with no avenue of escape in case of accident.  These are the people who suffer in cases of snagging and collision, &c.  These hardy sons of toil, migrating with their families, are all but penniless, and therefore, despite all vaunt of equality, they are friendless.  Had every deck-passenger that has perished in the agony of a crushing and drowning death been a Member of Senate or Congress, the Government would have interfered long ere this; but these miserable wretches perish in their agony, and there is no one to re-echo that cry in the halls of Congress.  They are chiefly poor emigrants, and plenty more will come to fill their places.

If the Government took any such steps as those above recommended, the fear of losing insurance by neglecting them would tend greatly to make them respected.  Companies would insure at a lower rate, and all parties would be gainers in the long run; for, if the Government obtained no pecuniary profit, it would gain in national character by the removal of a reproach such as no other commercial country at the present day labours under.

There is, moreover, a moral point of view to be taken of this question—­viz., “the recklessness of human life engendered by things as they are.”

The anecdotes which one hears are of themselves sufficient to leave little doubt on this point.  Take, for instance, the following:—­A vessel having been blown up during the high pressure of a race, among the witnesses called was one who thus replied to the questions put to him:—­

EXAMINER.—­“Were you on board when the accident took place?”

WITNESS.—­“I guess I was, and nurthing else.”

EXAMINER.—­“Was the captain sober?”

WITNESS.—­“Can’t tell that, nohow.”

EXAMINER.—­“Did you not see the captain during the day?”

WITNESS.—­“I guess I did.”

EXAMINER.—­“Then can, you not state your opinion whether he was drunk or not?”

WITNESS.—­“I guess I had not much time for observation; he was not on board when I saw him.”

EXAMINER.—­“When did you see him, then?”

WITNESS.—­“As I was coming down, I passed the gentleman going up.”

The court, of course, was highly amused at his coolness, and called another witness.—­But let us turn from this fictitious anecdote to fact.

It was only the other day that I read in a Louisville paper of a gentleman going into the Gait-house Hotel, and deliberately shooting at another in the dining-saloon when full of people, missing his aim, and the hall lodging in the back of a stranger’s chair who was quietly sitting at his dinner.  Again, I read of an occurrence—­at Memphis, I think—­equally outrageous.  A man hard pressed by creditors, who had assembled at his house and were urgent in their demands, called to them to keep back, and upon their still pressing on, he seized a bowie-knife in each hand, and rushed among them, stabbing and ripping right and left, till checked in his mad career of assassination by a creditor, in self-defence, burying a cleaver in his skull.