Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 December 1892 — Risk on the Rail. [ARTICLE]

Risk on the Rail.

The Board of Trade of England has just issued an official publication giving a list of the number of accidents to the 845,000,000 passengers carried by railways in that countrj during 1891. The lives lost ■ from causes beyond the control of the travelers numbered five, the lowest .figure in any year on record. The classified list of accidents shows that engines or cars meeting with obstruction* or derailments from defects in

the permanent way Are slowly dlm-1 inching. In 1881 were' twenty-four such cases. In 1890 there were five and last year six. Tlie greatest number of accidents, amounting to twen-ty-five, came under the head of collisions'within fixed signals at stations or sidings. With regard to derailments, two of the accidents were due to the points of the switches not being altered, after the passage of previous trains, one was due to a point damaged by a previous train, one was caused by the failure of a cast-iron girder, one was due to carelessness on the part of the engineer of a relief train, and one was due to unknown causes. Inadequate braking power was responsible for twelve accidents, and fogs and storms for the same number also. In eight instan ces fault is found with a defective system of train dispatching, want of telegraphic communication, or lack of a block system. Purely mechanical causes, apart from human error, scarcely appear at all, and it would thus seem, says the Engineer, in commenting on these returns, to be within human power to work the railways without any accident whatever. While few railway officials will probably subscribe to this conclusion of our English contemporary, the figures produced by the Board of Trade certainly show that abroad as well as in the United States too many accidents can be traced to negligence, want of care, or mistakes on the part of officers or servants. Smart Newspaper Men. “It’s mighty hard work getting any free advertising out of you newspaper people, nowadays,” sighed the advance agent of a mammoth allied circus as he passed a stack of coin over the business-office counter the other morning. “Space is space,” replied the affable cashier, as he made out a receipt. “I dont know why it is,” continued the A. A., retrospectively, “but somehow editors don’t seem to bite as they used to. Same on the Eastern coast, too I noticed it particularly on a little snap I worked way down at Galveston last fall.” “How was that?" “Well, you see, I was on my way to that city by steamer a week in advance of our show, when I struck a great scheme. I bought two dozen pop bottles and as many steaks from the steward. Then 1 got a lot of arsenic froth the medical stores and rubbed it into the "steaks. I put some of our bills in the bottles, tied a steak round each and dropped ’em overboard as we entered the harbor. My calculation was that the sharks would swallow the meat, be poisoned, float ashore, would be cut open,, the bills found, and the whole thing be written up by tlie reporters in great shape.” “How did it work?” “Like a charm—my part of It, I mean. Nine sharks altogether stood in with the show, but eveny time one came ashore I got a note from every editor in the place, proposing to write the tiling up, with a snap camera cut of the shark, at the regular rates.” “Pretty mean, that” “Mean —those fellows could give Shylock cards and spades. The only paper that referred to it at all was one we gave sixty-four free passes to. The day we left town it remarked that our show was enough to kill a blind nigger—let alone sharks.” And the colossal aggregator sighed deeply and drifted out.—San Francisco Examiner.

I'rugHlUm. Vegetarians are elated by the fact that within the last twenty-five years the fruit-producing resources of the United States have increased Just ten times as fast as the meat-producing resources. Apples, oranges anil grapes are getting cheaper from year to year, while meat is getting dearer, thus, as it were, bribing a shortsighted generation to relinquish their flesh-pots and try the panacea of Dr. Bronson Alcott. That much desired consummation could, no doubt, be greatly promoted by dropping the name of vegetarianism with its water cresses and root house suggestiveness. Out of ten flesh eaters nine could be persuaded to test the merits of baked apples for one who would under any circumstances consent to try the specific of King Nebuchadnezzar. And seriously speaking, there is not a vestige of proof that adults of our species were ever intended to feed on “vegetables.” in the green grocer’s sense of the word. If we admit the axiom that our natural diet should consist chiefly of substances that can be eaten without repugnance in the condition we receive them from the hands of nature, cabbage and spinach are every whit as objectionable as pork sausages. Man, according to all the evidence of his dentition and the structure of his digestive apparatus, is not>an herbivorous, but a frugivorous, a'nimal, and our dietetic reformers should adopt the name of Frugalists.—Felix I. Oswald. Care of the Voice. No class of human habitation is so well fitted for voice culture as the flat. No time is so good for practice as your neighbors’ afternoons at home. No really ’ fine effects are produced upon the world at large until the voice has been used from six to ten hours continually. It is then that people are moved—that is, are glad to move. Only affected singers ever allow a cold to stand between themselves and a chance to show off. Great care should be exercised in the selection of a piano for accompaniment. It should be pitched exactly three notes below the voice. Anything beyond that must inevitably result in serious impairment of the musical taste. Do not ask the opinion of unbiased critics relative to your singing. Consult such as owe you money or those whose social position depends upon your pleasure. Every time you hear of a charitable entertainment volunteer to sing. It places those in charge in a delicate position which they cannot fail to enjoy. Never sing after going to bed. It is apt to make trouble. Do not expect an offer to go on the stage inside of two months after you begin to train your voice. Disappointment injures the vocal chorda.—Detroit Tribune.