THE CHANCES OF PERSONAL INJURY.

IN a very pleasant little book just published, a biography of the marine painter, J. C. Schetky, an artist of whom we are ashamed never to have heard before, the author has inserted a very quaint and suggestive page. It is a list, drawn up by the painter himself while on a visit at Wimpole, Lord Hardwicke's seat in Cambridgeshire, of all the bodily accidents which had ever occurred to him, and which were serious enough to be remem- bered :—

" MY BODILY ACCIDENTS FROM MY 'FOOTE.

1. Once all but drowned in a muddy pool—swallowed lots of tad- poles.

2. More nearly drowned in a deep river ; but went to bathe the same afternoon in the sea, but soon ran out again, the cold salt-water not at all agreeing with the fresh.

3. Fell up against a fish-woman in the slippery street and sprained my ankle ; both down, she scolding, I roaring with pain. Nine weeks in bed thereby.

4. Fell over the head of my horse (both of us down), on my way from Inverness to Perth.

5. Fractured my knee-pan by hitting it with my bat instead of the ball.

6. Run over by a carriage-brake; the wheel across my legs, my hat among the horses' legs, therefore no protection from it.

7. Upset in a boat at Oxford during a gale.

8. Tumbled over a slack-rope in the dusk, and dislocated my collar- bone.

9. Broke the same collar-bone on board the Victory.' Two months in bed for that.

10. Fell over another rope in the dark on board of the Resolution' yacht, and hurt my knee-pan—the consequence, a kick in my gallop' for life.

11. Upset in an open carriage, myself under it, and the horse kicking all the time.

12. Run away with in a carriage going to Melton, by which I injured a joint of my fore-finger on the left hand, which obstructs my playing on the violoncello.

13. Fractured the small bone of the unfortunate right leg in getting on board the 'Resolution.'

14. Jumped through a window (unadvisedly) at Syston, and suffered much from loss of blood and two deep cuts on my head and face."

That is, we fancy, an unusually long list, and sets one thinking whether there can be any reasons which would explain the apparent liability of some men to frequent or annoying personal accidents, and even to grave physical injuries, which other men seem always to escape. Why is one small boy never safe except when closely watched, while another who goes through the same life may be trusted never to get hurt? Why did Mr. Schetky suffer so much, while another man, for whose truthfulness and memory we can vouch, went through an equally numerous and serious list of accidents without so much as a scratch ; while a third was nearly drowned, attacked by an assassin, and seated in a carriage which was dashed to pieces, yet remained also without a wound.

1. Was in one of the first trains that ran between Paisley and Glasgow on Sundays, when the engine left the metals, and several carriages were partially upset.

2. When eight years of age, fell off the railway viaduct that runs alongside James Street, Paisley. Attended school the next day.

3. When nine years of age (school being dismissed on account of non- arrival of examiners), nearly drowned with two others while at play, in consequence of a subsidence of earth letting us into an old cesspool. Can't say what I swallowed on the occasion, but attended examination next day.

4. Fell head-first into the quay at Rothesay, Isle of Bate, at low- water, and was taken out of the mud insensible. An emetic put me all right. 5. Was knocked down by a bullock while crossing a street in Paisley during the fair, and run over by a gig containing two persons. 6. Had the heel-part of a bauchle ' cat off by a falling slate while crossing the yard. 7. Fall down (in the dark) a well that had been opened for repairs, at Newton-le-Willows. More frightened than hurt.

8. After reaching manhood, fell headlong from a first-floor window 13 feet from the ground, my shoulders smashing through two bars of wooden framework standing underneath, and so letting my head just touch the pavement. Unhurt. 9. While standing on the woodwork of a cane-bottomed chair to reach a shelf, slipped and fell with my cheat across the sharp part of the back, smashing the chair completely. Could not speak for a few minutes, but otherwise uninjured. 10. Head out open through the falling of a skylight, and had to lie down for an hour or two. Four years afterwards took a piece of glass about the size and thickness of a lady's little finger-nail from under the skin.

11. Fell into the Thames at Waterloo pier, and was taken out of the water quite exhausted, between the police boat and Temple stairs. 12. The only "injuries " I have received are a scar on the left cheek (1 inch long), received while climbing over a split stamp fence, out of the way of a bullock ; and a deep scar on the middle finger of the left hand, caused by being struck by a piece of slate while smoking in the garden.

