346 Our Farming. 



season as the result of an accident the time spoken of above 

 when he came so near dying but he hired an extra man, and 

 used his head to direct and figure, and came through all right. 

 In fact, he learned more fully than he knew before the importance 

 of plenty of headwork. It was a hard way to learn a lesson, but 

 it was a valuable one that I had forced onto me that summer. All 

 accidents will not turn out as happily; but, I believe, as a rule, 

 we farmers need not insure against them. If I were a brakeman 

 on a freight train with a young wife and children, particularly 

 I would take out a large accident policy. It is wonderful how 

 far this matter of insurance is being carried now. Why, it looks 

 as though we might soon be able to insure ourselves against hav- 

 ing our wives run off with a handsomer man. Marine insurance 

 is more than three centuries old, and life insurance has been 

 known for nearly two hundred years, and fire insurance is still 

 older, but the great advance in insurance of all kinds has taken 

 place within the memory of middle-aged people. Look at the slot 

 machine, now, where you drop a dime, and receive your policy. 

 And some daily papers pay a stated sum to the heirs of any one 

 who is killed with a copy of their paper of the same date in their 

 pocket, or to him if he is injured. Even boilers and plate-glass 

 windows are insured against accident. An employer may insure 

 himself against his clerks running away with funds. A merchant 

 can get a policy covering loss from bad debts. You can insure 

 yourself against burglary, and I do not know what not. But let 

 us exercise our judgment, and make use of what is really val- 

 uable and wise and prudent for us, and say to the rest, Go 

 thy way. 



There is one line of insurance I hope to see extended that 

 is insurance to take the place of indorsing, or of going on one's 

 bond. There is no justice or right or sense in asking a man to 

 sign your bond or indorse your note. You take all the risk, when 

 you do this, and have nothing to gain, and nothing to say about 

 his management of business. It is easy to put your name down, 

 and hard to say No to a friend ; but how many men have been 

 ruined by just such work ! The writer was under a cloud for 

 years from just such a transaction. But for many years, now, I 

 have quit it, and quit forever. I will lend a friend money, if I 

 can spare it, to help him, if my wife and I think best; but never 

 my name, which may call for what I have not got. No, I would 

 not go on your bond for Treasurer of the County, so don't ask 

 me. The practice is all wrong. But how are men to get positions 

 without their friends back them ? Let them pay for the backing 

 what a safe company can afford to take the risk for. Far better 

 for the County or State to take the risk on its officers who handle 

 funds than for half a dozen individuals who have no interest in 

 the matter to do it. The loss, then, if any, would be shared by 

 all the taxpayers, who are the ones to take the risk, as they are all 



