is under a duty to make it carefully. This principle is not limited to poisons, explosives and things of like nature, which in their normal operation are implements of destruction.

2. The defendant, a manufacturer of automobiles, sold an automobile to a retail dealer and the retail dealer resold to the plaintiff. While the plaintiff was in the car it suddenly collapsed and he was thrown out and injured. One of the wheels was made of defective wood, and its spokes crumbled into fragments. The wheel was not made by the defendant, but was bought from another manufacturer. There is evidence, however, that its defects could have been discovered by reasonable inspection and that inspection was omitted. There is no claim that the defendant knew of the defect and willfully concealed it. On examination and analysis of the authorities in this and other states, in the Federal courts and of the English cases, held, that the defendant's liability was not confined to the immediate purchaser, and that it was not absolved from a duty of inspection because it bought the wheels from a reputable manufacturer. Since it was not merely a dealer, but manufacturer of automobiles, it was responsible for the finished product and was not at liberty to put that product on the market without [***3] subjecting the component parts to ordinary and simple tests, and hence is liable for the injuries sustained by plaintiff.

The nature of the action and the facts, so far as material, are stated in the opinion.

William Van Dyke for appellant. An automobile is not an inherently dangerous article. ( Slater v. Thresher Co., 97 Minn. 305; Danforth v. Fisher, 75 N.H. 111; Cunningham v. Castle, 127 App. Div. 580; Vincent v. Seymour, 131 App. Div. 200; Lewis v. Snorous, 59 S. E. Rep. [Ga.] 338; Huddy on Automobile, 15; Steffen v. McNaughton, 142 Wis. 409; Jones v. Hope, 47 Wash. 633; Johnson v. Cadillac, 194 Fed. Rep. 497; 221 Fed. Rep. 801.) An automobile not being an article inherently dangerous, defendant was not liable to a third party in simple negligence -- that is, for negligence as contradistinguished from willful or knowing negligence, or in a negligence action as distinguished from an action for deceit, fraud or misrepresentation, to third parties not in contractual relations with it. ( Salisbury v. Howe, 87 N.Y. 132; Landeman v. Russell, 91 N. E. Rep. 822; Pa. Steel Co. v. Elmore & H. Co., 175 Fed. Rep. 176; Wellington v. Downer, 104 Mass. 64; Devlin v. Smith, 89 N.Y. 470; Savings Bank v. Ward, 100 U.S. 195; Waters-Pierce Oil Co. v. Deselms, 212 U.S. 179; R. & D. Railroad v. Elliott, 149 U.S. 272; Penn. Ry. Co. v. Hummell, 167 Fed. Rep. 89.) A contention that defendant is liable because, though an automobile is not inherently a dangerous thing, if it has a defective wheel, it is an imminently dangerous thing, and if imminently dangerous, the same rule follows as though it were an inherently dangerous thing, cannot be sustained. ( Cadillac M. C. Co. v. Johnson, 221 Fed. Rep. 801; Titus v. R. R. Co., 136 Penn. St. 618; Statler v. Ray Mfg. Co., 125 App. Div. 71; Statler v. Ray Mfg. Co., 195 N.Y. 478; Marquardt v. Engine Co., 122 Fed. Rep. 374.)

Edgar T. Brackett for respondent. An automobile, propelled by explosive gases, certified and put out, as here conceded, to run at a speed of fifty miles an hour, to be managed by whomsoever may purchase it, is a machine inherently dangerous. ( Texas v. Barrett, 67 Fed. Rep. 214; Statler v. Ray, 195 N.Y. 478; Torgeson v. Schultz, 192 N.Y. 156; Kahner v. Otis, 96 App. Div. 169; Favo v. Remington, 67 App. Div. 414; Olds Motor Works v. Shaffer, 145 Ky. 616; Kuelling v. Lean Mfg. Co., 183 N.Y. 78; Cadillac M. C. Co. v. Johnson, 221 Fed. Rep. 801; Thomas v. Winchester, 6 N.Y. 397.) The defendant was the manufacturer of the machine and subject to all the liabilities of a manufacturer, even if it purchased and did not itself actually put together the defective wheel which caused the plaintiff's injury. ( People ex rel. v. Morgan, 48 App. Div. 395; Norris v. Com., 27 Penn. St. 494; Tidewater, etc., v. United States, 171 U.S. 210; Commonwealth v. Keystone, 156 Penn. St. 500; New Orleans v. Le Blanc, 34 La. Ann. 596; New Orleans v. Ernst, 35 La. Ann. 746; State v. Wiebert, 51 La. Ann. 122; Allen v. Smith, 173 U.S. 389; Hegeman v. W. R. R. Corp., 13 N.Y. 9; Carlson v. Phoenix, etc., Co., 132 N.Y. 273.)

