The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1894-07-05
THE WAY TO PRoLoNG LIFE
Total Abstinence, Personal Purity and Tenn
perance in Work.

perance in Work.
The following are extracts from re-
cent address by Wilbur f. Crafts at a
banquet of the Pittsburgh Life Under
writers association:
1T would seem unnecessary for a
company of insurance men to call on
anybody outside to do the talking, I'M
less they had been very greatly belied
as to their ability in that direction; and
l have been a little surprised that they
would be willing to let any one else
get in a word, when so many of them
are around as tonight. Perhaps you
are anxious to see what it is like to
listen, 1 hope you will not find it so
hard as some people have represented
it to be when the tables were
turned the other way. Whatever
may be said of talking insur-
ance, insurance examinations and
insurance statistics, how they do talk
on ethics would like to publish the
examination papers of insurance, as
have gone through them in five differ
ent companies, as a tract for young
men, showing the many evils and the
many follies of life to be avoided-not
to insure the life beyond, but this life,
not on the ground of morality or re-
ligion, but for purely business reasons.
LS-it not unique thing that business
Aand science, boring through the noun
tain from one side, reach the same
point as the ministers, boring through
the mountain from the one side-the
ministers, in the name of religion, show
ing what sort of life is worth living or
can be lived, and science, in behalf of
insurance, showing similar results from
purely business standpoint, from
purel business motives?
Take the question which is so beau
tifully illustrated here to-night-that
the wineglass is right side up only
when it is upside down or absent alto
gether. This is certainly very proper
at an insurance banquet, whatever the
individual opinions of some may be. l
remember that in the examinations
through which l passed one question
was whether the applicant was adj
dicted to the use of stimulants. The
British registergeneral, in his report
for 1898, shows, in estimating the NOR
tality of persons between 25 and 50
years of age, taking 100 as the stand
ard, that the ministers are at the top
not because there are not unhealthy
elements in their sedentary lives, but
because as rule they are free from the
vices that shorten life, although
L. SC e
untrue. The figures, as shown by those
statistics, are: Ministers, 100; garden
ers, los; farmers, ia; innkeepers and
liquor dealers, 274; employees of liquor
dealers and innkeepers, 397. Well, l
would not want any better sermon than
that. Applause. l consider that
abont the best temperance speech in
those few words that has been put out
on either side of the sea in the last
year.
''Some years ago, when was study
ing this subject, | came upon the
statistics of two companies in England
Nsf~re they made two divisions-one
for total abstainers, and the other
for moderate drinkers-for no insur-
ance company, L understand, takes
in those who are considered immod-
crate drinkers, and found they divid-
ed the profits among the insured ac-
cording to their relative mortality;
that the total abstainers received from
Is to SO per cent. of rebate-not of re-
bate, that is a bad word here tonight
laughter but they received that
much in dividends over and above the
others. In another company which
had the same division it was found that
while in the section of those that used
Intoxicating drinks the expectations of
death were fully realized, in the sec
ton of abstainers, where the insurance
men had calculated on 1853 deaths, only
So died--1OO less than they figured for
and expected according to the ordinary
averages of life insurance"