By the law of average, insurance companies can tell just how many of the people they insure will die each year. When you make an application for life insurance the first question they will ask is your age, and by referring to their tables they can tell you the month and day when you will die. Now, you may not actually die upon that day, but you do theoretically, and the point is that they have so many risks that the law of average, always prevailing, in the end brings everything out just as figured. The fact that one person lives longer than the date when his life should end is offset by the fact that another person dies sooner than expected, and thus the law of average is absolutely maintained. The postal authorities could not come anywhere near telling how many letters would be mailed in the City of New York on a certain day, but they can come with remarkable closeness to the average for a year in advance, and predict with certainty how many people will write letters and forget to address them during that time. _It is by the working out by the law of average as best exemplified by the insurance business that it is possible to work out a plan by which Wall Street stocks can be dealt in with absolute safety and certain profit._ Of course, no man or company could purchase one hundred shares of stock without the risk of a loss. That is to say, no man should make a purchase of this kind unless he is in a position to buy again and again many times over and still hold all that he has previously purchased. Buying a certain quantity of stock in one corporation is very much like an insurance company insuring the life of one man. But when you buy thousands of shares of stock in various corporations, some stocks going up and some going down, the law of average is an absolute protection and the statistics of stock fluctuations for the past twenty-five years show beyond the possibility of doubt that this is true. The fluctuations in the prices of good, dividend paying stocks are something remarkable. _Some active stocks show a fluctuation of five thousand times their value in a year, thus offering a continual opportunity for money making._ These are the stocks which are constantly speculated upon, the stocks on which so much money is lost and upon which the cool headed and careful operators make so much. The Western Union Telegraph Company's shares have always paid 5% dividend, and the average market price has been about 90, making the income about 5-1/2. Now, suppose it is purchased in ten-share blocks on every one per cent. decline and none sold above the average price, it will show an income of more than 43% per annum, besides some dividends. _Suppose the very worst were to happen and there was a 20 point decline in Western Union, then we would have_