The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1897-03-17
SELECTED STORY.
Why the Paper stopped.


10 very much cut up nowadays and If q
person wishes to start successful
weekly he must be q man Of ideas.
needs to know anything about litera-
about these obsolete departments the
better; but his ideas must run in the
direction of some scheme that will ap-
pear 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 1t is imagined that
the public simply yearn for life insur.
ance, especially that kind which con-
soles' the widow after the insured is
smashed up in railway accident. Rail
way travelling in England is so safe
that very rarely anyone is killed, yet
nevertheless on the off chance, hum
dreds OF thousands of papers are sold
every week, and many of these estima-
BILE journals have their life insurance
policies 30 arranged that unless the
train does some eccentric thing, such
as stand on its head or turn three SON.
ersaults, no money can be collected by
the mourning relatives.
There are running in London several
journals that have offered millions in
insurance, and yet never have paid a
penny. This all comes about because
the editor is man of ideas who blszons
the announcement of innumerable
pounds on his title page, and then
wraps up the conditions in small type
somewhere inside 30 that even the
most impecunious of us do not hail a
railway accident in which we are inter-
ested, 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 a thousand pounds in
surance to subscriber who died from
any accident whatever, 80 long as he
had copy of Johnson's Weekly in his
pocket at the time of the disaster.
johnson 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
cliff with the paper in his pocket, 80 be
went to his solicitor, told him frankly
the state of his case and asked him to
draw up set of conditions which
would make it impossible for the rela-
tives of the dead man TO collect the
money. The lawyer thought over the
matter very seriously for few minutes
and then said:
Ppm afraid, Mr.. Johnson, you will
have so many cases on your hands If
you send out such general accident
policy like this with your paper that
some one will be sure to collect from
you. You see the safety of the other
papers lies in the fact that there are so
few railway accidents. A paper offer
ing a railway insurance has 80 few
claims that there isn't much publicity
even where claim is not paid, but 80
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."
~ should not mind that" said John
son, "if the paper went up to zoe, 0OO."
"The danger u.s." put in the man of
law, "that you would have so many
claims 10 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
kind9 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
sures the others life. 1t sounds lit
tie involved, but perhaps you under
stand what l mean"
&" l understand what you mean," said
johnson, but don't see the advan-
tage of it,"
Why, my dear fellow, the advantage
is this-so many men hate 30 many 9th
ers that they live perpetually on the
this offer of yours would throw the bal
ance completely over, and some man
who wanted to slay that other man
thousand pounds"
eyes" obviously ventured Johnson,
"but don't want to pay the thousand
pounds at ALL"
"Certainly not, answered the lawyer,
and you wouldn't need to; the MUIR
derer would not dare to claim the re-
ward; he would do the murder as
quietly as possible, of course, and when
it was done would get frightened and
make no claim. The oddly 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 thousand
pounds, which was practically an in
centive to murder. You would protest
that you had no such idea and 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, ant
everyone would want to see copy, ant
your fortune would be made"
SPY Jove!" said johnson, 81 be