One of the most outstanding features of modern industry is the constant risk to which laborers are exposed. Equally important is the inability of the laborer either to avoid the risk or to bear the financial burden which it may incur. We usually associate risks of industry with accidents such as cuts, burns, bruises, or even death. But risk, every laborer knows, has a wider application. Sickness from natural causes, overwork, or exposure, stares him constantly in the face. His "job" is insecure at the best, while old age can be forestalled only by premature death itself. Any one of these calamities, if long continued, endangers the worker's independence and tends to demoralize him. What to the well-to-do and the rich may appear as trifles, loom large in the experiences of the mass of labor. An accident, a few weeks' illness, or a month's idleness means self-denial on the part of every member of the family. Many an industrious worker has struggled for years only to find from time to time his scant savings swept away in doctor bills. Even though he be fortunate in these respects there still remains old age with its lower earning power, its dependence, its aches and pains. Few laborers above the age of sixty-five are independent, the great majority of them depending more or less on relatives, friends, or public charity.