HOLLAND c. Baown. 49
on the proper measure of responsibility. Some cases are harder than others,
and the law intends the jury shall discriminate in different cases. There is _
no fixed measure of damages, and no artificial rule by which the damages in
a given case can be computed. "
In Railroad Oo. v. McCloskey, 23 Pa. St. 526, a case arising under a
somewhat similarstatute, it is said:
"The principle which requires compensation for the death of a freeman is
not at all new in history. It was long an institution among our Anglo-Saxon
ancestors; and perhaps it was never positively abolished, but rather died out
under the influence of the Norman conquest andthe centralizing power of the .
king‘s courts, which treated all such wrongs as wrongs done to the king, and
hence as criminal offenses. It seems to have been an institution common to
all Germanic. nations, and perhaps to every people that rose one degree above _
. the savagelife, and were still striving to rise. With them it was intended as
a compensation tosurviving kindred, and as a means for preventing the dis-
orders that follow in the train of private revenge."
· This was the ancient Saxon weregdd, or price of a homicide or other
crime, whereby a fixed pecuniary compensation was made to the next of
.kin_ for the death of a relative. Every man’s life had its value, calleda
"wcre," andin thetime of King Athelstan the were of every order of per- V
sons in the state, from the king to the cheorl, was fixed by law. Blount,
Law Diet. "Weregild," 1 Reeve, Eng. Law, 15 ; 4 Bl. Comm. 188, 313.
And although the primary purpose of the modern statute, like that of`
the ancientcustom, is to provide compensation for the injury rather than
to inflict punishment for the wrong, yet in estimating the damages for
the former it may be well to remember that the liability to pay them ·
may have the effect to inculcate a wholesome regard for human life, and
compelvcarriers and corporations having the persons of passengers and
employes in their care to a faithful discharge of their duty towards them.
Giving due weight, then,"so far as I can, to these facts, probabilities, ‘
and considerations, my judgment is that the damages for the death of
the deceased ought not to exceed $2,500.
The items of expense of the sickness and burial of the deceased., con-
cerning which any proof was offered, are as follows: 56 days in St. Vin-
cent’.s hospital, with day and night nurse, and shroud and liquor, $168;
undertaker, $94.50; carriage hire, 323; ferriagc, $5.30; grave, $15; priest
and choir, $25; physician, $325. In all, $670.
I do not think anything can be allowed in this suit for these expenses,
—at least as such. True,they are the result of the wrongful conduct of
the defendants which caused the death of the deceased. But the action
given by the statute is for the death simply. This includes, of course,
all such losses to his estate, or creditors and next of kin to whom it be-
longs, and for whosebenefit the action is allowed, as may be fairly im-
plied from the cessation of his life. j "
The fact on which the damages are computed is death and its conse-
quences, and not its antecedents or cause. And yet it is manifest that
the estate of the deceased is injured or diminished by these expenses.
The damages allowed in this case must first be applied by the adminis-
trator to the payment of what may be found justly due the creditors of
v.35F.no.1--4 `