The morning journal-courier., 1908-06-02
THE LOVE OF DANGER.

Year by year the popular taste for public exhibitions of daredevil reck- lessness increases. There seem always to be more who are willing to do what the average person dare not think Of doing without a shudder. That man who can 20 nearest to the brink of death without falling over may claim for himself the highest ealary and the only trouble is that the hair breadth escapes of yesterday become the com mon, unsensational occurrences of to- morrow For years The balloon and the parachute have been used as life destroyers quite as successfully as the electric chair. New Haven has had horrible examples of It at savin Rock and only Sunday a young man whose home vas in this city was killed at Passaic when attempting a sensational drop.
 But the balloon has by no means been the only popular death-dealing medium The automobile has long since forged Into the lead and, with a little gold glittering ahead for a life and-death ride there have been found any number of men who have been willing to undertake such feats as former generation would have turned from in horror. Almost every days news tells the story of one or more deaths as the result of these affairs. Those who escape death, going at mile a minute are not satisfied until they have essayed a mile in half a minute. On this principle 1t becomes merely a case of driving a car till a fatal mistake and resulting death make further attempts impossible,
 There are laws that make 1t a crlm- inal offence to be guilty of criminal reckleseness when the results may be disastrous to others. Should laws be passed that win make t criminal reck- lessness to endanger onee own life? It is a crime to attempt to take another's life and it ls likewise a crime to at tempt one's own 1t Is wrong 10 crimin- ally endanger another's life and it may justly be made a crime to endanger ones own. The questions of mechan- cal superiority which may be settled to come small extent by such a race was the recent shlngle Hill contest conducted by Yale students in West Haven, may be apparent Even in such a case 1t Is not certain but that the same questions might be settled more satisfactorily In other ways, Blu. such bursts If speed as that in which | Cedrino lost his life last Friday, eith. CT on the race track or on the regular roads iD reality prove nothing as to the merits of the cars. The manufactur. CTS would not make their entries were it not for the advertisement there 1, in it for them. The sole excuse Is the inhuman excitement for the spectators It Is well known that tires cannot stand the strain and yet more fool, "step in where wise men fear to tread. In these days of fast and feverish liv ing the tastes of the public must bc satiated no matter whether mems live are sacrificed in consequence or not.
 We look back at the days of tho arena in Rome and of the poor glad
 ators who as slaves were sent to hgh for their livee. The only difference ii that now we pay men salaries to ngh for their lives in automobiles Tn, monetary difference Is immaterial. I these men are so foolhardy that the, don't care whether they run the risl of death, then the law perhaps should step in and play the part of guardian over them.