In Atlanta, in 1904, a certain Mr. Wolfe and his sister boarded a street car and took seats in the part of the car reserved for white passengers. The conductor asked them to move back, and when they asked the reason, he answered that the rear of the car was for colored passengers. The lady asked if he thought they were colored, to which he replied: “Haven’t I seen you in colored company?” Mr. Wolfe demanded an apology, and later brought suit against the company. The court held that the street car company was liable, and that the good faith of the conductor in honestly thinking that they were Negroes would serve only in mitigation of damages. Two judges were of opinion that the company would not be liable if the conductor used “extreme care and caution” to ascertain the race of the passengers. The court held that it would take judicial notice of the social status of the two races and of their respective superiority and inferiority, saying: “The question has never heretofore been directly raised in this State as to whether it is an insult to seriously call a white man a Negro or to intimate that a person apparently white is of African descent. We have no hesitation, however, after the most mature consideration of every phase of the question, in declaring our deliberate judgment to be that the wilful assertion or intimation embodied in the declaration now before us constitutes an actionable wrong. We cannot shut our eyes to the facts of which courts are bound to take judicial notice. Certainly every court is presumed to know the habits of the people among which it is held, and their characteristics, as well as to know leading historical events and the law of the land. To recognize inequality as to the civil or political rights belonging to any citizen or class of citizens, or to attempt to fix the social status of any citizen either by legislation or judicial decision, is repugnant to every principle underlying our republican form of government. Nothing is further from our purpose. Under our institutions ‘every man is the architect of his own fortune.’ Every citizen, white and black, may gain, in every field of endeavor, the recognition his associates may award. That is his right, and his own concern. But the courts can take notice of the architecture without intermeddling with the building of the structure. It is a matter of common knowledge that, viewed from a social standpoint, the Negro race is in mind and morals inferior to the Caucasian. The record of each from the dawn of historic times denies equality. The fact was recognized by two of the leaders on opposite sides of the question of slavery, Abraham Lincoln and A. H. Stephens.”[52]