servant may not, with thoughtless imprudence, rush headlong upon peril at the expense of his master.
Said the court in Karrer v. Railroad Co., 76 Mich. 400, 43 N. W. Rep. 370, after quoting a regulation of the defendant very similar to the one in the case at bar: "It was plaintiff's duty to examine into the coupling arrangements of both cars before he attempted to couple them, and as they were only a rod apart at most before he started the train back, and as he says the defect was visible at once to any one looking, one or two seconds would have furnished all the time needed to satisfy himself had he been acting under any one else's orders; but, as he had personal direction of the engineer's movements and could move when he pleased, the case, as he presents it, was an aggravated one of the grossest carelessness, for which he, and no one else, was responsible." Said the court in Darracutts v. Railroad Co., 83 Va. 288, 2 S. E. Rep. 511, 514: “At all events the evidence shows that the dangerous condition of the coupling was obvious, and that the plaintiff, in violation of the rules of the company, voluntarily put himself in a position of danger, in consequence of which he was injured. Under these circumstances, in the eye of the law, he was the author of his own misfortune; that is to say his negligence, or, what is the same thing, his failure to use reasonable care and caution, was the proximate cause of the injury complained of. The action is not therefore maintainable." In Railroad Co. v. Smithson, 45 Mich. 212, 7 N. W. Rep. 791, there was no rule giving warning, enjoining examination and according sufficient time for that purpose; and yet it was held fatal to recovery that the plaintiff, a brakeman, had failed to notice that there were double dead-woods on the cars he was coupling, instead of a single dead-wood on each, it being contended that it was negligence for the defendant to receive and transport cars equipped with double dead-woods. Said Judge COOLEY: "If, therefore, a switchman were to declare that he had attempted to couple the double dead-woods without noticing how they differed from the cars of defendant, the conclusion would be inevitable that he had gone heedlessly in the performance of a duty requiring great care, and that he had not allowed his eyes to inform him what was before him. * * * The