Cardozo, J. Hiscock, Chase and Cuddeback, JJ., concur with Cardozo, J., and Hogan, J., concurs in result. Willard Bartlett, Ch. J., reads dissenting opinion; Pound, J., not voting.

title: MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co.


text:
Page:Englishmen in the French Revolution.djvu/103

 V. OUTLAWS AND CONSPIRATORS.

Paine—Vaughan—Muir—Perry—British Club.

French Revolution, like a new religion, effaced the feeling of nationality, and led men, partly from a sense of duty to the world, partly from inordinate vanity, to expatriate themselves, or even to plot their country's downfall. Prominent among these was Thomas Paine—in France he spelt his name Payne—who was the only foreigner besides Cloots who sat in the Convention, and who, more fortunate than Cloots, suffered nothing worse than imprisonment. He had twice visited Paris prior to the Revolution, but his previous career need not be related. He paid a third visit in 1790, and a fourth in 1791, when four Frenchmen joined him in constituting themselves a "Republican Society." On the king's flight to Varennes, Paine drew up a Republican manifesto, which Achille Duchatelet, though his English wife, Charlotte Comyn, was a court pensioner, translated, signed, and placarded on the doors of the Assembly.


text:
MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co./Opinion of the Court

[NY384]  [NE1051]  The defendant is a manufacturer of automobiles. It sold an automobile to a retail dealer. The retail dealer resold to the plaintiff. While the plaintiff was in the car, it suddenly collapsed. He was [NY385]  thrown out and injured. One of the wheels was made of defective wood, and its spokes crumbled into fragments. The wheel was not made by the defendant; it was bought from another manufacturer. There is evidence, however, that its defects could have been discovered by reasonable inspection, and that inspection was omitted. There is no claim that the defendant knew of the defect and willfully concealed it. The case, in other words, is not brought within the rule of ''Kuelling v. Lean Mfg. Co.'' (183 N.Y. 78). The charge is one, not of fraud, but of negligence. The question to be determined is whether the defendant owed a duty of care and vigilance to any one but the immediate purchaser.

The foundations of this branch of the law, at least in this state, were laid in Thomas v. Winchester (6 N.Y. 397). A poison was falsely labeled. The sale was made to a druggist, who in turn sold to a customer. The customer recovered damages from the seller who affixed the label. "The defendant's negligence," it was said, "put human life in imminent danger." A poison falsely labeled is likely to injure any one who gets it. Because the danger is to be foreseen, there is a duty to avoid the injury. Cases were cited by way of illustration in which manufacturers were not subject to any duty irrespective of contract. The distinction was said to be that their conduct, though negligent, was not likely to result in injury to any one except the purchaser. We are not required to say whether the chance of injury was always as remote as the distinction assumes. Some of the illustrations might be rejected to-day. The principle of the distinction is for present purposes the important thing.

Thomas v. Winchester became quickly a landmark of the law. In the application of its principle there may at times have been uncertainty or even error. There has never in this state been doubt or disavowal of the principle itself. The chief cases are well known, yet to recall [NY386]  some of them will be helpful. Loop v. Litchfield (42 N.Y. 351) [NE1052]  is the earliest. It was the case of a defect in a small balance wheel used on a circular saw. The manufacturer pointed out the defect to the buyer, who wished a cheap article and was ready to assume the risk. The risk can hardly have been an imminent one, for the wheel lasted five years before it broke. In the meanwhile the buyer had made a lease of the machinery. It was held that the manufacturer was not answerable to the lessee. Loop v. Litchfield was followed in Losee v. Clute (51 N.Y. 494), the case of the explosion of a steam boiler. That decision has been criticised (Thompson on Negligence, 233; Shearman & Redfield on Negligence [6th ed.], § 117); but it must be confined to its special facts. It was put upon the ground that the risk of injury was too remote. The buyer in that case had not only accepted the boiler, but had tested it. The manufacturer knew that his own test was not the final one. The finality of the test has a bearing on the measure of diligence owing to persons other than the purchaser (Beven, Negligence [3d ed.], pp. 50, 51, 54; Wharton, Negligence [2d ed.], § 134).

These early cases suggest a narrow construction of the rule. Later cases, however, evince a more liberal spirit. First in importance is Devlin v. Smith (89 N.Y. 470). The defendant, a contractor, built a scaffold for a painter. The painter's servants were injured. The contractor was held liable. He knew that the scaffold, if improperly constructed, was a most dangerous trap. He knew that it was to be used by the workmen. He was building it for that very purpose. Building it for their use, he owed them a duty, irrespective of his contract with their master, to build it with care.

From Devlin v. Smith we pass over intermediate cases and turn to the latest case in this court in which Thomas v. Winchester was followed. That case is ''Statler v. Ray Mfg. Co.'' (195 N.Y. 478, 480). The defendant [NY387]  manufactured a large coffee urn. It was installed in a restaurant. When heated, the urn exploded and injured the plaintiff. We held that the manufacturer was liable. We said that the urn "was of such a character inherently that, when applied to the purposes for which it was designed, it was liable to become a source of great danger to many people if not carefully and properly constructed."

