Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 December 1876 — Rights of Passengers. [ARTICLE]

Rights of Passengers.

The case of George Van Houten, of Chicago, against the Pittsburg, Cincinnati A St. Louis Railway Company in the United States Circuit Court, terminated yesterday by the • jury returning a verdict of two thousand dollars for plaintiff. In this case there were but two passenger cars comprising the train, and the plaintiff, after purchasing a ticket at Logansport, entered the front car and found it pretty well filled with smote, which was offensive to him. He left it and went into the rear car, where he found the seats all occupied, a few of them with but one passenger and baggage. When the conductor came in and demanded fare, the plaintiff showed his ticket and requested a seat in the car. The conductor told him to go into the front car. The plaintiff replied that he had been in there, and that the smoke made him sick, and refused to give up his ticket unless furnished with a seat in a first-class car. The conductor, without attempting to furnish a seat, stopped the train, and, with the assistance of his brakeman, put him ofl, he resisting with all his strength. The conductor then threw his valise off on the opposite side of the train. This occurred three miles from Logansport, in the woods, and plaintiff walked back to the city and brought suit, with result as above. The case was strongly contested at every point.— lndianapolis Sentinel. The total number of vessels which entered the ports of the British Isles during the year 1874 is officially reported as 63,851," measuring 22,368,510 tons. These figures, compared with the returns of 1873, show a loss es 643 vessels, but a gain of 503,553 tons, the gain of the tonnage appearing chiefly in steam navigation. The total number of vessels that entered from the United States during the year 1874 amounted to 4,068 vessels, measuring 3,509,249 tons, and of those that cleared for this country to 2,773 vessels, measuring 2,806,251 tons, being a gain of 656 vessels and 489,091 tons in the entries, ahd a loss of 441 vessels and 228,452 tons, as compared with the shipping returns of the preceding year. —Two gentlemen at a ball at Brown’s Flat, Cal., one evening recently, cut their throats —one by showing the other how close he could draw a knife across his throat without cutting it, the second by explaining to a third party the manner in which number one had carved himself. There are now 8,000 children in Japan receiving instruction in the English Janguage.