Waterbury evening Democrat., 1905-11-13
JUST AN ACCIDENT
IN MOST CASES IT IS DUE TO
 GROSS CARELEssNESs.
Child Maimed for Life Through Mo- mentary Neglect of Nurse-Pleas- ant Experiences Which Some
 times Come by Accident.
BY MARGARET E. sANGsrER.

BY MARGARET E. sANGSTER.
 Copyright. 1s05 by Joseph B. Bowles)
 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 indulged 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 loose board in the floor or sagging hinge or a broken window cord, they repair the damage at once. They know perfectly that 1t costs less to mend than to mar, and marring goes rapidly on where there is no mending. As everybody knows the best way to let even a fine house so to absolute ruin is to shut it up and leave it without an inhabitant. A house that is lived in lasts longer and looks better than 8 house that is untenanted, because the | forces of nature are constantly making war upon the buildings of men, and 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 hole. She is not | ignorant of rip in a rug which may catch somebody's heel and cause tum- ble. But being needless, she put off repairing the rent in carpet and rug until an unlucky person hurrying along has fall, which means hip out of joint or broken leg, or, worse still, jar which may cause apoplexy to some one 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- ous edible and the deadly fungus, yet there are those who mourn sucn deaths as if they were laid at the door of accident.
 Children are sometimes left in the care of thoughtless hirelings and are maimed for life through falls for which there was neither excuse nor occasion. A man fearfully deformed with great hump between his shoulders was in his infancy the most noble and beauti- full of children. While his pretty nurse was flirting with gallant policeman the baby carriage took a slide down a steep hill and was overturned at the foot, and years of pain and wretched- I ness, with the fandicap of the hunchl back, have paid for that folly.
 We seldom read of railroad acci- dent that is not due to the careless ness of somebody, and yet it would be 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- zines 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- gineers, at the risk of their own lives, in the face of clouds of scalding steam, shut of the machinery, and were car ried to the hospital afterwards. They were heroes.
 There are accidents that no one can prevent. But as compared with those which come by lack of care, they are few. When the lightning from the sky strikes a man dead as he sits in his house or walks by the way. he may be said to perish by the act of God. But when a man takes hold of a live wire with bare hands, he has only himself to blame if he drops dead the next instant. The accident was stupid and foolhardy.
 We need not limit what happens by apparent accident to disaster and ca lamity. There are pleasant things that may properly be set down to the ae- count of accident since we have not planned them nor in any way made the least provision, mentally or materially for their coming to pass. A young man casts about for good place to spend brief holiday. Business claims him so constantly that vacations are few and far between. Not often does ht obtain a recess. Shall he go to the mountains. to the old homestead, tC the inland springs or the shore? Shal he accept a frined's invitation to joir him on a yacht, or possibly shall hf go on a bicycle tour over a distant state? He finally decides on one jaunt or another. with no ultimate object except to have a good holIaay.
 Yet on the yacht or in the farmhous, or by the way he is to meet gir whose eyes shall capture his heart anS