The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1907-01-03
AUTOMOBILE FATALITIES, JAN
UARY-NOVEMBER, 1906.



November OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES. 10
Iotal..,,,...,'...,.., '........'. '.IlO
Only of these 10 met death in races
&C spectators, g contestants. OF the
remaining 1O1, "a were pedestrians and
AZ were in the cars involved.
The close of the football season again
gives rise to public clamor against the
dangers Of the game, which is only less
in volume than that cutlery of 1905
which resulted in the present revised
rules of play; rules, it may be added,
that are certain to be changed even
more i'm the immediate future to in
crease yet farther "open play" and so
decrease yes farther the danger to life
and limb. Foot ball is dangerous.
There can be no question as to that,
when eleven weeks just past have
built up a total of eleven fatalities,
with something over 100 cases of more
or less serious injury. But is that all
there is to be said in the matter?
Why is popular disapproval directed
wholly against the game of the grldiron
field? Even ignoring the admittedly
strong points in favor of the sport,
why is nothing ever said of base ball
casualties, for instance, or of the mis-
haps (not infrequently. fataD which be-
fall each twelve-month on the race
track, on the wrestling mats or in the
boxing ring? Why (and this more
markedly is no accusation made
against mountain climbing, or auto
MODELLING or hunting? What is the
story told by the years figures in all
of this?
DEATHS IN SPORT LAST YEAR.
1t is said that something approaching
40 per cent of the deaths of any year,
due to other than so-called natural
causes" are to be attributed to muir
der suicide and individual accident"
and that nearly two-fifths of this total
is due to accidents closely connected
with mans various sporting" avoca-
tions. The fatalities traceable to dis
asters on the rail Gncluding those
caused by trolley cars as well as steam)
and the marine horrors are classed as
general not individual"
In this light, glance at the items of
deaths creating, in the various fields
of sport, since January, 1906. Mountain
climbing leads. In the first eleven
months Of the year, 191 Adventures lost
their lives in that hazardous pleasure"
Automobiling has accounted for 10,
and 70 hunters have been accidentally
killed 1t is quite a drop from such
figures to the II fatalities of foot ball,
with, following in order, baseball s.,
marine 4, and two each for boxing and
wrestling and horse racing.
Is it not simple justice that the adj
mittedly real dangers OF football should
be looked at not as if the game were
the only sport of present-day red-blood-
ed young men, but rather as one of
several? Foot ball ranks far too high
in the scale of danger. That is OBJ
vious, and the rules committee is al
ready busted to meet so proper an OBJ
lection. But, in passing structures up
on the sport, have an eye true to the
whole perspective. 1t even might not
be amiss to recall that ballOoning has
caused fourteen deaths in seven years,
and that the initial month of 1906 say a
1O-year-old girl killed by a SNOWFALL
| during a winter frolic in Hamilton,
Ohio.
THE MOST FATAL PLEASURE.
Mountain climbing last year reached
| its "farthest north" of deaths. All OF
| the accompanying figures are exclusive
| of December-and 1906 wrote 1871 fatal
| tiles for its record among the hills OF
the world. In 1905 saw 179-more thar
! had occurred in any previous twelve
months-but now an even dozen has
been added to that worst total.
1.-THE sport of only the very few" has
been said of mountaineering. But is
that true? Swiss statistics show APP
proximately 100000 making one ascent
or another each season; and this covers
only the Swiss Alps, saying nothing Of
the outlying portion of the chain or Of
other great ranges. Moreover only II
per cent Of the mishaps are laid t
what may be held as unavoidable
causes-falling stones, etc. Only eigh
of the 191 were well known climbers
and only forty-eight of the accidents
occurred among the highest and mos
dangerous peaks.
The nationalities of the dead
strangely enough led by the Swiss
| fhannaaIUau- fo1lovy In tbfo ordar, Co.