The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1881-05-13
A NEW HNrERpRIsg,

peoples lives, companies that insure prop
erty from destruction by FIRE, and why can
not we have a company that will insure
peoples property from being stolen; com
pany to insure horses and mules from being
stolen, for instance? 1t Is the duty of every
well regulated newspaper, striving to keep
abreast of the times in all things that tend
to the material prosperity of the country,
the general good OF the people and to make
itself felt and appreciated, like the HERALD,
t. discuss live questions before tho public.
This question of the insurance of horses and
mules against the thief, the mid,
night prowler, is surely Il
live question. The inen who may form tho
company will be alive, the horses and mules
are alive, tho thieves who steal them are
alive and the man who indi,es this article is
alive. SO you see there is nothing dead
abou! il. Let Us look at this matter little.
1t is not impractcabe. In New York there
is u company that takes care Of valuablcs for
consideration. This company has large,
strong fire.proof building, IN which are i'm.
mense fire and burglar proof vaults. For II
daily, weekly, monthly or yearly
stipend, as the case may be, they take charge
of vsluables such as diamonds and other
iewels, watches, silverware. bonds, stocks,
deeds, etc, and hold themselves responsible
for their safe keeping and safe return to the
depositors. Is this anything but form Of
insurance. Right here in this city any per.
son about to travel can purchase an accident
policy, which guarantees 10 him stated
sum per week while he may BE- disabled, if
no gets hurt on his.travels during the
time for which he took out
the policy, or stipulated sum
ia paid to his heirs or assigns if he DO killed
by accident. There are companies, il VIC be
not msinformed, that insure tho lives of
valuable stock, horses, cattle, ETC., and they
do good business OF course all these
companies make mouey, they take in more
than they pay out, otherwise they would
cease TO exist hence all such enterprises arc
inaugura,ed and conducted to remunora,e
their projectors and stock holders. All
these things considered then, why is not such
company as we suggest, company to 10
sure horses and mules, or all live stock for
that matter, against being stolen, feasible?
We know that in our state there arc hun
dreds of horses stolen every year. Many of
them are valuable animals while others ara
bu! mere plugs. Some Of them are recover.
ed to their owners, but the great bulk of
them are entirely lost If there was an in.
surance company, such as we arc discussing
in existence, every man in tho country with q
valuable horse would insure him against loss
from thieves, it is not unreasonable to
assume, and by this means two classes
of people, We may say,
would be benefited, tho insurers and tho
insured. The first by tho premiums received
on horses insured and the latter b. tho i'm
munily afforded them from loss of their
property by thieves. We have no. space
here to give the details for the workings of
such an insurance company as this even if
We had correct and satisfactory conception
of them, but lot us suppose that company
is formed for the purpose indicated. A
charter is obtained for tho company to oper-
ate with capital of 100000 Books are
opened and paid up stock to that amount is
taken, board of directors elected, which
choose officers, and the Offices of tao concern
are thrown open for business. A, B, @ and
ID come along and want their horses insured.
These four horses We will suppose are worth
$3.50, and the premiums taban on Thorn for
insuring them against loss by thieves for ono
yesr amounts to SS7 so, or iiva per cent of
their value. The company contracts in its
policies TO recover tho horse if stolen and
return him TO his owner in sixty days without
other charge, or else pay the value set forth
in the policy. Thus we SEQ that
the owner of u horse simply pays
five per cent of his value for a guarantee tina.
no thief can deprive him of tsat much prop
erty during a years time. 1t occurs to lis
that no gentlemen owning valuable, serv.
iceable horse would hesitate to pay an
amount so small for such guarantee. We
have not yet seen the census report of the
number Of horses in Texas, and therefore
can only give the approximate number. The
census bureau is very kind TO US. 1t sends at
least once week, and sometimes oftener,
the advance sheets of census reports of
every state IN the Union, even including
Rhode Island, except those Of Texas, and asks
us to correct any errors we may discover, but
life Is too short and tho pleasures of this
world too fleeing for US 10 even look up the
errors, much more to correct them. But MS
we cannot give tho exact number of horses in
Texas last June, wo will state that its esti.
mated that there arc, say million horses in
the state, worth $50 OO0, 900. Of this number
there are not exceeding one thousand stolen
annually, or one in = thousand OF this
million horses could not an active, wideawake
company insure fifty thousand horses? These
$4,000 horses, using the average for the state
would DO worth 81 800, 900, Ave per cent. of
v,h,oh mould ho C7E mn t.L.. 4. A. A.