The Louisianian. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1870-1871, 1871-02-23

danger isn't in travelling by rail, but i'll
trusting To- those deadly beds. 1 will
never sleep in bed again"
I had figured ON considerably less than
one-half the length of the Erie road. 1t
wasplain that the entire road must trans
port at least eleven or twelve thousand
people every day. There IRE many short
roads running out of Boston that do full
~ half as much; a great many such
roads. There are many roads scattered
about the Union that do prodigious
passenger business Therefore it was
fair to presume that an average Of $500
passengers day for each road in the
country would be about correct There
are 846 railway lines in our country, 846
times $500 are 2,115,00O. So the rail-
wsysOf America move more than two
millions Of people every day; SIX hrin-
dred and fifty millions of people year,
without counting the Sundays. They
do that, too-there is no question about
it; where they get the raw material is
clear beyond the jurisdiction ofmy arith-
metic; for have hunted the census
through and through, and I find that
there are not that many people in the
United States, by . matterof SIC, O0O, 900
at the very least. They must use some
ofthe same people over again likely,
San Francisco is one eighth as po-
pulous as New York; there arc go deaths
q week in the former ane 500 week
in the latter-h they have luck That
are 3,12O deaths year in San Fran
cisco and eight times as many in New
York-say about $4,000 or 25.OOO. The
health of the two places is about the
same. So we will let it stand as q 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 One
million of us, then, die annually. Out of
this million ten or twelve thousand are
stabbed, shot, drowned, hanged, poison
ed, or meet similarly violent death in
neother popular way. such as perish
ing BY kerosene lamp and hoop-skirt
CONGREGATIONS, getting buried in coal
mines, falling off house tops, breaking
through church or lecture rooms floors,
taking patent medicines, or committing
suicide in other forms. The Erie Rail
road kills from twenty-three to forty-six;
the other 845 railroads kill an average Of
one third niau each, and the rest of
that million, amounting in the aggregate
TO the appalling figure of9S7, 63l ccrpses,
die naturally in their beds! 9.-.S -
You ri l excuse mo from taking any
more chances ON those beds The rail-
roads are good enough for me! u''',
And my advice to Ill people is, don't
stay at home any more then you can
help; but when yen have got to stay at
home while, buy package of insurance
tickets, End sit up nights. You cannot
be too cautious.
Zone can now see why I answered that
ticket agent in the manner recorded at
the top Of this sketch. '-'
The moral Of this composition is, that
though.lcss people grumble moro than is
lair about railroad management in the
United States. When we consider every
day and night Of the year full fourteen
railway trains Of various kinds,
with life and armed with death,
go laundering along over the land, the
marvel is, not that they kill three hun
dred human beings in o twelvemonth,
but that they do not kill three hundred
times three hundred.-Galary.
Of SWEARTNH