Crashing Through the Snow: The Grim Sarcasm Behind ‘Jingle Bells’
Thanks to technological progress, cars are much safer than one-horse open sleighs.
Chelsea Follett —
Summary: The popular Christmas song “Jingle Bells” is often seen as a joyous celebration of the holiday season. However, the song’s lyrics actually tell a darker story reflecting the dangers of horse-drawn transportation. This article explores the grim history behind the cheerful tune and how technological progress has made transportation safer.
It’s the holiday season, and Christmas carols are everywhere, including the ubiquitous “Jingle Bells,” first published in 1857. Many take the refrain, “Oh what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh!” at face value. But an underappreciated aspect of the lyrics is that they are actually rather cynical about sleigh rides. Part of the song goes:
The horse was lean and lank Misfortune seemed his lot He got into a drifted bank And then we got upsot.
In the next verse, which is often skipped, the narrator relates being thrown out of the sleigh onto his back and getting laughed at by a romantic rival. His misfortune was relatively minor, but being thrown from a sleigh or carriage was not always a laughing matter.
During the time of horse-drawn vehicles, accidents frequently caused not only delays and inconveniences but also injuries and deaths. The British historian Paul Hair called the horse “one of man’s most dangerous tools,” arguing that “it is likely that per unit of travel the horse was more dangerous than the motor vehicle.”
He quotes Britain’s registrar general as noting in 1865 that “street accidents by horse carriages kill more people in a year than railways” and estimates a horse-related mortality rate of around 55 deaths annually per million people in 1874. In 2020, there were 1,516 road deaths in the United Kingdom. Divided by the current U.K. population of 67.2 million, that translates into a mortality rate from motor vehicle accidents of about 23 deaths annually per million people, making modern car rides more than twice as safe as Victorian horse carriage rides. And car deaths are becoming more rare almost everywhere.
One problem with relying on unruly, skittish horses for transportation was that the animals sometimes bolted or reared unexpectedly. A slightly faulty harness could also spell disaster. Even dismounting a horse or carriage was dangerous; horse kicks have an average force of 2,000 pounds per square inch and an average speed of 200 miles per hour. One famous study found that, in the 19 years between 1875 and 1894, at least 280 highly trained Prussian cavalrymen died from horse kicks.
No amount of wealth or power could shield someone from the inherent danger of a horseback or carriage ride. Servants and nobility alike succumbed to carriage accident injuries.
The crown prince of France’s July Monarchy, Ferdinand Philippe d’Orléans, died of a skull fracture from a horse carriage accident at the young age of 31 in 1842. In the United States, the French-born governor of Louisiana, Pierre Derbigny, died in office in 1829 when he was thrown from a moving horse-drawn carriage. A grandson of Thomas Jefferson died in a horse carriage accident in 1875. Future first lady Frances Cleveland’s father died in a horse carriage accident that same year.
A monument in New York City commemorates a debutante named Charlotte Canda, who was killed in a horse carriage accident in 1845. On her way back from her 17th birthday party, the horse bolted, and Charlotte was thrown out of the moving carriage.
In Australia, the English novelist Charles Dickens’ daughter-in-law died in a similar accident in 1878. The ponies became spooked and ran wild, flinging her out of the carriage and causing a fatal head injury. She was just 29 years old and left behind two children who survived the accident, but were no doubt traumatized by witnessing their mother’s death. In Germany, in 1900, Prince Albert of Saxony died at age 25 when an open carriage collided with his own, overturning it into a ditch.
Old newspapers reveal many episodes of startled horses running amok, wrecking the vehicles they were pulling and injuring riders. The horses themselves were often casualties. In fact, Victorian streetcar horses had an average life expectancy of barely two years.
If we look beyond horse-drawn carriage accidents to other equine-related injuries, the list of victims includes several kings. William of Orange, for example, died from illness exacerbated by a broken collarbone sustained when his horse tripped on a molehill in 1702. After having the bone set, he took a bumpy 12-mile carriage ride that jolted the bone out of place and necessitated re-setting it. That carriage ride must have been horrifically painful.
