The Danger of Lying in Bed

by Mark Twain

The man in the ticket-office said:

“Have an accident insurance ticket, also?”

“No,” I said, after studying the matter over a little.

“No, I believe not; I am going to be travelling by rail all day to-day. However, to-morrow I don’t travel. Give me one for to-morrow.”

The man looked puzzled. He said:

“But it is for accident insurance, and if you are going to travel by rail—”

“If I am going to travel by rail I shan’t need it. Lying at home in bed is the thing I am afraid of.”

1)____Last year I travelled twenty thousand miles, almost entirely by rail; the year before, I travelled over twenty-five thousand miles, half by sea and half by rail; and the year before that I travelled in the neighborhood of ten thousand miles, exclusively by rail. I suppose if I put in all the little odd journeys here and there, I may say I have travelled sixty thousand miles during the three years I have mentioned. And never an accident.

For a good while I said to myself every morning:

“Now I have escaped thus far, and so the chances are just that much increased that I shall catch it this time. I will be shrewd, and buy an accident ticket.” And to a dead moral certainty I drew a blank, and went to bed that night without a joint started or a bone splintered. I got tired of that sort of daily bother, and fell to buying accident tickets that were good for a month. I said to myself, “A man can’t buy thirty blanks in one bundle.”

But I was mistaken. There was never a prize in the lot. I could read of railway accidents every day—the newspaper atmosphere was foggy with them; but somehow they never came my way. I found I had spent a good deal of money in the accident business, and had nothing to show for it. My suspicions were aroused, and I began to hunt around for somebody that had won in this lottery. I found plenty of people who had invested, but not an individual that had ever had an accident or made a cent. I stopped buying accident tickets and went to ciphering. 2)____ The Peril Lay not in Travelling, but in staying at home.

I hunted up statistics, and was amazed to find that after all the glaring newspaper headings concerning railroad disasters, less than three hundred people had really lost their lives by those disasters in the preceding twelve months. The Erie road was set down as the most murderous in the list. It had killed forty-six—or twenty-six, I do not exactly remember which, but I know the number was double that of any other road. But the fact straightway suggested itself that the Erie was an immensely long road, and did more business than any other in the country; so the double number of killed ceased to be matter for surprise.

By further figuring, it appeared that between New York and Rochester the Erie ran eight passenger trains each way every day—sixteen altogether; and carried a daily average of 6000 persons. That is about a million in six months—the population of New York City. Well, the Erie kills from thirteen to twenty- three persons out of its million in six months; and in the same time 13,000 of New York’s million die in their beds! 3)____“This is appalling!” I said. “The danger isn’t in travelling by rail, but in trusting to those deadly beds. I will never sleep in a bed again.”

I had figured on considerably less than one-half the length of the Erie road. It was plain that the entire road must transport at least eleven or twelve thousand people every day. There are many short roads running out of Boston that do fully half as much; a great many such roads. 4)____Therefore it was fair to presume that an average of 2500 passengers a day for each road in the country would be about correct. There are 846 railway lines in our country, and 846 times 2500 are 2,115,000. So the railways of America move more than two millions of people every day; six hundred and fifty millions of people a year, without counting the Sundays. They do that, too—there is no question about it; though where they get the raw material is clear beyond the jurisdiction of my arithmetic; for I have hunted the census through and through, and I find that there are not that many people in the United States, by a matter of six hundred and ten millions at the very least. They must use some of the same people over again, likely.

San Francisco is one-eighth as populous as New York; there are 60 deaths a week in the former and 500 a week in the latter—if they have luck. That is 3120 deaths a year in San Francisco, and eight times as many in New York—say about 25,000 or 26,000. The health of the two places is the same. So we will let it stand as a fair presumption that this will hold good all over the country, and that consequently 25,000 out of every million of people we have must die every year. That amounts to one-fortieth of our total population. 5)___Out of this million ten or twelve thousand are stabbed, shot, drowned, hanged, poisoned, or meet a similarly violent death in some other popular way, such as perishing by kerosene lamp and hoop-skirt conflagrations, getting buried in coal-mines, falling off house-tops, breaking through church or lecture-room floors, taking patent medicines, or committing suicide in other forms. The Erie railroad kills from 23 to 46; the other 845 railroads kill an average of one-third of a man each; and the rest of that million, amounting in the aggregate to the appalling figure of nine hundred and eighty-seven thousand six hundred and thirty-one corpses, die naturally in their beds!

You will excuse me from taking any more chances on those beds. 6)___And my advice to all people is, Don’t stay at home any more than you can help; but when you have got to stay at home a while, buy a package of those insurance tickets and sit up nights. You cannot be too cautious.

[One can see now why I answered that ticket-agent in the manner recorded at the top of this sketch.]

