St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1871-01-27
The Danger Of Lying IN Bed.
BY MARK TWAIN.

: ''llave IN accident insurance ticket
also 2"
"No," said, after studying the mat
ter over IL little. "No, believe not;
am going 10 be travelling by rail all da,
to-day. However, Tomorrow | don
travel. Give me one for tomorrow"
The man looked puzzled. lie said :
''iut it is for accident insurance, an,
if you are going to travel by rail-
"lt | am going TO travel by rail,
shan't need it. Lying ut home in bed !
the thing / am afraid Of"
had been looking into this matter
Last year | travelled twenty thou>anc
miles, almost entirely by rail; the yea
before, | travelled over twenty five thous
and miles, half by sea and half by rail
the year before that | travelled in til,
ncig ghborhood OF Ten thousand miles, cx.
cluoivcly by rail. suppose if put it
all the little odd journeys here and there
| may say have travelled sixty thousand
miles during the three years | have men.
TONED. -1m nerer az dcciiem.
For god while | SAID to myself cv-
cry morning: "Now | have escaped thu,
far, and 50 the chances are Just tlat much
increased that shall catch it this time.
will bc >Lrcwd, and buy an accident
ticket" And 10 dead moral certainty
| drew a blank, and went t. bed that
Light wiihuu, a Joint started or Il bone
splintcrcd. got tired Of that sort of
daily bother, and fell TO buying accident
tickets that were good for month. |
said 10 myself, "A man cu.t buy thirty
blanks in one bundle"
But | was mistaken There was ncv-
cr prizr in the lot could read of
railway accidents every day-:he news
paper atmosphere was to1gy with them
but somehow they never came my way
| found | had spent good deal OF mun-
ey in the accident business, and had moth
Ing 10 show for it. My suspicious were
aroused, and began to hunt around for
somebody that ha won in this lottery.
| found plenty of people who had invest
ed, but not an individual that had ever
had an accident or made Il cent | stop
ped buyin accident tickets and went TO
ciphcring. The result was astounding.
LIE PEEII. LAY NOT IN TRAVELLING, But
IN STAYING At HOME.
hunted up statistics, and WAS amazed
to find that after all the. glaring ncwspa-
per headings concerning railroad disasters
less than nrte hu"lrti people la really
lost their lives 10y those disasters in the
preceding twelve months. The Erie road
was set down Us the most murcl,rous in
the list. 1t had killed torty-six-or twen-
ty-SiX, | do not exactly remember which,
but | know the number was double that
of any other read. But the fact straight
way suggested itself that the Erie was an
immensely long road, and did more busi-
mes than any other line in the country
80 the double number of killed ceased TO
be Il matter of surprise.
l'y tur!hcr tiLurinL, i; appeared that
betw cen New York and Rochester the
Erie ran eight passenger trains each way
every dAy-siNtecn altogether; and car
rlcd daily average of 5000 persons
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 It's million in SIX
months and i'll the same time Is ,OlO of
New York million die in their beds
My flesh crept, my hair stood on end
This is appailinS.," said. "rhe dln-
ger isn't in travelling by rail, but in trust
ing TO those deadly beds w.lI never
sleep i'll a bed again"
| had figured on considerably lcS- than
onc-halt the length of the Erie road. Ii
was plain that the entire road must trans
port at least eleven or twelve thousand
people every day. There are many short
roads running out of Boston that do fully
hall rs much Il great many such roads
lheIc are many roads scattered about
the Union that do Il prodrgiou> passenger
business. Therefore 1t was fair to pre-
sumo that an average of 1900 pl-Scn-
gers Il day for each road in the coaniry
would be about correct. There are SIG
railway lines in our country, and SIG
times $500 are 2,1l5, 900 SO thcral
ways of America move more than Two
millions OF people every day; SIX hum
drcd and tilty millions Of people u year,
without counting the Sundays. They do
that, too-there is NJ question about it
though where they get the raw material
Is clear beyond the ,iuIi-dIc ion of nv
arithmetic; for have hunted the Genus
through and through, and find there
are not that many people in the United
States, 10y matter Of six hundred and
ten millions ut the very least They
must use some of the s;Ime people over
again, likely.
San Frtnci-cp is onc-cighih us popu-
lous as New York there are 90 deaths
a week in the former aud 800 week in
the latter-if they have luck. That is
), l2O atls II year in S.ln Francisco,
and eight times rs many in New York
say about $4,000 or 20, 900 The healih
of the two places is tie same. 50 we
will let IT stand as fair presumption
that this will hold good all over the coun-
try, and that Consequently %, 900 out Of
every million of people we have must die
every year. That amounts 10 one fortieth
of our total population. One million Of
u-, then, die annually. Out of this mil
lion ten or twelve thousand are stabbed,
shot, drowned, hanged, poisoned, or meet
similarly violent death in some other
popular way, such as peri-hng by kcro-
sene lamp and hoop-skirt conhagralion-,
getting buried in coal mines, falling off
housetops, breaking through church or