WANT BIG DAMAGES

          The Michigan Central Is Sued for $20,000

                                         -----------

                         FOR FINNEGAN'S DEATH

                                         -----------

                   While on Their Tracks Last August.

                                         -----------

The Claim is Made That the Central Have Given the Public the Right to Cross Their Tracks for Boating, Etc., on the Mill Pond.

                                         -----------

William Finnegan began suit yesterday against the Michigan Central railroad company for $20,000 damages.
He begins the suit as administrator of his son, Don Finnegan, who was killed on the Central tracks by a passenger train Aug. 10, 1898.
Lehman Bros. & Stivers are the plaintiff's attorneys. The case is strikingly similar to that commenced a week or so ago for the death of Agnes Warren.
The declaration sets up the fact that the mill dam of the Argo Mills makes a pond desirable for boating, fishing, excursion and skating parties, and that the Central owns land along the river to which access cannot be had except by crossing their tracks.
The Central, declares the plaintiff, for the purpose of making this parcel of land and the waters of the river and mill pond a public resort and of enabling the citizens and public in general to enjoy more fully and completely the pleasure of boating and fishing upon the waters of the mill pond and river, had leased and for a term of 12 years before the accident had been in the practice of leasing large parcels of their land to various persons for the purpose of enabling such people to make and use the land and water as a place of public resort.
For this purpose divers persons had built upon such pieces of land, a grocery and tobacco store and boat house and kept boats for rent and groceries, tobacco and cigar for sale.
The defendant, it is charged, had knowledge that it was necessary for the public in order to reach this strip of land, the store and the boat houses, to pass up and down and cross over the railroad track and the public universally did so.
The city ordinance is set forth requiring the trains to slow down to six miles an hour and to ring their bell within 500 feet of crossings.

The bill sets forth that Don Finnegan was assisting one of the employees of the road in lighting the switches and semphores of the road west of the station and in company with the employee had gone to the store and boat house for 20 minutes and that upon their return they attempted to pass along and across the railroad track in order to reach a public highway.
A long freight train passing over the Ann Arbor road bridge and the waters roaring over the mill dam, deadened and destroyed the ordinary noise of an approaching mail train, which was coming at the rate of 30 miles an hour without ringing a bell or sounding a whistle, or keeping the proper lookout.
At the center of the long curve which the road makes at this point the train struck Don Finnegan and he died after six hours of suffering.
The damages asked for are $20,000.