Of course the main reason lies upon the surface. People en- gaged in dangerous occupations, or occupations which may be dangerous, meet with more accidents than people whose business or inclination leads them to pass most of their time at home. A hunting-man will break his collar-bone oftener than a man afraid of a horse, and a fisherman will be half-drowned more frequently than a tailor. Mr. Schetky, in pursuit of his pro- fession, was always getting into positions on shipboard, or on ladders, or in boats, in which the habit of a sailor would have been beneficial, which habit, nevertheless, his profession did not require him to possess. He was, therefore, necessarily more liable to fractures and duckings than an artist whose business is to paint faces, or trees, or little children in fancy dresses. Still Mr. Schetky did not fracture his knee-pan—a terribly painful and very dangerous accident—because he was a marine painter, and everybody knows that equal liabilities to accident do not prodnee equal/estate. It is a matter of everybody's experience that of 'two hunting-men of equal courage, skill, and persistence in the sport, one shall " always be breaking his collar-bone," while another never has an accident more serious than the breaking of a stirrup-leather or the loss of a new whip. Of two soldiers who -have gone in the same regiment through the same engagements with equal credit, standing under fire almost in the same places, one will come home covered with scars, and another without a -wound to prove that he was ever under a heavy fire. Of two men always driving about London, one will have his nerve shaken by every variety of cab or carriage accident, while another will say, quite truly, that as far as his personal ex- perience is concerned, driving about in crowded streets is a safer amusement than sitting one sofa. Nothing can convince most .men that anything can happen to a hansom, while nothing would persuade a friend of the writer's that a hansom is not the -most exceptionally dangerous of locomotive machines, he having " come to grief " in one of them some seven or eight times, three of the accidents, moreover, having been consecutive. The in- finite majority of Londoners think no more of one of the casual dangers of the streets, the falling of loose tiles, than they think of thunderbolts, yet we have not a doubt that among those who read these lines there will be one or two who have been not once, but repeatedly, in danger or pain from that odd cause. It is not merely that there is an average liability to accident in general, but that there would seem to be special liability to particular forms of accident. It is a fact, though it is also a puzzle, that there are men who, in this single respect, would appear to be pursued by a sort of fate, men to whom, as one of them explained it, " the miff-chance in the way of accident always falls ;" while there are .others who habitually walk unharmed when everybody else re- ceives some injury or discomfort. Indeed, we may go yet ..further with the full accord of at least a portion of our readers: AVe are half-inclined to believe, absurd as the belief may seem; and indeed, on any theory we can conceive, must be, that there -are men with an exceptional liability to a particular kind of acci-i dent,--soldiers who pass unwounded through sharp campaigne and are always liable to trouble in a boat, sailors who never break anything except in a carriage, hunting-men whose best cause for apprehension, judging from their experience, is the necessity for going up and down stairs on a London staircase. Of course, in a majority of cases such instances can be- explained by an inner fear of a particular situation, but that will not account for them all,—as, for instance, for the story the writer heard a lewd trustworthy person allege, that he had been exceptionally pursued at friends' houses by alarms of fire.

Some part of this exemption and liability may, and no doubt is, due to mental or physical causes in the unhappy or fortunate individual. Very quick eyes are a great protection against acci- dent, and so is the habit of attention to outward circumstancesi and a certain readiness to act quickly which belongs to some men -as their senses belong to them, and seems independent both of courage and brain-power. Street-boys, for example, escape under circumstances in which boys more carefully nurtured, and there- -fore less self-reliant and instinctively vigilant, would not have a Chance. Caution, too, must be a 'great preservative, as we see from the small number of accidents which happen in the streets either to the blind or-deaf, or to the -old ladies who habitually regard crossing-a thronged thoroughfare as some men regard a long ocean voyage. On the other hand, the habit of abstraction undoubtedly tends to produce accidents, perhaps more than any --other purely mental cause, the abstracted man incurring just as -much liability as the blind,-while he has not the caution which their infirmity almost invariably developes. The abstracted man is constantly hurt even in the country, and in London, where something threatens him every minute, it is almost a miracle that he ever comes back from a walk alive. Indeed, he would not, but that his fellow-men are more awake than he, and warn him of the dangers from drays, open cellars, and huge packages which he is too wrapt in thought to see. There are forms of awkward- ness, too, which involve a direct increase in the liability to accidental injury. The man who "cannot use his hands" --not from any weakness in them, but from awkwardness– is sure in passing through life to hurt himself with tools, or burdens, or knives' more frequently than the deft man ; and but that awkwardness becomes conscious, and develops, like all other dangers, a quasi-instinctive -cautiousness, he would be perpetually wounded. Rashness, hastiness, recklessness, great courage, unusual-timidity, all these involve a somewhat increased liability to injury, as does also, perhaps, more than anyof them, the form of slowness which is stigmatised as unreadiness, and which, though it seems to be essentially a mental rather than a physical quality, is often as incurable as the shape of the nose or the colour of the hair. An unready man is always. in troubleoled usually his trouble in the way of personal injury is a sericaurone, for it'is incurred in an effort at extrication made with violence just.when it is too late.

When every explanation has been offered, however, there-re- mains an element of pure "luck" or "chance" about the liabffity to personal injury, which is unexplained by any-of the causes-that we have suggested. The theory of- averages as usually applied; that is, the theory of average events;—gives us •but insufficient help. Grant that in a certain number of battles a certain number will always be killed, and killedeven in a certain way—for example, the proportion of bullet-wounds to wounds from shells, if both are used, seems to vary in accordance with a law—and stffilhe permanent escape of- one officer and the incessant recurrence-of wounds to another, equally brave, equally prominent, and occupied in exactly the same -way, remains to be accounted for. iris necessary to believe that there is not only an average of causes Of " accidental " injury, which most men am now prepared to adnfit, but an average of liability or exemption, that is, to use an incor- rect phrase, of luck or ill-luck in the persons whom those ails will threaten, and therefore, of course, to make up the average, a certain number who are never hit, and probably never would be hit in any number of campaigns that a human being could go through in a life-time, as well as a certain number who will never escape. In other words, under the theory of • averages, when applied both to causes and to sufferers, there must be a proportion of persons, who are, so • to speak, doomed to injuries, and a pro- portion who are destined always to escape, and this destiny some- times, in a long experience, reveals itself to the sufferer and those who observe him. The proposition is, in fact, that the old suptx- stition about lucky and unlucky people hada -basis of truth ; that if the law of averages applies to everything, to people as Wellies occurrences, there must really be lucky or unlucky persons, although, from the immense complexity of human affairs, the fact can rarely be ascertained with anything like the certaintyr with which we ascertain, for example, the methods of suicide orstulden death. The same rule 'would, of course, -apply to occurrences other than accidents, to success or failure in gambling, for instance —a point on which all gamblers are convinced—until we at last arrived at the conclusion that a certain number of "favourites and victims of Fortune " must and do exist, though they exist -under the operation of a law and not of mere "chance,"---a proposition which we commend as a disagreeable thought -to anybody-who, being always unlucky, is also a materialist or believer in immu- table law. If he is -right, and law is immutable, he will have a nice time of it.