The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1896-11-21
WHY THE PAPER STOPPED.

very much cut up nowadays and if person
wishes to start a successful weekly he must
be man of ideas. This does not neces-
sarily mean that he needs 10 know any
Thing about literature or art: in fact the
less he knows about these obsolete depart
ments the better; bat his IDEAS must run
in the direction OF some scheme that will
appear very attractive to the public and
yet not enable them to collect any money
from him; this usually takes the form of
life insurance.
Somehow or other it is imagined that
the public simply yearn for life insurance,
especially that kind which consoles the
widow after the insured is smashed up in IL
railway accident Railway travelling in
England is so safe that very rarely anyone
is killed, yet nevertheless on the off chance
hundreds of thousands Of papers are sold
every week, and many of these estimable
journals have their life insurance policies
so 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 re-
latives.
There are running in London several
journals that have offered millions in in
surance, and yet never have paid penny
This all comes about because the editor
is a man of ideas who blazons the announced
of innumerahle pounds on his tide pagc
and then wraps up the conditions in small
tpye somcwhP.e inside so that even the
most impecunious of us do not hail a
railway 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 determined to offer a
thousands pounds insurance to a subscriber
woo died from any accident whatever so
long as he had copy of Johnson's Weekly
in his pocket Mt the time of the disaster
Johnson had only a thousand pounds
capital when lie started, and he was natnr-
"''y wy "hEN'h' WAY inoHty
not be looted from him the first week by
some one stumbling over cliff with the
paper in his pocket, so he went to his
solicitor, told him frankly the state OF his
case and asked bin to draw up a set OF
conditions which would make it impossible
for the relatives OF the dead man to collect
the morey. The lawyer thought over the
matter very seriously for few minutes
and then said:
''I'm afraid, Mr.. Johnson, you will have
so many cases on your hands il YOU send
out such general accident policy like this
with your paper that some one will he sure
to collect from you. You see the safety of
of the other papers lies in the fact that
there are so few claims that there isn't
much publicity even when claim is not
paid, but so many accidents happen ell
tirely unconnectcd with trains that Won
would be almost certain to he brought into
court by somebody on an average of once
a week.
81 should not mind that" said johnson,
''if the paper went mp to 200 900"
"'Ihc danger is, put in the man of law,
that you would have so many claims to
settle that if your paper went mp to n
million the legal expenses alone would
cripple you. Now, how would it be if you
were to offer insurance of this kind? Sup
pose you allow the taker of the paper to in
sure somebody else, not himself, and then
when the other person happened to be
killed you pay the thousands pounds to
the one who insured the others life. 1t
sounds little involved, but perhaps you
understand what | mean"
II understand what you mean, said
Johnson, 'but l don't see the advantage of
if.
"Why, my dear fellow, the advantage is
this-so many men hate so many others
that they live perpetually on the verge of
killing their enemies. Now this ctfer of
yours would throw the blance completely
over. and some man who wanted to Say
that other man would insure him in order
TO d,aw the thousand pounds"
eyes" obviously ventured johnson,
"but don't want 20 pay the thousand
pounds at all
Certainly not, answered the lawyer, and
you wouldn't need to; the murderer would
not dare to claim the reward; lie would do
the murder Us quietly as possible, of course,
and when it was done would get frightened
and make on claim. The oddly of the
offer would attract great attention every
where, and probably some case would come
up in which it would be shown in all the
pape"s 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
Il thousand pounds, which was practically
an incentive to murder You would pro-
test that you had no such idea and would
withdraw your offer, declaring that the
government compelled you to DO SO.
Meanwhile Jomson's Weekly would be
advertised up and down the land, and
everyone would want to see copy, and
your fortune would be mad
,,n,l Tn1,