The Law of the Land. an accident. That it was without human agency, though brought about by that which lived on human blood. It was the unusual and unexpected. The man never dreamt of meeting that mosquito in mortal combat. He had doubtless had many encounters with others of the same enemy whom he had van quished. He doubtless had known his enemy generally and specifically, from the common ordinary buzzer that abounds everywhere, to the great, aristocratic Jersey, but he evi dently had never been to Klondike or met a Bourbon. It seemed to the insurer that any mortal who was so thin-skinned, so del icate, so weak and infirm as to let such a thing as a mosquito do him up, died from causes that were not accidental. The court held that that bite, at the right time, in the right place and by the right mosquito, was an accident. Whenever you are waylaid and assassin ated for purpose of robbery, whether it is in Chicago or in the remains of the wild and woolly west, your death will be by accidental means. There will be surcease for the sor row of your beneficiary. If a mob hang you by the neck by reason of some mistaken identity, or out of some passing humor which did not deserve hang ing, your death will be through accidental means, though it has the appearance of a rope. If you try to eject some one from your castle or from the hotel you own, who was ordered to go and did not do so, and you are shot by the one being ejected, it is an accident. In fact, all wilful murders, pre meditated murders and manslaughters are accidents, unless your policy says something about intentionally inflicted injuries by third persons. If you are a somnambulist and crawl out of windows, walk on the edge of roofs, and do the many other difficult feats one can only do when asleep, such, for instance, as while traveling by railway you arise out of
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your berth, walk to the car platform and step off into space, .it is no self-inflicted injury, but an accident pure and simple. If you, in a state of mental aberration, kill yourself, you do not know what you are doing. You are not conscious that you are going to do an injury to yourself. You would never do it if you were in a condition to take a second thought. You are not accountable, and unless your policy provides for suicide while insane there is the highest authority that an insane suicide no more dies by his own hand than the suicide by mistake or accident, and that bodily infirmities and dis ease do not include insanity. If you should meet with an accident that was not sufficient to kill you, as a wound or blow on the head, but that leads up to an other, by which you tumble off of a bridge into water where you are drowned, your death is only doubly accidental. Or should you be subject to the infirmity of epileptic fits and hence are not able to choose the spots in which to have them, and you are seized while in the waters of a brook and drown, death is not due to the epileptic fits. It was the cause of your being in the water in a helpless condition; but the fact of being drowned while in such a condition is an in jury by accidental, external and visible means. Drowning is always death by accident unless self-inflicted, and the same is true where death occurs by taking poisons by mistake. Fright is an accident. It is the unusual, the unexpected. You may mean to frighten some one else but you never meant to let yourself be frightened. It is all right to jump at some one else but all wrong to be jumped at. It is thrilling to behold some one in clanger, but it is being thrilled to be in danger yourself. If your horse becomes frightened at an unsightly object and runs away, though you succeed in bringing him under control without being upset or coming in contact with anything, yet the excitement, or fright, or strain is such that you die an
