concerned. It is an approach to share and
share alike. But there is a difficulty about
insurance which ninety per cent of the legion of
John Smiths cannot get over: they cannot
scrape together sums large enough for yearly,
half-yearly, or quarterly premiums. Some
quick and safe insurance absorbent for their
spare weekly shillings is very much wanted,
even in the present advanced state of the
science of life assurance. Such an office
has recently been established, and will be
especially useful to working men. Many such
offices exist already it is true; but, their
working has hitherto not been wholly
satisfactory. A new company of a like nature
which has recently been started promises
well. It is called emphatically The Safety.

All sorts of engagements are now entered
into by the life-insurance offices.
Insurances on children, to be paid to them
at the period of schooling, apprenticing,
coming of age, or marrying; insurances for
a definite term of years, payable only in the
event of the person living that number of
years; annuities terminable or deferred—all
the sorts which are now so familiarly known
in English society—are dependent on the
probabilities of the expectation of the
duration of life, which differs in amount
at every age. No one knows, in the lottery
of life, which insurer will drop off first;
but the companies find that they can
predict, with an extraordinary approach to
accuracy, the average result among a large
number of insurers. Life assurance honestly
conducted is truly a blessing; the
companies gain by it; and families experience
a great alleviation of misery by its means
—simply by means of share and share alike.

But what of all the several ills that flesh is
heir to? Death is surely not the only personal
visitation that brings mourning into a household;
and among deaths, there are those
which depart very widely from what are
termed natural. Nevertheless, natural or
not, all are brought within the share and share
alike maxim; in respect to all of them,
there are companies which say—be assured.
For example, there are companies which
put forth tables for the insurance of seamen
and maritime passengers when braving the
dangers of the seas; who can also assure
their baggage from loss or destruction.
A seaman pays a certain premium on
consideration that a certain sum shall
be paid to his widow or children if he
be lost in such a vessel within the year;
if he is to receive also compensation for
any injuries short of death, he has to pay
a higher premium at the outset; and as
Poor Jack, the common sailor, is, taking
all things together, exposed to more risk than
the captain or the mates, he has in some
offices to pay a higher premium for a given
amount of insurance. For vessels engaged
in the foreign trade, a lower rate of premium
is demanded; because the dangers, and the
consequent probability of loss of life, are less
in the open sea than near the coast. Pilots,
fishermen, and boatmen, are exposed to
dangers varying in each particular case, and the
premiums vary also. It might appear
absolutely impossible to say beforehand what
would be a fair and equitable premium for any
such insurance. One office, The Nelson,
protects shipowners from being heavily muleted
in obedience to Mr. Cardwell's clauses in
the Shipping Act, which render every
shipowner liable to compensate passengers or
survivors for loss of life or limb through want of
proper precaution, or the misconduct of crews.
Who can say whether the crew of a particular
coaster will meet with a fatal mishap in the
year eighteen hundred and fifty-five? Who
can predict whether the captain will be more
luckless than the men, or the men than the
captain? The very pith of the insurance system
consists in a consciousness that these
questions only admit of uncertain answers as
to individuals, but that they admit of certain
answers as to averages.

There are thousands of railway travellers
who refuse to believe that one-pennyworth of
insurance against railway accidents can be
bonâ fide; yet bonâ fide it assuredly is. At the
same time, however, it must be admitted that
a little incredulity may be pardoned. A railway
accident need not necessarily occur; and
therefore an insurance against it appears more
uncertain than even one in an ordinary life-office.
In the latter case we know that the
death will occur, but not when; in the former
case we do not know that the event insured
against will ever take place. Then, how
to calculate the premium? There are,
nevertheless, rules for guidance. All serious
railway accidents become known, and are
tabulated once a year by the Board of Trade;
destroyed lives and broken bones occupy
places in the tables; and those who are
most interested in the matter find that they
can strike a kind of yearly average even
among such things as broken axles, defective
tires, reckless drivers, and thoughtless
passengers. The number of railway journeys,
the number of miles in each journey, and
the number of passengers in each train,
compared with the number of lives lost and
limbs broken, afford data on which the
company proceed; and thus we have the
table of rates. You proceed on a railway
journey; you pay one, two, or three pence
for an insurance ticket; and if you lose
your life by an accident during that journey,
your representatives will receive two, five,
or ten hundred pounds. You may insure
for a single journey, a double journey,
or for all journeys within a stated definite
time. Again, railway servants, and others
who travel much, can in like manner
be insured, but at higher rates of premium,
on account of the higher risk. Nor is this
all; if the insurer suffer personal injury
without loss of life, he receives compensation