Mark Twain's Speeches eBook

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 is an institution, which is peculiarly to be depended upon.  A man is bound to prosper who gives it his custom.  No man pan 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—­said 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 curl say the same far the rest of the speakers.

OSTEOPATHY

          On February 27, 1901, Mr. Clemens appeared before the Assembly
          Committee in Albany, New York, in favor of the Seymour bill
          legalizing the practice of osteopathy.

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen,—­Dr. Van Fleet is the gentleman who gave me the character.  I have heard my character discussed a thousand times before you were born, sir, and shown the iniquities in it, and you did not get more than half of them.

I was touched and distressed when they brought that part of a child in here, and proved that you cannot take a child to pieces in that way.  What remarkable names those diseases have!  It makes me envious of the man that has them all.  I have had many diseases, and am thankful for all I have had.

One of the gentlemen spoke of the knowledge of something else found in Sweden, a treatment which I took.  It is, I suppose, a kindred thing.  There is apparently no great difference between them.  I was a year and a half in London and Sweden, in the hands of that grand old man, Mr. Kildren.

I cannot call him a doctor, for he has not the authority to give a certificate if a patient should die, but fortunately they don’t.

The State stands as a mighty Gibraltar clothed with power.  It stands between me and my body, and tells me what kind of a doctor I must employ.  When my soul is sick unlimited spiritual liberty is given me by the State.  Now then, it doesn’t seem logical that the State shall depart from this great policy, the health of the soul, and change about and take the other position in the matter of smaller consequence—­the health of the body.