It may be that Devlin v. Smith and ''Statler v. Ray Mfg. Co. have extended the rule of Thomas v. Winchester.'' If so, this court is committed to the extension. The defendant argues that things imminently dangerous to life are poisons, explosives, deadly weapons -- things whose normal function it is to injure or destroy. But whatever the rule in Thomas v. Winchester may once have been, it has no longer that restricted meaning. A scaffold ( Devlin v. Smith, supra) is not inherently a destructive instrument. It becomes destructive only if imperfectly constructed. A large coffee urn (Statler v. Ray Mfg. Co., supra) may have within itself, if negligently made, the potency of danger, yet no one thinks of it as an implement whose normal function is destruction. What is true of the coffee urn is equally true of bottles of aerated water ( Torgeson v. Schultz, 192 N.Y. 156). We have mentioned only cases in this court. But the rule has received a like extension in our courts of intermediate appeal. In Burke v. Ireland (26 App. Div. 487), in an opinion by Cullen, J., it was applied to a builder who constructed a defective building; in Kahner v. Otis Elevator Co. (96 App. Div. 169) to the manufacturer of an elevator; in Davies v. Pelham Hod Elevating Co. (65 Hun, 573; affirmed in this court without opinion, 146 N.Y. 363) to a contractor who furnished a defective rope with knowledge of the purpose for which the rope was to be used. We are not required at this time either to approve or to disapprove the application of the rule that was made in these cases. It is enough that they help to characterize the trend of judicial thought.

[NY388] Devlin v. Smith was decided in 1882. A year later a very similar case came before the Court of Appeal in England (Heaven v. Pender, L. R. [11 Q. B. D.] 503). We find in the opinion of Brett, M. R., afterwards Lord Esher (p. 510), the same conception of a duty, irrespective of contract, imposed upon the manufacturer by the law itself: "Whenever one person supplies goods, or machinery, or the like, for the purpose of their being used by another person under such circumstances that every one of ordinary sense would, if he thought, recognize at once that unless he used ordinary care and skill with regard to the condition of the thing supplied or the mode of supplying it, there will be danger of injury to the person or property of him for whose use the thing is supplied, and who is to use it, a duty arises to use ordinary care and skill as to the condition or manner of supplying such thing." He then points out that for a neglect of such ordinary care or skill whereby injury happens, the appropriate remedy is an action for negligence. The right to enforce this liability is not to be confined to the immediate buyer. The right, he says, extends to the persons or class of persons for whose use the thing is supplied. It is enough that the goods "would in all probability be used at once * * * before a reasonable opportunity for discovering any defect which might exist," and that the thing supplied is of such a nature "that a neglect of ordinary care or skill as to its condition or the manner of supplying it would probably cause danger to the person or property of the person for whose use it was supplied, and who was about to use it." On the other hand, he would exclude a case "in which the goods are supplied under circumstances in which it would be a chance by whom they would [NE1053]  be used or whether they would be used or not, or whether they would be used before there would probably be means of observing any defect," or where the goods are of such a nature that "a want of care or skill as to their condition or the manner of supplying them would not probably  [NY389]  produce danger of injury to person or property." What was said by Lord Esher in that case did not command the full assent of his associates. His opinion has been criticised "as requiring every man to take affirmative precautions to protect his neighbors as well as to refrain from injuring them" (Bohlen, Affirmative Obligations in the Law of Torts, 44 Am. Law Reg. [N. S.] 341). It may not be an accurate exposition of the law of England. Perhaps it may need some qualification even in our own state. Like most attempts at comprehensive definition, it may involve errors of inclusion and of exclusion. But its tests and standards, at least in their underlying principles, with whatever qualification may be called for as they are applied to varying conditions, are the tests and standards of our law.

