For the ejectment of a wilfully disobedient passenger, they incur no penalty either upon themselves or the company. North Carolina provides that the conductor shall not be liable if he makes the mistake of assigning a passenger to the wrong seat. In several of the cities, it is the duty of the regular police officers to arrest passengers whom they see riding in the wrong cars. The penalty upon the conductor for knowingly failing or refusing to enforce the law varies all the way from a minimum fine of one dollar in Montgomery, Alabama, to five hundred dollars in Jacksonville, Florida, or imprisonment from one to ninety days. The liability of the company is correspondingly heavy in proportion. Each trip made without providing for the requirements of the law is expressly declared a separate offence. In Pensacola, Florida, the fine upon the company for not furnishing separate accommodations is fifty dollars a day.
When a passenger consciously disobeys the law, he may be fined; and if he insists upon occupying the wrong seat, the conductor may eject him from the car. According to the Virginia law, "in case such passenger ejected shall have paid his fare upon said car, he shall not be entitled to any part of said fare."
Exemptions
The only phase of these "Jim Crow" street-car laws which has given rise to any serious discussion is the question of the exemptions from application. Most of the States and cities simply except nurses of one race in attendance upon the children or sick of the other race, the nurse going into the car to which the child or sick person
