Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1905-11-09
JUST AN ACCIDENT
IN MOST CASES 1T rs DUE TO
GROSS CARELESSNESS.
Child MANNED for Life Through Mo-
mentary Neglect of Nurse-Pleas-
ant Experiences Which Some
times Come by Accident.
BY MARGARET E. sANGsTER.

1AtS Sih ~ 4
BY MARGARET E. SANGSTER. .
Copyright, 1905, by Joseph B.. Bowles.) l
Nine-tenths of the untoward hap |
penings that people call accidental are
due to gross carelessness and shame |
full neglect.
There are two sets Of people in the
world-those who keep things up and
those who let things run down. The
first have never INDUCED in the habit
of putting off till tomorrow what ought
to be done to-day. If the roof leaks or
there is a. crack in the ceiling or a
loose board in the floor or a sagging
hinge or a broken window cord, they
repair the damage at once. They know
perfectly that it costs less to mend
than to mar, and marring goes rapidly
on where there Is nc mending. AS
everybody knows the best way to let
even a fine house go to absolute ruin
is to shut it up and leave it without an
inhabitant. A house that is lived in
house that is u~ntenanted, because the
forces of nature are constantly making
war upon the buildings of men, and a
constant battle must be waged against
them if men are to come off victors.
The needless housekeeper has casu-
ally mentioned that there is a thin
place on the stair carpet which will
presently wear into a hole. She is not
ignorant of a rip in a rug which may
catch somebody's heel and cause a tum-
BILE. But being needless, she put off
repairing the rent in carpet and rug
until an unlucky person hurrying along
has a fall, which means a hip out Of
joint or a broken leg, or, worse still,
a jar which may cause apoplexy to
some n in old age, or the develop
ment of a malignant disease in some
one younger. These baleful sequences
do come from slight falls, and some
body is responsible.
A variety of miseries shuttle along
in the train of so-called accidents,
which never should have been permit
ted to occur. From time to time peo-
pie die because they have eaten toad
stools when they thought they were
eating mushrooms. Nothing is easier
than to distinguish between the delici-
GUS edible and the deadly fungus, yet
there are those who mourn sucl
deaths as if they were laid at the door
of accident.
Children are sometimes left in the
care of thoughtless hirelings and are
---s-.@ Co. 1.f1 +l,~,,-l. ELL. 20. rli
there was neither excuse nor occasion.
A mar fearfully deformed with a great
hump between his shoulders was in
his infancy the most noble and beauti-
full of children. While his pretty nurse
was flirting with a gallant policeman
the baby carriage took a slide down a
steep hill and was overturned at the
foot, and years of pain and wretched-
ness, with the handicap of the hunch-
back, have paid for that folly.
!, We seldom read of a railroad acct
dent that is not due to the careless
most unfair to utter sweeping criti-
+, cisms on the employees of public con
veyances. The average man is superb
} ly trustworthy. The engineer sticks
to his post and dies in the effort to
! save the train. When one of the en-
!, gines on the Majestic" was suddenly
! put out of commission not long ago, by
a real accident that no care could have
. anticipated or averted, the corps of en-
v gineers, at the risk Of their W lives,
: in the face of clouds of scalding steam,
l shut off the machinery, and were car
t ried to the hospital afterwards. They
were heroes.
There are accidents that no one can
=. prevent. But as compared with those
7 which come by lack of care, they are
few. When the lightning from the sky
!. strikes q man dead as he sits in his
house or walks by the way, he may
be said to perish by the act of God.
I But when a mar takes hold of a live
wire with bare hands, he has only
himself to blame if he drops dead the
. next, instant. The accident wal stupid
and foolhardy.
: We need not limit what happens by
dpphTtuI dCClucuI " uloGSLcI duu Ca
! lamity. There are pleasant things that
may properly be set down to the &C
count of accident, since we have not
planned them nor in any way made the
9 least provision, mentally or materially
Q for their coming to pass. A young mar
casts about for a good place to spend
a brief holiday. Business claims hin
so constantly that vacations are few
{ and far between. Not often does hi
Q obtain q recess. Shall he go to the
mountains, to the old homestead, tt
: the inland springs OF the shore? Shall
9 he accept a frined's invitation to joir
9 him on a yacht, or possibly shall hi
$ go on a bicycle tour over a distant
state? He finally decides on one jauni
I or another, with no ultimate object
except to have a good holluay.
r Yet on the yacht or in the farmhous,
: or by the way he is to meet a cir
: whose eyes shall capture his heart ant
9 who snail change the face Of the work.
7 FOR him for the rest Of his life.
9 How came Hugh to marry BELIEF
+ I once asked, wondering at what seem
. I'd m incongruous marriage. the hus