We hold, then, that the principle of Thomas v. Winchester is not limited to poisons, explosives, and things of like nature, to things which in their normal operation are implements of destruction. If the nature of a thing is such that it is reasonably certain to place life and limb in peril when negligently made, it is then a thing of danger. Its nature gives warning of the consequences to be expected. If to the element of danger there is added knowledge that the thing will be used by persons other than the purchaser, and used without new tests, then, irrespective of contract, the manufacturer of this thing of danger is under a duty to make it carefully. That is as far as we are required to go for the decision of this case. There must be knowledge of a danger, not merely possible, but probable. It is possible to use almost anything in a way that will make it dangerous if defective. That is not enough to charge the manufacturer with a duty independent of his contract. Whether a given thing is dangerous may be sometimes a question for the court and sometimes a question for the jury. There must also be knowledge that in the usual course of events the danger will be shared by others than the buyer. Such knowledge may often be [NY390]  inferred from the nature of the transaction. But it is possible that even knowledge of the danger and of the use will not always be enough. The proximity or remoteness of the relation is a factor to be considered. We are dealing now with the liability of the manufacturer of the finished product, who puts it on the market to be used without inspection by his customers. If he is negligent, where danger is to be foreseen, a liability will follow. We are not required at this time to say that it is legitimate to go back of the manufacturer of the finished product and hold the manufacturers of the component parts. To make their negligence a cause of imminent danger, an independent cause must often intervene; the manufacturer of the finished product must also fail in his duty of inspection. It may be that in those circumstances the negligence of the earlier members of the series is too remote to constitute, as to the ultimate user, an actionable wrong (Beven on Negligence [3d ed.], 50, 51, 54; Wharton on Negligence [2d ed.], § 134; Leeds v. N.Y. Tel. Co., 178 N.Y. 118; Sweet v. Perkins, 196 N.Y. 482; Hayes v. Hyde Park, 153 Mass. 514, 516). We leave that question open. We shall have to deal with it when it arises. The difficulty which it suggests is not present in this case. There is here no break in the chain of cause and effect. In such circumstances, the presence of a known danger, attendant upon a known use, makes vigilance a duty. We have put aside the notion that the duty to safeguard life and limb, when the consequences of negligence may be foreseen, grows out of contract and nothing else. We have put the source of the obligation where it ought to be. We have put its source in the law.

From this survey of the decisions, there thus emerges a definition of the duty of a manufacturer which enables us to measure this defendant's liability. Beyond all question, the nature of an automobile gives warning of probable danger if its construction is defective. This [NY391]  automobile was designed to go fifty miles an hour. Unless its wheels were sound and strong, injury was almost certain. It was as much a thing of danger as a defective engine for a railroad. The defendant knew the danger. It knew also that the car would be used by persons other than the buyer. This was apparent from its size; there were seats for three persons. It was apparent also from the fact that the buyer was a dealer in cars, who bought to resell. The maker of this car supplied it for the use of purchasers from the dealer just as plainly as the contractor in Devlin v. Smith supplied the scaffold for use by the servants of the owner. The dealer was indeed the one person of whom it might be said with some approach to certainty that by him the car would not be used. Yet the defendant would have us say that he was the one person whom it was under a legal duty to protect. The law does not lead us to so inconsequent a conclusion. Precedents drawn from the days of travel by stage coach do not fit the conditions of travel to-day. The principle that the danger must be imminent does not change, but the things subject to the principle do change. They are whatever the needs of life in a developing civilization require them to be.

In reaching this conclusion, we do not ignore the decisions to the contrary in other jurisdictions. It was held in Cadillac M. C. Co. v. Johnson (221 Fed. Rep. 801) [NE1054]  that an automobile is not within the rule of Thomas v. Winchester. There was, however, a vigorous dissent. Opposed to that decision is one of the Court of Appeals of Kentucky ( Olds Motor Works v. Shaffer, 145 Ky. 616). The earlier cases are summarized by Judge Sanborn in Huset v. J. I. Case Threshing Machine Co. (120 Fed. Rep. 865). Some of them, at first sight inconsistent with our conclusion, may be reconciled upon the ground that the negligence was too remote, and that another cause had intervened. But even when they cannot be reconciled, the difference is rather in the application [NY392]  of the principle than in the principle itself. Judge Sanborn says, for example, that the contractor who builds a bridge, or the manufacturer who builds a car, cannot ordinarily foresee injury to other persons than the owner as the probable result (120 Fed. Rep. 865, at p. 867). We take a different view. We think that injury to others is to be foreseen not merely as a possible, but as an almost inevitable result. (See the trenchant criticism in Bohlen, supra, at p. 351). Indeed, Judge Sanborn concedes that his view is not to be reconciled with our decision in Devlin v. Smith (supra). The doctrine of that decision has now become the settled law of this state, and we have no desire to depart from it.