So rather than romanticizing horse-drawn transportation, the next time you hear the line, “Oh what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh!” remember that the lyric is somewhat sarcastic—and with good reason. And as you travel to see loved ones for the holidays, take a moment to appreciate the technological advances in transportation safety.
Morocco’s Remarkable Progress in Reducing Child Mortality
“According to the report, the under-five mortality rate in Morocco has declined by an impressive 4.8 percent, dropping from 81 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 52 in 2000, and further to 17 in 2022.
The report also reveals that the infant mortality rate in Morocco has decreased from 64 deaths per 1,000 infants in 1990 to 15 deaths in 2022. Additionally, the neonatal mortality rate has declined by 3.9 percent, falling from 37 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 29 deaths in 2000, and reaching 11 in 2022.”
First Malaria Vaccine Slashes Early Childhood Mortality
“In a major analysis in Africa, the first vaccine approved to fight malaria cut deaths among young children by 13% over nearly 4 years, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported last week. The huge evaluation of a pilot rollout of the vaccine, called RTS,S or Mosquirix and made by GlaxoSmithKline, also showed a 22% reduction in severe malaria in kids young enough to receive a three-shot series.”
Chelsea Follett and Vincent Geloso measure the global decline in income inequality in their comprehensive new paper.
Chelsea Follett —
Summary: Contrary to popular belief, global inequality is shrinking across many dimensions of human well-being, including income, lifespan, nutrition, education, internet access, and political liberty. This article presents a new Inequality of Human Progress Index that measures and confirms this trend, arguing that greater global interconnectedness and market liberalization have contributed to increases in equality across the globe.
Read Chelsea Follett and Vincent Geloso’s full paper, “Global Inequality in Well‐Being Has Decreased across Many Dimensions,” here.
Reading the news or listening to politicians and pundits speak, one could easily get the impression that global inequality is getting worse. But is the widely held belief that the world is becoming less equal true, or is it mistaken? The overwhelming majority of long‐term trends regarding living standards—ranging from rising life expectancy to declining rates of poverty and hunger—show considerable improvement, even accounting for recent pandemic‐related setbacks. You can explore the evidence for yourself on websites such as HumanProgress.org. Have those improvements been widely shared, or have they accumulated mainly to a small population while much of the world is left behind?
That’s what George Mason University economist Vincent Geloso and I set out to discover. What we found is that while global inequality unquestionably still exists, it is in fact shrinking.
Our Inequality of Human Progress Index offers a new way of measuring global inequality. It is more comprehensive than any prior international inequality index, taking into account a greater number of dimensions. We found that in addition to a global decline in income inequality, there have also been declines in lifespan inequality, nutritional inequality, educational inequality, internet access inequality, and political liberty inequality. Around the world, gaps in these areas are shrinking.
Most importantly, there has been a decline in overall global inequality. That result was consistent, even under a variety of specifications that we tested. The data show that across all but two of the areas we examined, the world has become more equal since 1990. The data does not support the narrative of rising worldwide inequality.
The exceptions were infant survival inequality and clean air inequality. While infant mortality has decreased everywhere, it has fallen faster in rich countries with advanced medical technology and neonatal intensive care units. Clean air inequality has also gone up, probably because economic development often results in more pollution during industrialization before falling as a nation attains postindustrial prosperity—a tendency economists call the “environmental Kuznets curve.” Much of the world is still undergoing this transition.
Our research shows that improvements in international development have been both greater and more dispersed than many people realize. While there are still gaps, they are shrinking, and an accurate assessment of current trends is critical as we try to deepen our understanding of the drivers of human progress. The greater global interconnectedness and market liberalization of the past few decades have, it seems, not only raised absolute living standards but also equality. The world is not only better off than is commonly appreciated but also more equal.
This article was originally publishedat Cato.org. Read Chelsea Follett and Vincent Geloso’s full paper here.
Our evolved instincts are making us more anxious and depressed than we should be.
Marian L. Tupy —
Summary: Many young people today are pessimistic about the future of the planet and humanity, believing that environmental degradation, poverty, violence, and inequality are getting worse. However, this gloomy outlook is not supported by the facts, which show remarkable improvements in living standards, health, education, peace, and prosperity over the last century. This article explores why people are so prone to pessimism and how to overcome it by examining the evidence of human progress.
