Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 75, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 April 1917 — DANGER IN HARMLESS THINGS [ARTICLE]

DANGER IN HARMLESS THINGS

Americans Suffer Casualties From Accidents Every Year Equal to Those of the Heaviest Battles.

It Is a bloody battle which inflicts death or wounds upon one in every seven soldiers. Casualties of 140,000 in an army of a million are away above battle averages. Americans are so wasteful of the most precious things we have —human life—that they suffer casualties from accidents during every year equal to such a heavy battle, writes Gerard in Philadelphia Ledger. One man in seven is killed or injured. I learn from an insurance company which has paid $10,500,000 in 22 years for 128,000 accidents where and how the accidental blow falls. The wagon hurts more persons than the automobile by 25 per cent. Noisy as It Is, the motorcycle Is fairly harmless, and the bicycle has almost 10 tUpes as mny victims to its credit City folk think of their elevators falling, but they rarely do It, whereas we never reckhb the horse among beasts of prey, and yet Mr. Equine kicks and biteS nine times as many persons as are injured in elevators. More men fall through trapdoors than are drowned, but it seems hard to believe It. Almost as many are hurt by falling from bed as get their fingers caught In electric fans. A gun is a deadly thing, and yet Its army of victims is only one-sixth as great as that of the innocent-look-ing stairway. The rolling stone gathers no moss, but it accumulates a fine assortment of accidents —six times as many as the snorting motorboat. Your true accident bobs up when least expected. I once saw Samuel B. Kirkpatrick, who is now a broker, but was formerly a newspaper man, return from a 5,000mile journey. He had plastered himself with accident insurance, but nothing had happened until he stepped upon a lead pencil In his own office after his return, and then he was in drydock for a fortnight.