In England the limits of the rule are still unsettled. Winterbottom v. Wright (10 M. & W. 109) is often cited. The defendant undertook to provide a mail coach to carry the mail bags. The coach broke down from latent defects in its construction. The defendant, however, was not the manufacturer. The court held that he was not liable for injuries to a passenger. The case was decided on a demurrer to the declaration. Lord Esher points out in Heaven v. Pender (supra, at p. 513) that the form of the declaration was subject to criticism. It did not fairly suggest the existence of a duty aside from the special contract which was the plaintiff's main reliance. (See the criticism of Winterbottom v. Wright, in Bohlen, supra, at pp. 281, 283). At all events, in Heaven v. Pender (supra) the defendant, a dock owner, who put up a staging outside a ship, was held liable to the servants of the shipowner. In Elliott v. Hall (15 Q. B. D. 315) the defendant sent out a defective truck laden with goods which he had sold. The buyer's servants unloaded it, and were injured because of the defects. It was held that the defendant was under a duty "not to be guilty of negligence with regard to the state and condition of the truck." There seems to have been a [NY393]  return to the doctrine of Winterbottom v. Wright in Earl v. Lubbock ( L. R. [1905] 1 K. B. 253). In that case, however, as in the earlier one, the defendant was not the manufacturer. He had merely made a contract to keep the van in repair. A later case ( White v. Steadman, L. R. [1913], 3 K. B. 340, 348) emphasizes that element. A livery stable keeper who sent out a vicious horse was held liable not merely to his customer but also to another occupant of the carriage, and Thomas v. Winchester was cited and followed ( White v. Steadman, supra, at pp. 348, 349). It was again cited and followed in Dominion Natural Gas Co. v. Collins (L. R. [1909] A. C. 640, 646). From these cases a consistent principle is with difficulty extracted. The English courts, however, agree with ours in holding that one who invites another to make use of an appliance is bound to the exercise of reasonable care (Caledonian Ry. Co. v. Mulholland, L. R. [1898] A. C. 216, 227; Indermaur v. Dames, L. R. [1 C. P.] 274). That at bottom is the underlying principle of Devlin v. Smith. The contractor who builds the scaffold invites the owner's workmen to use it. The manufacturer who sells the automobile to the retail dealer invites the dealer's customers to use it. The invitation is addressed in the one case to determinate persons and in the other to an indeterminate class, but in each case it is equally plain, and in each its consequences must be the same.

There is nothing anomalous in a rule which imposes upon A, who has contracted with B, a duty to C and D and others according as he knows or does not know that the subject-matter of the contract is intended for their use. We may find an analogy in the law which measures the liability of landlords. If A leases to B a tumbledown house he is not liable, in the absence of fraud, to B's guests who enter it and are injured. This is because B is then under the duty to repair it, the lessor has the right to suppose that he will fulfill that duty, and, if he [NY394]  omits to do so, his guests must look to him (Bohlen, supra, at p. 276). But if A leases a building to be used by the lessee at once as a place of public entertainment, the rule is different. There injury to persons other than the lessee is to be foreseen, and foresight of the conse quences involves the creation of a duty ( Junkermann v. Tilyou R. Co., 213 N.Y. 404, and cases there cited).

In this view of the defendant's liability there is nothing inconsistent with the theory of liability on which the case was tried. It is true that the court told the jury that "an automobile is not an inherently dangerous vehicle." The meaning, however, is made plain by the context. The meaning is that danger is not to be expected when the vehicle is well constructed. The court left it to the jury to say whether the defendant ought to have foreseen that the car, if negligently constructed, would become "imminently dangerous." Subtle distinctions are drawn by the defendant between things [NE1055]  inherently dangerous and things imminently dangerous, but the case does not turn upon these verbal niceties. If danger was to be expected as reasonably certain, there was a duty of vigilance, and this whether you call the danger inherent or imminent. In varying forms that thought was put before the jury. We do not say that the court would not have been justified in ruling as a matter of law that the car was a dangerous thing. If there was any error, it was none of which the defendant can complain.

We think the defendant was not absolved from a duty of inspection because it bought the wheels from a reputable manufacturer. It was not merely a dealer in automobiles. It was a manufacturer of automobiles. It was responsible for the finished product. It was not at liberty to put the finished product on the market without subjecting the component parts to ordinary and simple tests ( Richmond & Danville R. R. Co. v. Elliott, 149 U.S. 266, 272). Under the charge of the trial judge nothing more was [NY395]  required of it. The obligation to inspect must vary with the nature of the thing to be inspected. The more probable the danger, the greater the need of caution. There is little analogy between this case and Carlson v. Phoenix Bridge Co. (132 N.Y. 273), where the defendant bought a tool for a servant's use. The making of tools was not the business in which the master was engaged. Reliance on the skill of the manufacturer was proper and almost inevitable. But that is not the defendant's situation. Both by its relation to the work and by the nature of its business, it is charged with a stricter duty.

Other rulings complained of have been considered, but no error has been found in them.

The judgment should be affirmed with costs.


text:
MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co./Dissent Bartlett

Willard Bartlett, Ch. J. (dissenting). The plaintiff was injured in consequence of the collapse of a wheel of an automobile manufactured by the defendant corporation which sold it to a firm of automobile dealers in Schenectady, who in turn sold the car to the plaintiff. The wheel was purchased by the Buick Motor Company, ready made, from the Imperial Wheel Company of Flint, Michigan, a reputable manufacturer of automobile wheels which had furnished the defendant with eighty thousand wheels, none of which had proved to be made of defective wood prior to the accident in the present case. The defendant relied upon the wheel manufacturer to make all necessary tests as to the strength of the material therein and made no such tests itself. The present suit is an action for negligence brought by the subvendee of the motor car against the manufacturer as the original vendor. The evidence warranted a finding by the jury that the wheel which collapsed was defective when it left the hands of the defendant. The automobile was being prudently operated at the time of the accident and was moving at a speed of only eight miles an hour. There was [NY396]  no allegation or proof of any actual knowledge of the defect on the part of the defendant or any suggestion that any element of fraud or deceit or misrepresentation entered into the sale.

