Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-05-24

| the money came so rapidly it turned his
brain, and he died in the lunatic asylum
| All his property was left with the business
| firm, and they swamped it: and then the
| family of the insane man were left without
d dollar In eighteen months the prosperity,
! the insanity. the insolvency, and the COM
plete domestic ruin. Beside that, there are
| men who die solvent who are insolvent be-
fore they get under the ground or before
their estate is settled up, How soon the auc-
| tioneer's mallet can knock the life out of an
estate. A man thinks the property
worth $4,000; under forced sale
It brings $1,000. The business
man takes advantage OF the crisis. and he
cOmpels the widow of his deceased partner
TO sell out to him at ruinous price or lose
all. The estate was supposed At the mans
| death to be worth $50, 900: but after the in
debtedness has been met, and the bills of
the doctor and undertaken and the tomb
stone cutter have been paid, there is moth
ing left. That means the children are to
come home from school and go to work;
that means, the complete hardship of the
wife, turned out with nothing but a needle
to fight the great battle of the world. Tear
down the lambrequins, close the piano, rip
up the Administer, sell out the wardrobe,
and let the mother take a child in each
hand and trudge out into the desert Of the
world. A life insurance would have him
dered all that
But" says some one, Il am man OF
small means, and | can't AFFORD to pay the
premium That is sometimes an awful
and a genuine excuse, but rarely. The
answer to it is this: If you are too poor TO
support your family and pay for policy on
your life. you are too poor to take the
chance of dying and leaving them deprived
of the support your brain and hands supply
them. In nine cases out of ten. when
hot h. nr,l
drinks down in wine, and eXpends in luxu-
ries enough money to have paid the pre-
MUM on life insurance policy which
would have kept his family from beggary
when he is dead. A man ought to put
himself down on the Strictest economy un-
til he can meet this Christian necessity.
You have no right to the luxuries of life
until you have made such provision. l ad-
mire what was said by the Rev. Dr. Guth-
RE, the great Scottish preacher. \ few
Years before his death he stood in
public meeting and declared:
" When | came to Edinburgh
the people sometimes laughed at my blue
stockings and at my. cotton umbrella, and
they said / looked like common plowman,
and they derided me because [ lived in a
house for which l paid :e35 rent a year. and
oftimes L walked when | would have been
very glad to have had cab: but, gentle
men, did all that because l wanted to pay
the premium on life insurance that would
keep my family comfortable if l should
die" That take to be the right express
sion of an honest, intelligent, Christian
man.
The utter Indifference of many people on
this important subject accounts for much
of the crime and the pauperism of our day.
Who are these children sweeping the cross
ings with broken brooms. and begging of
you penny as you go by Who are these
shawls! All they are the victims of want;
in many of the cases the forecast of parents
and grandparents might have prevented.
God only knows how they struggled to do
right. They prayed until the tears froze on
their cheeks. They sewed on the sack
until the breaking of the day. but they
could not get money enough to pay the rent;
they could not get money enough to decently
clothe themselves, and one day, in that |
wretched home, the angel of purity and the
angel of crime fought great fight between |
the empty bread tray and the tireless hearth |
and the black-winged angel shrieked, aha,
have won the day"
Says some man, Il believe what you say; |
it is right and Christian, and | mean some |
time to attend to this matter" My friend, |
you are going to lose the comfort of your |
in the same way the sinner loses |
procrastination. l see all around |
me the destitute and suffering families of |
parents who meant some day to attend to |
this Christian duty. During the process of |
adjournment the man gets his feet wet; |
then comes chill and delirium, and the
loleful shake of the doctors head, and the
obsequies. If there be anything more pitia-
bic than woman delicately brought up,
and on her marriage day by an indulgent
father given to man TO whom she is the
chief joy and pride of life until the moment
Of his death, and then that same woman
going out with helpless children at her back
10 struggle for bread in a world where
Drawny muscle and ruggedness of soul are
say, if there be anything more
oitiable than that, don't know what it is.
And yet there are good women who are in
iifferent in regard to their husbands duty |
IN this subject, and there are some posi-
lively hostile, as though n life insurance
a man to some fatality. There is
n this city to-day very poor woman keep
ng small candy shop, who vehemently OPP
posed the insurance of her husbands life,
md when application had been made for a
policy of $4,000 she frustrated it. She
would never have document in the house
hat implied it was possible for her hus-
)and ever to die. One day, in the quick
evolution of machinery, his life was in
SANITY dashed out. What is the sequel2
She is with annoying tug making the half
If miserable living. Her two children
lave been taken away from her in order
hat they may be clothed and schooled, and
Ter life is to be a prolonged hardship.
o man, before forty -eight hours have
passed away, appear at the desk of some of
'ur great life insurance companies, have
he Stethoscope of the physician put to your
leart and lungs, and by the seal of some
honest company decree that your children
hall not be subjected TO the humiliation of
financial struggle in the dark day Of your