The Philipsburg mail. [volume] (Philipsburg, Mont.) 1887-current, 1893-08-31

commit fraud or crime. Yet in spite of TIL.
companies precautions few cases of viii
lainy have been unearthed by the Society
for the Prevention Of Cruelty to Children
This society best known by the name of its
chief organizer, Elbridge Il. Gerry, has ir
the II years of its existence rescued ovel
10000 children from cruel parents or guard
lans, and investigated the cases of about
10000, and in all these found but five cases
in which life insurance cut any figure. Ii
New York city about $50, 900 children were
insured in 1892.
Many readers remember the case of Mrs
Victor who died II few years ago in the
Ohiostate prison. She had been condemned
to death, and when Governor Hayes 0atel
president committed her sentence to i'm
prisonnent for life she stoutly denied his
right to do SO without her consent. Hel
plea, Or rather that of her lawyers, was that
she had Il right to be hanged according tt
the original sentence, and as the date fiXeC
was long passed she had Il right to be re
leased or course the supreme court decid
ed that the power OF pardon was, as the
constitution declares, sin the discretion OF
the executive" Well, it was conclusively
proved-if human testimony can prove any
thlng-that this woman had deliberately
fed her brother poison from day to day, haG
witnessed his hourly increasing misery, had
tenderly, soothingly raised his head and
with truly feminine or feline treachery had
pressed to his lips the cup of liquid death.
The same is charged against Mrs. Sham
and against hundreds of other women, and
two important points must be borne IL
mind. One is that the cases reported in the
papers and tried in court are certainly not
as one in three of those in which the lii.
insurance companies have good cause
suspect foul play. The other is that of all
forms of murder that by poison-and mos,
OF all that by slow poison, as in these case
implies the most fiendish guilt. By tn
very nature of the case poison must gener
ally bea administered by a trusted one-most
often by a near relative, by wife, sister, or,
horrible to imagine, by mother or daugh.
ter! 1t is pre-eminently woman's crime
She stands by the bedside in the conven
tional attitude of womanly tenderness, she
mikes the supposed cooling or healing
draft, she raises the sufferers head, per.
haps rests it upon her bosom, and while the
languid eyes Of the invalid look up with
loving trustfulness-but enough The i'm.
agination sickens. The treachery is worse
than the main crime. 1t implies the pre-.
meditation of a devil.
Yet life insurance is good thing Even
the insurance of infants in New York city
has proved to be on the whole productive
of much more good than evil. On one day
recently a certain life insurance company
paid the burial expenses of $40 children
whose little bodies must otherwise have
gone to the potter's field. And the search
is SO thorough that, as the company claims,
it is now impossible for cruel frauds to be
perpetrated. The agent must personally
see and investigate each case before the ap.
plication is admitted. The amount paid is
limited to SIS if the child is too young tc
worff--that is, SO young that profit might
be made of its death. The premium in.
creases from year to year SO as to create an
increasing interest in the child's life, and
finally the agent who makes the weekly
collection must see the child each time and
report If there is anything suspicious.
Graveyard Insurance. was a heading
which had great run in the papers few
years ago, and many painful facts wert
brought to light while the interest con.
tinued. The original rule Of law was that
no one could insure the life of another CT
be the payee of another's life insurance un.
less such beneficiary possessed an interest
in the continued life of the insured as great
as any possible gain derivable by said in.
sureds death. Thus wife could insure
her husbands life when she depended on
it for her income, but husband could not
insure his wifes life unless she had an in.
come on which he depended for living
and that income terminable at her death.
The relaxation of this rule has wrought
great evil.
1t is hard saying, but as human nature
now is we cannot risk the giving of one
person an interest in another PERSONS
death. There are many, many people for
whom the temptation is too great. All the
large life insurance companies have secret
agents at work collecting facts such as are
here limited at. Some day these evidences
will be published, and the world will stand
aghast. The skeletons will walk out OF
many closets and have war dance But
the time is not yet. The legal proof is not
quite sufficient. ->~sz