The theory upon which the case was submitted to the jury by the learned judge who presided at the trial was that, although an automobile is not an inherently dangerous vehicle, it may become such if equipped with a weak wheel; and that if the motor car in question, when it was put upon the market was in itself inherently dangerous by reason of its being equipped with a weak wheel, the defendant was chargeable with a knowledge of the defect so far as it might be discovered by a reasonable inspection and the application of reasonable tests. This liability, it was further held, was not limited to the original vendee, but extended to a subvendee like the plaintiff, who was not a party to the original contract of sale.

I think that these rulings, which have been approved by the Appellate Division, extend the liability of the vendor of a manufactured article further than any case which has yet received the sanction of this court. It has heretofore been held in this state that the liability of the vendor of a manufactured article for negligence arising out of the existence of defects therein does not extend to strangers injured in consequence of such defects but is confined to the immediate vendee. The exceptions to this general rule which have thus far been recognized in New York are cases in which the article sold was of such a character that danger to life or limb was involved in the ordinary use thereof; in other words, where the article sold was inherently dangerous. As has already been pointed out, the learned trial judge instructed the jury that an automobile is not an inherently dangerous vehicle.

The late Chief Justice Cooley of Michigan, one of the most learned and accurate of American law writers, [NY397]  states the general rule thus: "The general rule is that a contractor, manufacturer, vendor or furnisher of an article is not liable to third parties who have no contractual relations with him for negligence in the construction, manufacture or sale of such article." (2 Cooley on Torts [3d ed.], 1486.)

The leading English authority in support of this rule, to which all the later cases on the same subject refer, is Winterbottom v. Wright (10 Meeson & Welsby, 109), which was an action by the driver of a stage coach against a contractor who had agreed with the postmaster-general to provide and keep the vehicle in repair for the purpose of conveying the royal mail over a prescribed route. The [NE1056]  coach broke down and upset, injuring the driver, who sought to recover against the contractor on account of its defective construction. The Court of Exchequer denied him any right of recovery on the ground that there was no privity of contract between the parties, the agreement having been made with the postmaster-general alone. "If the plaintiff can sue," said Lord Abinger, the Chief Baron, "every passenger or even any person passing along the road, who was injured by the upsetting of the coach, might bring a similar action. Unless we confine the operation of such contracts as this to the parties who enter into them, the most absurd and outrageous consequences, to which I can see no limit, would ensue."

The doctrine of that decision was recognized as the law of this state by the leading New York case of Thomas v. Winchester (6 N.Y. 397, 408), which, however, involved an exception to the general rule. There the defendant, who was a dealer in medicines, sold to a druggist a quantity of belladonna, which is a deadly poison, negligently labeled as extract of dandelion. The druggist in good faith used the poison in filling a prescription calling for the harmless dandelion extract and the plaintiff for whom the prescription was put up was poisoned by the [NY398]  belladonna. This court held that the original vendor was liable for the injuries suffered by the patient. Chief Judge Ruggles, who delivered the opinion of the court, distinguished between an act of negligence imminently dangerous to the lives of others and one that is not so, saying: "If A. build a wagon and sell it to B., who sells it to C. and C. hires it to D., who in consequence of the gross negligence of A. in building the wagon is overturned and injured, D. cannot recover damages against A., the builder. A.'s obligation to build the wagon faithfully, arises solely out of his contract with B. The public have nothing to do with it. * * * So, for the same reason, if a horse be defectively shod by a smith, and a person hiring the horse from the owner is thrown and injured in consequence of the smith's negligence in shoeing; the smith is not liable for the injury."

In Torgeson v. Schultz (192 N.Y. 156, 159) the defendant was the vendor of bottles of aerated water which were charged under high pressure and likely to explode unless used with precaution when exposed to sudden changes of temperature. The plaintiff, who was a servant of the purchaser, was injured by the explosion of one of these bottles. There was evidence tending to show that it had not been properly tested in order to insure users against such accidents. We held that the defendant corporation was liable notwithstanding the absence of any contract relation between it and the plaintiff "under the doctrine of Thomas v. Winchester (supra), and similar cases based upon the duty of the vendor of an article dangerous in its nature, or likely to become so in the course of the ordinary usage to be contemplated by the vendor, either to exercise due care to warn users of the danger or to take reasonable care to prevent the article sold from proving dangerous when subjected only to customary usage." The character of the exception to the general rule limiting liability for negligence to the original parties to the contract of sale, was still more clearly stated by Judge [NY399]  Hiscock, writing for the court in Statler v. Ray Manufacturing Co. (195 N.Y. 478, 482), where he said that "in the case of an article of an inherently dangerous nature, a manufacturer may become liable for a negligent construction which, when added to the inherent character of the appliance, makes it imminently dangerous, and causes or contributes to a resulting injury not necessarily incident to the use of such an article if properly constructed, but naturally following from a defective construction." In that case the injuries were inflicted by the explosion of a battery of steam-driven coffee urns, constituting an appliance liable to become dangerous in the course of ordinary usage.

