We furthermore have great losses of life among men by accidents. In Prussia during the period from 1883 to 1905 no less than 297,983 persons were killed by accidents; of these there were, during the one year 1905, 11,792 men and 2,922 women. From 1886 to 1907, 150,719 persons were killed by accidents in industry, agriculture and state or municipal employment; only a small fraction of these were women. Another considerable portion of persons employed in these occupations become maimed or crippled for life and therefore unable to maintain a family. (There were 40,744 of these from 1886 to 1907.) Others die young leaving their families in the neediest circumstances. Much loss of life among men is also connected with navigation. From 1882 to 1907, 2,848 sea-going vessels were sunk, entailing a loss of life of 4,913 members of the crew,—almost all men,—and 1,275 passengers.
Only when the highest valuation of human life has been established,—which will be the case in a Socialistic community,—will society be enabled to prevent a great majority of accidents on land and sea. At present many persons are killed or maimed as a result of illapplied economy of employers. In many other cases accidents are due to excessive speed or over-fatigue of workers. Human life is cheap. When one workingman has been killed there are many others to take his place.
Especially in navigation many preventable accidents occur. By the revelations of Plimsoll in the English parliament during the seventies, the fact became generally known that many owners of unseaworthy vessels, impelled by criminal greed, insured these vessels at a high rate and then sent them with their crew to almost certain destruction, in order to obtain the amount of insurance. These are the so-called death-ships that are not unknown in Germany either. Every year the marine bureaus are called upon to pronounce their verdicts in connection with a number of marine accidents, and those verdicts usually show the accidents to be due to advanced age or overloading or improper condition of the vessel or insufficient equipment, or a number of these causes combined. In the cases of many sunken ships the causes of their sinking can never be determined, because the disasters occur in mid-ocean and no one survives to tell the tale. Many crimes are committed in this way. The stations for saving ship-wrecked persons established at the coasts, are also very insufficient because they are chiefly maintained by private charity. An organized society that will regard it as its highest duty to provide equally for all its members, will succeed in making all these accidents of extremely rare occurrence. But under the present predatory system, where human lives are regarded as mere ciphers and the sole aim is to attain the highest possible profit, a human life is sometimes sacrificed in order that a dollar may be gained.
[74] Throughout India polygamy exists in only a moderate form. According to the census of 1901 which includes all religions, there were for every 1000 married men, 1,011 married women. According to this the monogamic equilibrium is not seriously interfered with.—D. v. Mayer.
[75] Karl Buecher, on the distribution of both sexes upon the earth; lecture delivered on Jan. 6, 1892, before the Geographical and Statistical Society of Frankfort on the Main. General Statistic Records published by Dr. George v. Mayer. Vol. II. Tubingen, 1892.
[76] G. v. Mayer—Dr. G. Schnapper Arndt in his book of Social Statistics arrives at the same conclusion. “Taken all in all the proportion of both sexes is approximately equal.”
[77] According to G. Schnapper Arndt; founded on recent census figures, around the close of the century.
[78] According to the census of 1890, there was an excess of boys only up to the tenth year of age, and according to the census of 1895, up to the sixteenth year.
[80] Statistics of the German Empire. Census of Dec. 1, 1900.