The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1896-09-11
WHY THE PAPER STOPPED.

person wishes 10 start a successful
weekly he must be a man Of ideas. This
does not necessarily mean that he needs
TO know anything about literature or
art; in fact, the less he knows about
these obsolete departments the better;
but his ideas must run in the direction
of some scheme that will appear very
attractive TO the public and yet not en-
able them 10 collect any money from
him; this usually takes the form OF life
insurance.
Somehow or other il is imagined that
the public simply yearn for life insur-
ance, especially that kind which con-
eoIes the widow after the insured Is
smashed up in a railway accident. Rail
way travelling in England is so safe that
very rarely anyone is killed, yet never
theless on the of chance, hundreds Of
thousands Of papers are sold every
week. and many Of these estimable
journals have their life insurance pol
icies 50 arranged that unless the train
does some eccentric thing. such as stand
on its head or turn three somersaults.
no money can be collected by the
mourning relatives.
There are running in London several
Journals that have offered millions il
insurance. and yet never have paid a
penny. This all comes about because
the editor is a man of ideas who blazons
the announcement Of inDumerable
pounds on his title page, and then wraps
up the conditions in small type some
where inside 50 that even the most i'm
4 -.
accident in which we are interested,
with unseen JOY.
When johnson thought of starting
his paper to be made up of clippings
from the American press, he deter
mined TO offer thousand pounds in
Burance to subscriber who died from
any acciden whatever. so long as he had
a copy IF Johnson's Weekly in his
pocket afthe time of the disaster. John
son had only thousand pounds capital
when he started. and he was naturally
very anxious that his money should not
be looted from him the first week by
some one stumbling over a cliff with
the paper in his pocket, so he went to his
solicitor, told him frankly the state of
his case and asked him 10 draw up set
of conditions which would make it i'm
possible for the relatives of the dead
man to collect the money. The lawyer
thought over the matter very seriously
for a few minutes and then said:
''I'm afraid, Mr.. Johnson, you will
have SO many cases on your hands if
you send out such a general accident
policy like this with your paper that
coma u-ili ha e1,re. 10 o0Ilaa+
you. You see the safety of the other
papers lies in the fact that there are
so few railway accidents. A paper Of
fering a railway insurance has so few
claims that there isn't much publicity
even when a claim is not paid, but so
many accidents happen entirely uncon-
nected with trains that you would be
almost certain to be brought into court
by somebody on an average of once
week.
81 should not mind that" said John
son, ''if the paper went up to 100000"
'The danger is" put in the man of
law, that you would have so many
claims to settle that if your paper went
up TO million the legal expenses alone
would cripple you. Now, how would it
be if you were to offer insurance of this
kind? Suppose you allow the taker of
the paper TO insure somebody else, not
himself. and then when that other per-
son happened to be killed you pay the
thousand pounds to the one who in
sured the others life. 1t sounds little
involved, but perhaps you understand
what mean"
II understand what you mean," said
johnson, "but don't see the ADVANTAGE
of it,"
'Why, my dear fellow, the advantare
is this-so many men hate SO many OF
ers that they live perpetually on the
verge of killing their enemies. Now
this offer of yours would throw the bal
ance completely over, and socle MAJ
whoawanted to slay that other mun
would insure him in order TO draw the
thousand pounds
"Yes," obviously ventured johnson.
''but l don't want to pay the thousand
pounds at ALL"
Certainly not" answered the law
yer, "and you wouldn't need TO; the
murderer would not dare to claim the
reward; he would do the murder as
quietly as possible, of course, and when
it was done would get frightened and
make no claim. The oddity of the Of
fer would attract great attention every
where, and probably some case would
come up in which it would be shown
in all the papers that this subscriber Of
yours had committed murder for the
sake of getting the thousand pounds;
then the government would step in and
make you stop offering a thousand
pounds. which was practically an in
centive to murder. You would protest
that you nad no sucn idea ana would
Withdraw your offer, declaring that the
government compelled you to do so
Meanwhile Johnson's Weekly would be
advertised up and down the land. and
everyone would want to see a copy. and
your fortune would be made.''
by Jovel" said johnson, Il believe
there's a good deal in the idea. I'll
adopt it." And he did.
The scheme was arranged in this way:
Instead of the defunct one requiring to
have copy Of the paper on his person
when found, johnson issued card to
the person effecting the insurance: on