care
for politics--even agriculture does not excite me. But to me now there
is a charm about a railway collision that is unspeakable.

There is nothing more beneficent than accident insurance. I have seen an
entire family lifted out of poverty and into affluence by the simple boon
of a broken leg. I have had people come to me on crutches, with tears in
their eyes, to bless this beneficent institution. In all my experience
of life, I have seen nothing so seraphic as the look that comes into a
freshly mutilated man's face when he feels in his vest pocket with his
remaining hand and finds his accident ticket all right. And I have seen
nothing so sad as the look that came into another splintered customer's
face when he found he couldn't collect on a wooden leg.

I will remark here, by way of advertisement, that that noble charity
which we have named the HARTFORD ACCIDENT INSURANCE COMPANY--[The
speaker is a director of the company named.]--is an institution which is
peculiarly to be depended upon. A man is bound to prosper who gives it
his custom.

No man can take out a policy in it and not get crippled before the year
is out. Now there was one indigent man who had been disappointed so
often with other companies that he had grown disheartened, his appetite
left him, he ceased to smile--life was but a weariness. Three weeks ago
I got him to insure with us, and now he is the brightest, happiest spirit
in this land has a good steady income and a stylish suit of new bandages
every day, and travels around on a shutter.

I will say, in conclusion, that my share of the welcome to our guest is
none the less hearty because I talk so much nonsense, and I know that I
can say the same for the rest of the speakers.

JOHN CHINAMAN IN NEW YORK

As I passed along by one of those monster American tea stores in New
York, I found a Chinaman sitting before it acting in the capacity of a
sign. Everybody that passed by gave him a steady stare as long as their
heads would twist over their shoulders without dislocating their necks,
and a group had stopped to stare deliberately.

Is it not a shame that we, who prate so much about civilization and
humanity, are content to degrade a fellow-being to such an office as
this? Is it not time for reflection when we find ourselves willing to
see in such a being matter for frivolous curiosity instead of regret and
grave reflection? Here was a poor creature whom hard fortune had e