The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1871-03-10
MARK TWAIN AGAIN.
lie Decides TO spend His Life OH Rail
rOud.
From ME February Galaxy.

Have aR accident insurance ucket
also?"
"No," | said, after studying the mat
ter over little. No, | believe not
am going to be travelling by rail all
day. However, tomorrow | don't ira
vel. Give me one for tomorrow.
The man looked puzzled. He said
but it is for accident insurance, and
if you are going to travel by rail"
'If I 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 10000 miles, almost
entirely by rail the year before, | ira
veled over $4,000 miles, half 10y sea and
half by rail and in the year before that
| travelled in the neighborhood of 10000
miles, exclusively by rail. | suppose if
! put in all the little odd journeys here
and there | may have travelled 10000
miles during the three years | have
newfoundland neUer an accident.
For good while | said to myself
every morning: "NOw, | have escaped
so far, and the chances are just that
much increased that | shall catch it
this time. | will be shrewd, and buy
moral certainty | drew blank, and
went to bed that night without a joint
started or a bone splintered. | got
tired of that sort Of daily bother, and
fell to buying accident tickets that were
good for month. | said to myself,
I" A man can't buy thirty blanks in
bundle"
But | was mistaken. There was never
a prize in the lot. | could read of rail
way accidents every day the newspa
per atmosphere was foggy with them
but somehow they never came in my
way. found had spent good deal
of money in the accident business and
had nothing to show for it. My suspi-
cions were aroused, and | began to look
around for somebody who had won in
this lottery. | found plenty Of people
who had invested, but not an individual
that had ever had an accident or made
a cent. | stopped buying accident
tickets and went to ciphering. The
result was astounding. THE peril lag,
not in travelling, bit IL, staying at home.
| hunted up statistics, and was
amazed to find that after all the glaring
newspaper headings concerning railroad
disasters, less than three hundred peo-
pie 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 46, or 26. ! 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
4 I.
other line in the country so the double
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, and carried daily aver
age of six thousand persons. This is
about million in six months-the
population of New York city. Well,
the Erie kills from l3 to % persons out
of its million in six months and in the
same time $4,000 of New York's million
die in their beds Ny flesh crept, my
hair stood on end. This is appal
ling !" | said. THE danger isn't in
travelling by rail, but in trusting to those
deadly beds | will never sleep in a 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 1000 or 1900
people every day. There are many
that do fully half as much great
many roads scattered about the Union
that do a prodigious business. There
fore to presume that an average of 2, 800
passengers day for each road in the
country would be about correct. There
are $40 railway lines in our country, and
SAC times $500 are 2,ll5,000 of people
every day 650,000,000 of people year,
without counting the Sundays. They
do that, too, there Is no question about
it though where they get the raw ma
terial is clear beyond the jurisdiction of
my arithmetic; for | have hunted the
census through and through, and find
that there are not that many people in
the United States by matter of Clio,
100000 at the very least. They must
use some Of the same people again
likely.
San Francisco is one eighth as popu.
lous as New York there are 60 deaths
a week in the former and 800 week in
the latter-if they have luck. That is
3.120 deaths a year in San Francisco,
and eight times as many in New York
say about $4,000 or $4,000. The health
of the two places is the same. So we
will let it stand as fair presumption
that this will hold good all over the
country, and that consequently $4,000
out of every million of people we have
must die every year. That amounts to
one-fortieth of our total population
Out of this million 10000 or $1,000 are
stabbed, shot, drowned, hanged, poi
soned or meet similarly violent death
in some other popular way, such as per
ishing by kerosene lamp and hoop-skirt
connagrations, getting buried in Goa
mines, falling off housetops, breaking