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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 234, 3 October 1871, Page 4

Insurance Literature. — An interesting contribution to insurance literature has been made by " Mark Twain." He finds that the Erie railway only killed about twenty-three persons in six months, out of 1,000,000 passengers, whilst 13,000 died in their beds out of 1,000,000 inhabitants of New York in the same time. He thinks railway accidents insurance a mistake, and wants to get hisinsuaanceon going to bed instead. England and the Colonies.— ln a speech delivered by the distinguished novelist, Mr. Anthony Trollope, at a banquet giveo in his honor at Rockhampton (Queensland), he thus contrasts the condition of the people in the colonies and in England :— " Englishmen always speak of you with a degree of veneration and love, and our feelings are strangely wounded when on coming here we find one after another telling us that the colonies are going to the devil. I con assure you that we believe yoa are going straight to heaven. Although you all say that everything is going wrong, and although you are all complaining, yet I never see a man that does not eat three meals a day. It is not so at home. There you often find men that taste meat only three times a year. Here I see r.o one without clothes if not of the best kind, yet appropriate tp his position. There you often see a man clothed in tatterdemalion rags, who wears a coat cast off by some reduced gentleman, that belonged to some flunkey before him. and perhaps a nobleman before that. You never see that here. In England they are only considering how to educate the poor. Here the children of the poorest are educated. lam surprised to find that, even when the population is very limited, a free school is established, to which the children of the poor and rich flock together. When. I hear you grumble, I cannot understand the language you use. You are impatient, because you can't take wings as the eagle and fly right off to heaven. You are really in a very prosperous state. As a stranger, I have one piece of advice to give you — perhaps not to you but to your children — and that is, do not be so much iv a hurry. When you see what is your position, and also what is the position of labor — for, after all, that is the main thing — you have ho reason to complain. The aim of all political energy is- to raise the laborer, and the laborer here occupies a grand position." The New York Tribune has been making a calculation of the average .capital value , of immigrants, and has arrived at the following conclusions :-— " The sum of 800 dollars seems to, be the full average capital value o$ each immigrant. At this rate, those who landed upon our shores during they year just closed added upwards of 285,000,000 dollars to our national wealth. While, during the last half century the increment' from this source exceeds 6,243, '888,800 dollars, it is impossible to raakeari intelligent; estimate pf the value to the country of those foreign born citizens who brought .their educated minds, their cultivated tastes, their skill in the arts, and their inventiveJgenius.-'' • The New York Standard says : — " Good authority affirms that if the present fashion in ladies' high-heeled boots continues much longer, ' there will not be. a decent foot or an aesthetic leg in our female population.' 'iEstbetic legs are an extremely desirable- article.' The woman who "habitually and consciously cramps thesqle of her foot is guilty of maiming the » soul of her body. The chignon having had its day, an absurdity in sympathy with it attacks the heels. These fashionable iron shod champagne corks, rimmed with gold and silver, tbat do duty for heels and support the hind part of the foot; .are 'merely; meant ,'to' catch men's eyes, and throw custom into' the hands of the chiropodist's;' • If 1 New York were to be saved from a rain of fire on condition of there being' ten' fashionable women in it . with, beautiful, feet, we are afraid the I 'shower wotild oome.;yT,V-;.' .A; .A.Ax A. . : .. ."> C,■ *-.'.'. A. v ': >- ,