merce locomotive engines which were not equipped with automatic couplers. This ruling was reversed by the Supreme Court, which held that the law must be construed with reference to the danger to employees which it sought to remedy, and that for the purposes of safety appliances, locomotives were cars within the meaning of the Act and are required to be equipped with automatic couplers, and that it was even more necessary that locomotives should be so equipped than it was that freight, dining and passenger cars should be, since locomotives had occasion to make couplings more frequently. The word car was therefore used in a generic sense as including both the locomotive and its tender.

§ 363. When cars are in interstate commerce.-Another important ruling was made in the same case. The injury in this case was caused in coupling a freight engine with a dining car which had been detached from a through train, turned on the turn-table and was to be drawn by a freight engine to the turn-table, turned, and then moved to a side track to wait another through train moving in the opposite direction. As the car was standing empty on the side track when the plaintiff was injured, the majority of the Court held that it was not engaged in interstate commerce, and therefore at the time of the accident the locomotive and dining car were not being used in moving interstate traffic within the meaning of the Act. The Supreme Court in the case cited, and in the same opinion, reversed this decision, and held that the dining car, though empty and on a side track, was engaged in interstate commerce within the meaning of the Act.

SECTION 3.

§ 364. Section 3 of the Act.

$364. When carriers may refuse to receive cars.- SEC. 3. That when any person, firm, company, or corporation engaged in interstate commerce by railroad shall have equipped a sufficient number of its cars so as to comply with the provisions of section one of this act, it may lawfully refuse to receive from connecting lines of road or shippers any cars not equipped sufficiently, in accordance with the first section of this act, with such power or train brakes as will work and readily interchange with the brakes in use on its own cars, as required by this act.

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365. Grab irons and handholds.- SEC. 4. That from and after the first day of July, eighteen hundred and ninety-five, until otherwise ordered by the Interstate Commerce Commission, it shall be unlawful for any railroad company to use any car in interstate commerce that is not provided with secure grab irons or handholds in the ends and sides of each car for greater security to men in coupling and uncoupling cars.

§ 366. The use of defective cars forbidden.- The prohibition of the statute is against the use, and not against the ownership of a car, defective in its required equipment. There is no right of recovery by a terminal railroad, which has been mulcted in damages in a suit by an employee for injuries sustained in handling a car, wanting in equipment, from the carrier company owning the car; as it was its duty to refuse to receive the defective car; and therefore it was so far a wrong doer that it could not recover over from the owning company. Union Stockyards of Omaha v. C., B. & Q. R. R. Co.,— U. S. Jan. 1905.

SECTION 5.

§ 367. Section 5 of the Act.

$367. Standard height of drawbars for freight cars.SEC. 5. That within ninety days from the passage of this act the American Railway Association is authorized hereby to designate to the Interstate Commerce Commission the standard height of drawbars for freight cars, measured perpendicular from the level of the tops of the rails to the centers of the drawbars, for each of the several gauges of railroads in use in the United States, and shall fix a maximum variation from such standard height to be allowed between the drawbars of empty and loaded cars. Upon their determination being certified to the Interstate Commerce Commission, said Commission shall at once give notice of the standard fixed upon to all common carriers, owners, or lessees engaged in interstate commerce in the United States by such means as the Commission may deem proper. But should said association fail to determine a standard as above provided, it shall be the duty of the Interstate Commerce Commission to do so, before July first, eighteen hundred and ninety-four, and immediately to give notice thereof as aforesaid. And after July first, eighteen hundred and ninety-five, no cars, either loaded or unloaded, shall be used in interstate traffic which do not comply with the standard above provided for.

NOTE.-Prescribed standard height of drawbars: Standard-gauge roads, 31 inches; narrow-gauge roads, 26 inches; maximum variation between loaded and empty cars, 3 inches.

SECTION 6.

$368. Section 6 of the Act.

369. Enforcement of Act by prosecution.

§ 368. Penalty for the violation of the provisions of this Act.-SEC. 6. (As amended April 1, 1896). That any such common carrier using any locomotive engine, running any train, or hauling or permitting to be hauled or used on its line any car in violation of any of the provisions of this act, shall be liable to a penalty of one hundred dollars for each and every such violation, to be recovered in a suit or suits to be brought by the United States district attorney in the District Court of the United States having jurisdiction in the locality where such violation shall have been committed; and it shall be the duty of such district attorney to bring such suits upon duly verified information being lodged with him of such violation having occurred; and it shall also be the duty of the Interstate Commerce Commission to lodge with the proper district attorneys information of any such violations as may come to its knowledge: Provided, That nothing in this act contained shall apply to trains composed of four-wheel cars or to trains composed of eight-wheel standard logging cars where the height of such car from top of rail to center of coupling does not exceed twenty-five inches, or to locomotives used in hauling such trains when such cars or locomotives are exclusively used for the transportation of logs.

§ 369. Enforcement of Act by prosecution.-In U. S. v. Geddes, (6th Circ.), 131 Fed. Rep. 452 (1904), the prosecution. under this section failed, as the defendant carrier was held not to be included in the Act, supra, § 353. In the U. S. Dist. Ct. S. Dist. of Ill. (March 1905), several interstate railroad companies were convicted and fined for failure to keep in order the automatic couplers with which their cars were supplied.