The case of Devlin v. Smith (89 N.Y. 470) is cited as an authority in conflict with the view that the liability of the manufacturer and vendor extends to third parties only when the article manufactured and sold is inherently dangerous. In that case the builder of a scaffold ninety feet high which was erected for the purpose of enabling painters to stand upon it, was held to be liable to the administratrix of a painter who fell therefrom and was killed, being at the time in the employ of the person for whom the scaffold was built. It is said that the scaffold if properly constructed was not inherently dangerous; and hence that this decision affirms the existence of liability in the case of an article not dangerous in itself but made so only in consequence of negligent construction. Whatever logical force there may be in this view it seems to me clear from the language of Judge Rapallo, who wrote the opinion of the court, that the scaffold was deemed to be an inherently dangerous structure; and that the case was decided as it was because the court entertained that view. Otherwise he would hardly have said, as he did, that the circumstances seemed to bring the case fairly within the principle of Thomas v. Winchester.

I do not see how we can uphold the judgment in the [NY400]  present case without overruling what has been so often said by this court and other courts of like authority in reference to the absence of any liability for negligence on the part of the original vendor of an ordinary carriage to any one except his immediate vendee. The absence of such liability was the very point actually decided in the English case of Winterbottom v. Wright (supra), and the illustration quoted from the opinion of Chief Judge Ruggles in Thomas v. Winchester (supra) assumes that the law on the subject was so plain that the statement would be accepted almost as a matter of course. In the case at bar the defective wheel on an automobile moving only eight [NE1057]  miles an hour was not any more dangerous to the occupants of the car than a similarly defective wheel would be to the occupants of a carriage drawn by a horse at the same speed; and yet unless the courts have been all wrong on this question up to the present time there would be no liability to strangers to the original sale in the case of the horse-drawn carriage.

The rule upon which, in my judgment, the determination of this case depends, and the recognized exceptions thereto, were discussed by Circuit Judge Sanborn of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals in the Eighth Circuit, in Huset v. J. I. Case Threshing Machine Co. (120 Fed. Rep. 865) in an opinion which reviews all the leading American and English decisions on the subject up to the time when it was rendered (1903). I have already discussed the leading New York cases, but as to the rest I feel that I can add nothing to the learning of that opinion or the cogency of its reasoning. I have examined the cases to which Judge Sanborn refers, but if I were to discuss them at length I should be forced merely to paraphrase his language, as a study of the authorities he cites has led me to the same conclusion; and the repetition of what has already been so well said would contribute nothing to the advantage of the bench, the bar or the individual litigants whose case is before us.

[NY401] A few cases decided since his opinion was written, however, may be noticed. In Earl v. Lubbock (L. R. 1905 [1 K. B. Div.] 253) the Court of Appeal in 1904 considered and approved the propositions of law laid down by the Court of Exchequer in Winterbottom v. Wright (supra), declaring that the decision in that case, since the year 1842, had stood the test of repeated discussion. The master of the rolls approved the principles laid down by Lord Abinger as based upon sound reasoning; and all the members of the court agreed that his decision was a controlling authority which must be followed. That the Federal courts still adhere to the general rule, as I have stated it, appears by the decision of the Circuit Court of Appeals in the Second Circuit, in March, 1915, in the case of Cadillac Motor Car Co. v. Johnson (221 Fed. Rep. 801). That case, like this, was an action by a subvendee against a manufacturer of automobiles for negligence in failing to discover that one of its wheels was defective, the court holding that such an action could not be maintained. It is true there was a dissenting opinion in that case, but it was based chiefly upon the proposition that rules applicable to stage coaches are archaic when applied to automobiles and that if the law did not afford a remedy to strangers to the contract the law should be changed. It this be true, the change should be effected by the legislature and not by the courts. A perusal of the opinion in that case and in the Huset case will disclose how uniformly the courts throughout this country have adhered to the rule and how consistently they have refused to broaden the scope of the exceptions. I think we should adhere to it in the case at bar and, therefore, I vote for a reversal of this judgment.


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HEN a day's march from Cholula the army was welcomed by some of the notables of the city, but passage was refused to the Tlascalans, who encamped therefore without the gates.