The moral of this composition is, that thoughtless people grumble more than is fair about railroad management in the United States. When we consider that every day and night of the year full fourteen thousand railway trains of various kinds, freighted with life and armed with death, go thundering over the land, the marvel is, not that they kill three hundred human beings in a twelvemonth, but that they do not kill three hundred times three hundred!

Exercises

1.

Fill in the blanks in the text with the missing sentences below. There is one extra sentence that you do not need:

A) My flesh crept, my hair stood on end.

B) One million of us, then, die annually.

C) There are many roads scattered about the Union that do a prodigious passenger business.

D) I had been looking into this matter.

E) A million vanishes but it is true about other countries as well.

F) The result was astounding.

G) The railroads are good enough for me.

2.

Find the following phrases in the text and translate them: to study smth. over, to fall to doing smth., to arouse suspicions, to hunt around for smth/smb, to set down as…, to presume, to be beyond smth., in the aggregate, to excuse smb. from doing smth., to sit up nights.

3.

Fill in the blanks with the words from Ex. 2

1) His frightened look________________. I was certain that he was hiding something from me.

2) Jack couldn’t believe it. The fact ________________ his imagination

3) The Internet played a bad trick on Martin. He would ________________ and feel terrible at work during the day.

4) It is not a brand new case, I see it. Nevertheless, let’s _________________ again.

5) Helen got crazy about bags. She ____________ buying a new one every day.

6) Do not _____________ anything unless you have studied the matter enough.

7) Please _______________ giving more examples of such deeds. I am tired already.

8) _____________ the brothers received a good deal of money from all the part-time jobs they had during that time.

9) Today traveling by plane _____________ a roulette with many chances to die, whereas in reality this way of traveling is much safer than traveling by car.

10) Jack knew that he was innocent and, in order to prove that, he started to ____________________somebody who could have seen him in the cinema that night.

4.

Make up a story with the active vocabulary.

5.

Fill in the blanks in the text with one suitable word.

Flying with children, especially babies and infants, can be quite a challenge. 1___ a parent, you want to keep them comfortable and safe, as 2____ as entertained and excited about the adventure you’re about to go on. Planning ahead will get you prepared and ensure that the trip is stress free.

When booking your plane reservation, try to get a late flight with as 3____stops as possible. With a nighttime flight, the kids will fall asleep soon after 4___ plane departs. Also, the fewer number of stops, the fewer number of times you have to disturb them. When it comes to choosing a seat, request those toward the middle or front 5 ___ the plane. The rear tends to be hot 6___ have poor air circulation.

A few weeks before you leave for your trip, talk to your child's pediatrician to find 7___ the name of a local doctor near your vacation destination. Unfortunately, children are more prone to sickness in new environments, making it highly probable that you will have to visit a doctor 8___ your trip.

Pack all that you can when traveling with an infant since it can be hard to find essential items 9___ as a diaper or a pacifier in the airport. It's a good idea to use a backpack 10___ of a diaper bag so you will have two free arms. Fill the backpack with a couple of bottles, plenty of diapers, wet wipes, a foldable plastic changing mat, rash cream, baby soap, and extra clothes.

Buy a seat for your child, regardless of his or her 11___. Infants should travel in an airplane-approved car seat. Without a car seat, take-off, landing, and unexpected turbulence could injure or even kill a very young child.

Don't expect your children to sleep on the flight. Pack plenty of entertainment to keep 12___ occupied. Bring rattles and stuffed animals for your baby or infant. Pack crayons, activity books, stickers, and games for your young children.

6.

Prepare a retelling of the text.

7.

Watch the video about trains in Great Britain and answer the questions below.

1) What are the routes of the trains?

2) How fast can they go?

3) How many passengers can they take?

4) What is the length of the train and its maximum speed?

(Simon Greenall, Sue Kay. Reward. – М: ЦЕНТРКОМ – 2003, 124 с.)

Get ready to speak about the dangers of traveling.

1. What means of transport do you find the safest? Why?

2. According to statistics more people die in car accidents than in plane crashes. Why are so many people terrified by flying?

3. What is your advice for those who are afraid of traveling by plane, train, boat or bus?

9.

1. Is it comfortable to travel with children in your country?

2. What should the age of a child be to go on a journey with him or her?

3. Some people say that going on a trip with a little child is similar to doing extreme sports. Do you agree?

10.

Act out the following situations:

1. Imagine that you are in the situation when one of the passengers is in panic. Try to calm him/her down.

2. Describe the best/the worst rest with a child.

Appendix.

Recommended audio and video materials:

1) Capel, A. Sharp W. Objective First Certificate. – Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Unit 3, Ex. 5, p. 20.

2) Capel, A. Sharp W. Objective First Certificate. – Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Unit 7, Ex. 3, p. 48.

3) Vaughan Jones , Sue Kay Inside Out Video Intermediate. ­– Oxford: MACMILLAN, Unit 11 Journey.

Interlinks:

Arakin Textbook № 3, Unit 1 “Man and the Movies”