The weekly clarion., 1871-02-16
The man In the ticket Office said:

4 AAmEAA u W mn > - CAA7NA = A-N-@As
The man In the ticket Office said:
''Have an accident insurance ticket
alsof"
'No," / said, after studying the matter
over a little. ''No, believe not; / an
going to be travelling by rail all day TO
day. However, tomorrow don't travel.
Give me one for tomorrow"
I The man looked puzzled. He said (:
:" But it is for accident insurance, and
if you are going to travel by rail -"
''If 1 am going to travel by rail,
shan't need it. Lying at home in bed Is
the thing am afraid OF"
| / had been looking into this matter
Last year | travelled twenty thousand
miles almost entirely by rail; the year
before travelled over twenty-five thou
sand miles, half By sea and half BY rail !;
and in the year before that travelled in
the neighborhood of ten thousand miles,
exclusively by rail suppose if / put
in all the little odd journeys here and
there, / may say l have travelled sixty
thousand miles during the three years l
have mentioned. And never an acci-
dent
For good while said to myself every
morning: 'Now, / have escaped thus far,
and so the chances are just that much in
creased that | shall catch it this time.
will be shrewd, and buy an accident tick
et" And to a dead moral certainty |
drew a blank, and went to bed that night
without a joint started or bone splinter
ed. got tired of that sort of daily both
er, and fell to buying accident tickets
that were good for month. l said to
myself, "a man can't buy thirty blanks
in the bundle"
But was mistaken. There never was a
prize in the lot. l could read of railway
accidents every day-the newspaper at
m6phere was foggy with them but some
how they never came my way. / found |
had spent a good deal of money in the
accident business, and had nothing to
show for it. My suspicious were aroused,
and began to hunt around for somebody
that had won in this lottery, but not an
individual that had ever had an accident
or made cent. 1 stopped buying acci-
dent tickets and went to cyphering. The
result was astounding. The peril lay not
in travelling, but in staying at home.
hunted up statistics, and was amazed
to find that after all the glaring newspa-
per headings concerning railroad disasters
less than three hundred people had really
lost their lives by those disasters in the
preceding twelve months. The Erie
road was set down as the most murderous
in the list. 1t had killed forty-six-or
twenty-six, l do not remember exactly
which, but / know the number was double
that of any other road. But the fact
straightway suggested itself that the Erie
was an immensely long road and did
more business than any other line in the
country; so the double the number of
killed ceased to be matter of surprise.
BY further figuring it appeared that
between New York and Rochester the
Erie ran eight passenger trains each way,
every day-sixteen every day, and car
ried daily average of six thousand per-
sons. That is about a million in six
months-the population of New York
city. Well, the Erie kills from thirteen
to twenty-three persons out of its'million
in six months; and at the same time
thirteen thousand of New York's million
die in their beds. My flesh crept; my
hair stood on end. This is appalling"
| said. "The danger isn't in travelling
by rail, but in trusting to those deadly
beds; l VIII never sleepin bed again !"
had figured ON considerably less than
one-half of the length of the Erie road.
1t was plain that the entire road must
transport at least eleven or twelve thou
sand people every day. There are many
short roads running out of Boston that do
fully half as much; great many such
roads. There are a great many roads
scattered about the Union that do a pro-
digious business. Therefore it was fair
to presume that an average of about 2500
passengers day for each road in the
country would be about correct. There
are 846 railway lines in our country, and
$40 times $500 are 2,115,00 So the
railways of America move more than two
millions of people every day; six hun
dred and fifty millions of people year,
without counting Sundays. They do
that, too-there is no question about it
though where they get the raw material is
clear beyond the jurisdiction of my arith
metic; for / have hunted the census
through and through, and / find there
are not that many people in the United
States, by matter of six hundred and
ten millions at the very least. They
must use some of the same people over
again, likely.
San Francisco is one-eighth as popu-
lous as New York there are go deaths
week in the former and 500 a week in
the latter-if they have luck. That is
3, ,120 deaths year in San Francisco, and
eight times as many in New York-say
about q, 900 or 26, 900. The health Of |
the two places is the same. So we will |
let it stand as a fair presumption that |
this will hold good all over the country, |
and that consequently %, 900 out of every |
million of the people we have must die |
every year. That amounts to one-fortieth |
Of our total population. One million of
US, then, die annually. Out of this mil |
lion ten or twelve thousand are stabbed, |
shot, drowned, hanged, poisoned, or meet |
q similarly violent death in some other |
peculiar way, such as perishing by kero-
sene lamps and hoop-skirt configations.
getting buried in coal mines, falling off |
house-tops, breaking through church or
floors, taking patent medi-
cines, or committing suicide in other
forms. The Erie railroad kills from
twenty-three to forty-five the other
eight hundred and forty-ive roads kill an
average of one-third of man each, and
the rest of that million, amounting in the
aggregate to the appalling figure of nine
hundred and eighty-seven thousand six
hundred and thirty-one, die naturally in
their bedsl
You will excuse me from taking any
more chances on these beds. The rail-
roads are good enough for me.
And my advice to all people is, Don't
,tav at hnma any mnre than von can helm