Do you believe that the world is coming to an end? If so, you are not alone.
In 2021, researchers at the University of Bath polled 10,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 25 in Australia, Brazil, Finland, France, Great Britain, India, Nigeria, the Philippines, Portugal, and the United States. The researchers found that, on average, 83 percent of respondents thought that “people have failed to care for the planet.” Seventy-five percent thought that the “future is frightening.” Fifty-six percent thought that “humanity is doomed.” Fifty-five percent thought that they will have “less opportunity than [their] parents.” Finally, 39 percent stated that they were “hesitant to have children.”
The study remains one of the most comprehensive surveys of young people’s perception of the environmental state of the planet. But is this kind of doom warranted? The following global statistics paint an entirely different picture:
Between 1950 and 2020, the average inflation-adjusted income per person rose from $4,158 to $16,904, or 307 percent. Between 1960 and 2019, the average life expectancy, rose from 50.9 years to 72.9 years, or 43.2 percent. (Unfortunately, the pandemic reduced that number to 72.2 years.)
Between 2000 and 2020, the homicide rate fell from 6.85 per 100,000 to 5.77, or 16 percent.
Deaths from inter-state wars fell from a high of 596,000 in 1950 to a low of 49,000 in 2020, or 92 percent (though the war between Russia and Ukraine is bound to increase that number).
The rates of extreme poverty have plummeted, with the share of people living on less than $1.90 per day declining from 36 percent in 1990 to 8.7 percent in 2019. Though, once again, the pandemic has temporarily worsened that number somewhat.
Between 1969 and 2019, the average infant mortality rate per 1,000 live births fell from 89.7 to 20.9, or 77 percent.
Between 1961 and 2018, the daily supply of calories rose from 2,192 to 2,928, or 34 percent. Today, even in Africa, obesity is a growing concern.
The gross primary school enrollment rate rose from 89 percent in 1970 to 100 percent in 2018. The gross secondary school enrollment rate rose from 40 percent to 76 percent over the same period. Finally, the gross tertiary school enrollment rate rose from 9.7 percent to 38 percent.
The literacy rate among men aged 15 and older rose from 74 percent in 1975 to 90 percent in 2018. The literacy rate among women aged 15 and older rose from 56 percent in 1976 to 83 percent in 2018.
In 2018, 90 percent of women between the ages of 15 and 24 were literate. That number was almost 93 percent among men of the same age. The age-old literacy gap between the sexes has all but disappeared.
There is plenty of good news on the global environmental front as well:
The chance of a person dying in a natural catastrophe — earthquake, flood, drought, storm, wildfire, landslide or epidemic — fell by almost 99 percent over the last century.
Between 1982 and 2016, the global tree canopy cover increased by an area larger than Alaska and Montana combined.
In 2017, the World Database on Protected Areas reported that 15 percent of the planet’s land surface was covered by protected areas. That’s an area almost double the size of the U.S.
That year, marine protected areas covered nearly seven percent of the world’s oceans. That’s an area more than twice the size of South America.
There is more good news for the fish: Since 2012, more than half of all seafood consumed came from aquaculture, as opposed to the fish caught in the wild.
And while it is true that the total amount of CO2 emitted throughout the world is still rising, CO2 emissions in rich countries are falling both in totality and on a per capita basis.
With so much good news around us, why are we so gloomy? We have evolved to look out for danger. That was the best way to survive when the world was much more threatening. But, while the world has changed, our genes have not. That’s why the front pages of the newspapers are always filled with the most horrific stories. If it bleeds, it leads.
To make matters worse, the media compete with one another for a finite number of eyeballs. So, presenting stories in the most dramatic light pays dividends. Or, as one study recently found, for a headline of average length, “each additional negative word increased the click-through rate by 2.3%.” And so, in a race to the bottom, all media coverage got much darker over the last two decades.
We are literally scaring ourselves to death, with rates of anxiety, depression and even suicide rising in some parts of the world. To maintain your mental composure and to keep matters in perspective, follow the trendlines, not the headlines. You will discover that the world is in a much better shape than it appears. You will be more cheerful and, most importantly, accurately informed.
This article was originally published at RealClearPolicy on May 31st, 2023.
