The Life of a Tire.
An automobile tire is "calculated" to run 3,500 miles before it is useless, and the manufacturer will guarantee it for that run. As a matter of fact, very few drivers get 3,500 miles out of a tire. Some will get 4,000 miles; most, hardly 2,000.
The tire is injured by light, heat, and oil. Of course, a piece of broken glass is its deadly foe. But of all its enemies the worst is a careless driver.
If the driver takes curves at the top speed, and makes sudden twists in his course, and applies the brakes peremptorily without slackening motion, thus making the tires grind and slide along instead of rolling as they should, he will not get half so long service from those expensive tubes as a more considerate driver. As an illustration of this the case is given of a race in which two drivers took machines of the same type at the same speed over the same course, and while one wore out thirteen castings in the operation, the more careful man wore out only two.
Now it is just the same with our human machines.
Why is it that one man is strong and chipper at seventy while another is a groaning old man at fifty? Inherited maladies account for part of the difference, of course, but most of it is due to the men themselves.
One of them knew how to drive his life-machine, and the other did not; or, if he did, he disregarded his knowledge. One went prudently through life, kept up a steady gait, allowed himself no excesses, took no sudden starts, no abrupt turns, and never had occasion to put the brakes down hard. The other had gone slamming through life, scorching as he pleased, throwing his machine recklessly from side to side, and alternating insane spurts of speed with expensive though sadly necessary appliance of the brakes.
"Threescore years and ten"—for that long, at least, these life-machines of ours should run, smoothly, vigorously, enjoyably. In most cases, if they must go to the repair shot) or the junk shop much before that, it is because someone has sinned.
Allow for Buzzards.
Once a strange accident was reported from Los Angeles. Two trolley cars were approaching a switch. One, in advance, made the switch, and the other followed rapidly close behind it.
It was night, and the brilliant headlight of each car was lighted. The light on the last car attracted the attention of a huge turkey buzzard, who charged it. He missed his aim, plunged through the glass door, and knocked the motorman back into the aisle of the car just as he was applying the air brakes to bring the car to a stop.
Of course, it crashed into the car ahead of it, and there was a tremendous jolt that threw both cars from the rails. There were a score of passengers, but fortunately none of them were injured, unless being thoroughly frightened is counted an injury. But the accident might easily have resulted in death.
Now I say that those two motormen ought to have been on the lookout for that buzzard.
"How absurd!" you cry. "When before, in all the world's history, has a turkey buzzard dashed against the motorman of an electric car?"
True; but if the buzzard had not made the trouble, it might have been a hazardous small boy, or a nervous old woman, or a green hand at the lever, or a dozen other circumstances might have caused a deplorable accident. In anticipation of such a possibility that following car should have been moving far more slowly and cautiously.
Lives are too valuable, untimely death causes too much misery and loss, to permit such close reckoning. You save a tenth of a minute, and you destroy, ten lives!—lives that might have lived in the aggregate many millions of minutes.
And why not, in all callings and tasks, allow for the buzzards?
Here is a professional man, who crowds the day with a schedule in which one task follows another immediately, no room between for a breath of leisure. In comes an inconsequential caller—a regular buzzard, the professional man thinks—and the day is thrust all awry.
Here is a teacher whose program for the term's work expects his pupils to be well all the time, and makes no allowance for stormy days when few can come to school.
Here is a business man, whose borrowings, stock estimate, orders and entire financial campaign are based upon the anticipation of a steady run of customers, no depression in general business, no bad weather, no epidemic, no change in fashions.
Here are two friends, who expect their friendship always to be on the highest plane of ecstatic enjoyment, with no headaches no peevishness, no misunderstandings.
All of these are doomed to disappointment because they do not count on the buzzard; they leave no room for the unexpected. The life-cars follow one another too closely; the life-schedules are too crowded. Those schedules should be lightened by many blank spaces, which give a sense of leisure in the midst of the most strenuous work, and preserve in safety and comfort the health and fortunes that might otherwise go to smash.
It is well to be an optimist, always seeking the best and hoping for it; it is never well to imagine the skies full of turkey buzzards. But if it is well to be an optimist, it is also well to have eyes and to use them, to have brains and to think with them. For there certainly are turkey buzzards, and now and then, though only once in a century, a buzzard will crash into a car.
A Costly Snapshot.
Three young men in a boat. One of them falls into the water. Another leaps after him, swims a few strokes, and then disappears.
He does not rise again, though the young man who fell in is seen swimming off unhurt. The alarm is given, and a sailor dives after the would-be rescuer, but fails to find him. Not for half an hour is the body recovered.
Hero? Wait!
While the unfortunate young man was jumping after his friend, the third occupant of the boat was taking a snapshot of the act. It was all done for the sake of that snapshot.
The passion for the sensational leads to innumerable tragedies. Lives by the thousand are ruined every year through an insane desire to be different from others and act differently from others.
Here is a boy who wants to seem to be a man. He therefore assumes what he judges to be a man's accouterments: a cigarette, a glass of beer, a pack of cards, a swagger and an oath. He struts before the camera of his admiring boy friends in this novel guise; but, presto! before he realizes it the trick has become awful reality, and the roué of boyish braggadocio has become the gambler, the drunkard and the jail-bird.
A young man told me not long ago his experience in smoking his first cigar and drinking his first glass of intoxicants. "Just once," he said, "I wanted to have the experience. I wanted to see how it felt. I saw, and I am satisfied. The cigar did not make me sick or the liquor make me drunk. I found that I could smoke and drink if I wanted to. I don't want to, and I am done."
He has jumped in, the snapshot has been taken, and he has scrambled back into the boat safely. But what if he had not been so fortunate? Did he deserve to be so fortunate? Did he deserve any happier experience than the millions of other foolhardy experimenters who also wanted to see how it felt to smoke and drink, and who were sucked down into the black hole of intemperance?
Heroism is never concerned with needless risks, never seeks its perils.
It is a wise old anecdote, that of the British squire who was engaging a coachman. A precipice was nearby, surmounted by a road. "How near would you drive to the precipice?" was the squire's question of the candidates. One proudly asserted that he could drive within a foot of it. Another declared that he could drive within three inches of it. The third said that he would drive as far away from it as he could.
And the last coachman got the job.