Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-06-26
CURB AND CORRIDOR.
Three Ex-Oficeholders Who Have Found
Private Life Comfortable = Tho Hot
Weather Deadness In Humor-Some In
y surance Notes-The Talk About Town


Private Life Comfortable = Tho Hot
Weather Deadness in Humor-some In
y surance Notes.-The Talk About Town.
THE man who has held political Office a
good long while is usually not happy when
retired to private life, but I have found
three exceptions to the rule within the last
day or two. Number one was ex-Controller
Speer, whose sunburnt face and clear eye
proclaimed the health that comes from out
door life and lots of exercise. But for his
natty dress he might have passed for a
farmer, and asked him to explain how he
came by the callosities on his hands.
Knocking around on my farm near Eliza
beth. 1t is my fathers old placs, and since
went out to live there I've found plenty of
work getting it into order. That and little
attention to brick field give me employ
ment enough, and I'm enjoying the fresh air
and freedom from anxiety. Politics don't
bother me much now, but am not prepared
to say that I've retired from the field per-
manently."
street, with just as busy an air as ever, came
ex-Sheriff McCandless, who has been out of
office such a little while that he hardly real
ICES it yet Bucolic joys and the handle of q
body enjoys riding or driving more than DR..
Alexander Escu1apius, and it is a singu-
larly cold day when he has not fast trotter
or two in his stable. But he lives hustling,
active life in the city, with half dozen
irons in the fire-a few political ones among
them, including the important work OF or
ganizing Congressman Dalzelrs adherents
in the State club fight. He said he felt
very comfortable out of office, and he
looked 1t.
At slower gait, befitting his larger girth
and the heat of the day, ex-Postmaster Lar
kin Was street when neor
than it had in the dim light OF the back
room In the postofice year or 80 ago, and
Mr.. Larkin admitted that the outdoor exer-
else he got in prosecuting his real estate
business was helping him to recover from
the attack Of La grippe, which played the
mischief with him last winter. My purse
is much fatter, too,'' he remarked, while the
well played about his eyes, "than ever it
had chance to be while / served Uncle
Sam-I've doubled my income since ! got
out Of Office" No wonder he is content.
Jokes Scarce in Summer.
CAT this time of the year," said George ORR
son, q representative of New York publish
ing house, 'it must be dreadfully hard to
keep the comic papers alive. You can see
evidences of the desperate character of the
struggle in their pages. All the dear old
jokes we buried years and years ago, and
many that our grandparents knew In their
tender days revisit the earth, and the new
jokes, small and ghostly band. run the risk
of being squeezed to death by the crowd of
antiquities. Soon after June begins you
may note the resurrection of the worlds
dead jocularities, and it continues with
breath of October fans the humorist
back to life and awakes the sleeping editor.
For week or two on the cars 1 have been
forced to fall back upon the comic papers
for mental amusement, and rejoice that I
have not felt any decided symptoms of
paresis yet. must confess the shock was
trying when encountered in the second
page of Puck last week that venerable story
OF the man who was puzzled to know how to
order dozen tailors' gooses, and finally
wrote, Please send me one tailor's goose
and eleven Others When q jest becomes an
heirloom in million families and counts as
a friend almost every English-speakingm man,
woman and child in the world, 1t should be
safe from the rude hands of the rapacious
space-filler in the comic journals. But in
every one OF the humorous papers the same
symptoms of the summer siesta are to be
seen, and we must bear it without grins."
Recent Insurance Lessons.
"THE lesson of the disclosures in New
York insurance business ought not to be
lost upon the public" said one of the ablest
insurance agents in Pittsburg yesterday.
1.-THE three enormous insurance companies
which alone do business in South America,
and apparently care not where they insure
lives SO long as they swell the amount of in
surance written, cannot regard the exposi-
tion of the riskiness and uncertainty of their
foreign transactions with any comfort The
fact is that it is not safe, and never can be
safe, for an American insurance company to /
guarantee what is practically a for
eign company's business in another |
country, under entirely different conditions,
climatic, racial and financial, The foreign |
departments are practically separate COM
panies whose liabilities the parent company |
without sufficient security, as the |
scandal now being investigated by the in
surance commissioners in New York has |
plainly shown. The magnitude of an in |
surance company's business beyond a GER |
tain point Is not necessarily a factor of |
strength and when policies written in South |
America Egypt, Africa and heavens knows |
what unhealthy regions, from which mortu- |
ary tables and other vital statistics essential |
to the safe conduct of insurance business are |
not obtainable, are used to swell the returns |
of business, the picture of monumental SOL
ldity is decidedly misleading. After a COM
pany has written insurance upon 1000 lives
fairly distributed throughout country of
which the conditions of life are thoroughly |
it is as strong financially as it |
will be when it has 10 900 lives insured under
ike conditions"