Anyone who bets that in India, in any three consecutive years the snakes
will kill 49,500 persons, will win his bet; and anyone who bets that in
India in any three consecutive years, the snakes will kill 53,500
persons, will lose his bet. In India the snakes kill 17,000 people a
year; they hardly ever fall short of it; they as seldom exceed it. An
insurance actuary could take the Indian census tables and the
government's snake tables and tell you within sixpence how much it would
be worth to insure a man against death by snake-bite there. If I had a
dollar for every person killed per year in India, I would rather have it
than any other property, as it is the only property in the world not
subject to shrinkage.
I should like to have a royalty on the government-end of the snake
business, too, and am in London now trying to get it; but when I get it
it is not going to be as regular an income as the other will be if I get
that; I have applied for it. The snakes transact their end of the
business in a more orderly and systematic way than the government
transacts its end of it, because the snakes have had a long experience
and know all about the traffic.
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