Slowly! Slowly!
The Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court once settled a case in a way that pleased me very much. It was an action brought on account of the death of a boy who was run over by an electric car. When the boy was on the track, the car, it was proved, was far enough away for the driver easily to check it and prevent the accident, but instead he put on more power and rushed toward him all the faster. In awarding damages of $3,000, the court asserted strongly the right to the streets possessed by others than the street-car drivers. When a car is so far away that, if kept under control, a collision may be avoided, a man may cross in front of it without being guilty of contributory negligence. If this were not the law, during the "rush hours," when cars run closely together, the streets might well become legally impassable by pedestrians.
The beauty of this decision is that it offers a formidable protest to the hurrying of our times. "Slow up!" cries the judge. "Your pace determines the pace of others. Even if one had the right himself to take 'the pace that kills,' he has no right to force others to take it. An employer has no right to rush his clerks to death. A railroad has no right to make its men work seven days in the week. Neither has a newspaper. A congregation has no right to demand more from its preacher than a human constitution can stand. A school board has no right to pile upon its teachers labors that are beyond their strength. A parent has no right to drive his child through school and college at the expense of shrieking nerves. You may be seized by the electricity of ambition and of greed," cries the judge, "but common, plodding, sensible people have rights that even ambition is bound to respect. Whoa! On your peril, slow up!"