found I had spent a good
deal of money in the accident business, and had nothing to show for it.
My suspicions were aroused, and I began to hunt around for somebody that
had won in this lottery. I found plenty of people who had invested,
but not an individual that had ever had an accident or made a cent. I
stopped buying accident tickets and went to ciphering. The result was
astounding. THE PERIL LAY NOT IN TRAVELING, BUT IN STAYING AT HOME.

I hunted up statistics, and was amazed to find that after all the
glaring newspaper headlines concerning railroad disasters, less than
THREE HUNDRED people had really lost their lives by those disasters
in the preceding twelve months. The Erie road was set down as the most
murderous in the list. It had killed forty-six--or twenty-six, I do not
exactly remember which, but I know the number was double that of any
other road. But the fact straightway suggested itself that the Erie was
an immensely long road, and did more business than any other line in
the country; so the double number of killed ceased to be matter for
surprise.

By further figuring, it appeared that between New York and Rochester the
Erie ran eight passenger-trains each way every day--16 altogether; and
carried a daily average of 6,000 persons. That is about a million in six
months--the population of New York City. Well, the Erie kills from 13 to
23 persons of ITS million in six months; and in the same time 13,000 of
New York's million die in their beds! My flesh crept, my hair stood
on end. "This is appalling!" I said. "The danger isn't in traveling by
rail, but in trusting to those deadly beds. I will never sleep in a bed
again."

I had figured on considerably less than one-half the length of the Erie
road. It was plain that the entire road must transport at least eleven
or twelve thousand people every day. There are many short roads running
out of Boston that do fully half as much; a great many such roads. There
are many roads scattered about the Union that do a prodigious passenger
business. Therefore it was fair to presume that an average of 2,500
passengers a day for each road in the country would be almost correct.
There are 846 railway lines in our country, and 846 times 2,500 are
2,115,000. So the railways of America move more than two millions of
people every day; six hundred and fifty millions of people a year,
without counting the Sundays. They do that, too--there is no question
about it; though where