As the strangers proceeded through the crowded flower-decked streets they thought they had never seen so fine a town as this sacred city of Anahuac. "It is more beautiful from without," wrote Cortés later in a letter to Charles V., "than any city in Spain, for it is many-towered and lies in a plain. And I certify to your Highness that I counted from a mosque there four hundred other mosques and as many towers. It is the city most fit for Spaniards to dwell in of any that I have seen here, for it has some untilled ground and water so that cattle might be bred, a thing which no other of the cities we have seen possesses; for such is the multitude of people who dwell in these parts that there is not a hand-breadth of uncultivated ground." The luxury of the dress and life of the Cholulans seemed in keeping with the place, but the black robes of a countless priesthood 114


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city of Mexico was roused at last! Her people were in arms against the insolent strangers. They had burnt the water-houses; they had attacked the Old Palace, undermined the defences, and killed and wounded many of the garrison. This was the alarming news which Cortés received in the hour of victory. "Hasten to our relief," wrote Alvarado, "if you would save us or keep your hold on the capital!"

Swift to answer the appeal, Cortés recalled his scattered troops, and with one thousand foot soldiers and nearly a hundred horsemen at once set out for Mexico. Only one hundred men, under an inferior officer, were left to garrison Villa Rica, for the general could not in such a crisis leave Sandoval behind. At Tlascala they were warmly welcomed, and their fighting force augmented by two thousand warriors.

Crossing the mountain barrier the veterans proudly pointed out to the men of Narvaez the lovely valley of Mexico, and described how its people would throng to welcome the wonderful white Teules. Down they marched into the glowing valley, but no crowds came forth to meet them, no flowers strewed their path. 173


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and wide, from the Gulf of Mexico to the shores of the Pacific, throughout the length and breadth of Central America, spread the astounding news that Mexico, the imperial, and as men thought impregnable city, had fallen before the power of a strange and mighty race. Who then could hope to withstand these god-like beings with their mysterious engines? Day by day the Spanish camp was crowded with envoys from distant tribes offering allegiance to the renowned Malintzin. Awestruck they listened to the thunder of the cannon, and gazed on the horses and white-sailed brigantines. But the blackened waste which lay where shining Tenochtitlan had once stood was to them the most convincing proof that the Teules were gods indeed. Tribes which had scorned to submit to Mexico hastened to claim the Spaniard's protection, and Cortés found that he was owned as lord over a vast and evergrowing empire.

But whereas the Indian races were docile and submissive, the Spanish soldiers grew turbulent and rebellious. "Where is the promised treasure?" 264


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Cheers, Jack Merridew 17:49, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

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conqueror is once more entering his city of Mexico, and natives and Spaniards alike throng to meet him with tumultuous joy. Two years of blood-stained anarchy have marked the absence of his iron hand. Reports of his death in the far-away marshes of the south have bred dissension and despair on every side, and now intensify this passionate welcome which seems to know no bounds. But the cheers die painfully away as the people gaze on the wan, haggard face of their idol. How changed! how aged! His intimate friends hardly recognise this ghost of the once brilliant Hernando Cortés. Not all the horrors and hardships of the siege of Mexico left such traces of suffering as this terrible march to Honduras.

Not for long was Cortés permitted to rule his province in peace. Such stories had his enemies sent to the Emperor in Castile that commissioners arrived from Europe to investigate the conduct of the Governor of New Spain. The conqueror, ever impatient of petty interference, found his actions trammelled and his influence undermined at every 272


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User:Cspan64/Books/SherlockHolmes

1891-1892

 * A Scandal in Bohemia
 * The Red-headed League
 * A Case of Identity
 * The Boscombe Valley Mystery
 * The Five Orange Pips
 * The Man with the Twisted Lip
 * The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle
 * The Adventure of the Speckled Band
 * The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb
 * The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor
 * The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet
 * The Adventure of the Copper Beeches

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User talk:Cspan64

cygnis insignis 18:21, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

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The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914/Portraits of the Ladies of the White House from 1889 to 1913

CARRIE S. HARRISON

IDA SAXTON McKINLEY

EDITH KERMIT ROOSEVELT

HELEN H. TAFT

ELLEN A. WILSON


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Child obedient sets His face To seek His Father’s House of Prayer, With other children takes His place, And is a learner there.

Two worlds there are; the child to each Belongs, God’s prophet, born to bless; But not by action, nor by speech, Simply by winsomeness


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 For, like the Child of Bethlehem, Babes bring their blessing from afar, Enriching all who wait on them By being what they are.


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 from heaven spake aloud, Heard clearly by the Bridegroom’s friend When, shadowed by the glory-cloud, He saw the Dove descend.

One Voice has heralded the Word, That listening men may truly know What mean all voices they have heard Above, around, below—


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jubilance of bridal mirth, First felt at Cana, has not ceased; Christ’s Presence still regales the earth, Still glorifies the feast.

The Ruler of the feast of life Still with a sacramental sign Confirms the love of man and wife, And makes the water wine.