leman had consulted one doctor in Paris and another in Rome, and
had been obliged to undergo an operation--for all of which he claimed
compensation to the extent of 5000 pounds. The company being quite
unable to tell whether this gentleman was in the accident referred to or
not, an investigation was set on foot, in which Mr Sharp bore his part.
At great expense official persons were sent to Paris and to Rome to see
the doctors said to have been consulted, and in the end--nearly two
years after the accident--the Company was found liable for the 5000
pounds!

While we are on this subject of compensation, it may not be
uninteresting to relate a few curious cases, which will give some idea
of the manner in which railway companies are squeezed for damages--
sometimes unjustly, and too often fraudulently. On one occasion, a man
who said he had been in an accident on one of our large railways,
claimed 1000 pounds. In this case the company was fortunately able to
prove a conspiracy to defraud, and thus escaped; but in many instances
the companies are defeated in fraudulent claims, and there is no
redress. The feelings of the juries who try the cases are worked on;
patients are brought into Court exhibiting every symptom of hopeless
malady, but these same patients not unfrequently possess quite
miraculous powers of swift recovery, from what had been styled
"incurable damage." One man received 6000 pounds on the supposition
that he had been permanently disabled, and within a short period he was
attending to his business as well as ever. A youth with a salary of 60
pounds a year claimed and got 1200 pounds on the ground of incurable
injury--in other words he was pensioned for life to the extent of 60
pounds a year--and, a year afterwards, it was ascertained that he was
"dancing at balls," and had joined his father in business as if there
was nothing the matter with him.

A barmaid who, it was said, received "injuries to the spine of a
permanent character," was paid a sum of 1000 pounds as--we were about to
write--compensation, but _consolation_ would be the more appropriate
term, seeing that she had little or nothing to be compensated for, as
she was found capable of "dancing at the Licensed Victuallers' Ball"
soon after the accident and eventually she married! To oblige railways
to compensate for loss of time, or property, or health, _to a limited
extent_, seems reasonable, but to compel them to pension off people who
ha