|A COLORADO book agent writes us about as follows:
"For some time past it has been my desire to insure my life for the
benefit of my family, but I knew the public sentiment so well that I
feared it could not be done. I knew that there was a deep and bitter
enmity against book agents, which I found had pervaded the insurance
world to such an extent that I would be unable to obtain insurance at a
reasonable premium.
"The popular belief is that book agents are shot on sight and their
mangled bodies thrown into the tall grass or fed to the coyotes.
"I found, however, that I could get my life insured for two thousand
dollars by paying a premium of twelve dollars per year, as a book agent.
This was far better than anything I had ever looked for. The question
arose as to whether I worked in my garden or not, and I was forced to
admit that I did. It ought to reduce the premium if a man works in his
garden, and thus, by short periods of vigorous exercise, prolongs his
life, but it don't seem to be that way. They charged me an additional
three dollars on the premium, because I toiled a little among my pet
rutabagas.
"I don't know what the theory is about this matter. Perhaps the company
labors under the impression that a thousand-legged worm might crawl into
my ear and kill me, or a purple-top turnip might explode and knock my
brains out.
"Of course, in the midst of life we are in death, but I always used to
think I was safer mashing my squash-bugs and hoeing my blue-eyed beans
than when I was on the road, dodging bulldogs and selling books.
"Perhaps some amateur gardener, in a careless moment, at some time or
other, has been stabbed in the diaphragm by a murderous radish, or a
watermelon may have stolen up to some man, in years gone by, and brained
him with part of a picket fence. There must be statistics somewhere
by which the insurance companies have arrived at this high rate on
gardeners. If you know anything of this matter, I wish you would write
me, for if hoeing sweet corn and cultivating string beans is going to
sock me into an early grave I want to know it."