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In any Company or Society for the assurance of lives—let it be constituted in whatever manner it may—it is evident that certain rates of mortality and interest are always prevailing; and that such rates are more or less constant throughout any given period. as the causes on which they depend are more or less stationary.
“ Candidus imperti ; si non, his utere mecum.”—HOR.
In making this contribution to the spirit of advance which is characteristic of our age, the writer is fully aware of the danger of reforms. He remembers “the grace which antiquity can lend” even “to error;” and that by an almost universal instinct the Past is consecrated in the eyes of the Present. Thus, the half-lights and imperfections of our forefathers are clung to with a generous pertinacity. We endeavour to manage with the customs and remedies which sufficed for an early state of society, rather than frame new ones to suit the exigencies of our altered condition. In fact, to speak with Scaliger, we had rather eat acorns with our ancestors than bread with the men of our own generation.
In the present paper it is intended to investigate the nature of mortality from Suicide, with a view to assist statists in estimating the value of life, and society in its endeavours to remedy so frightful an evil.
It is usual with Assurance Offices to make void policies which have lapsed from the above cause; and it was not until a very recent period that the justice of this proceeding was called into question,—especially when it is borne in mind that these risks are invariably calculated in the premiums.
The question as to the liabilities arising upon the destruction of property by a fire which has originated through negligence, is one of considerable importance, both to the public and to Insurance Offices; and as it appears that the vulgar notions afloat upon it, by no means tally with the law, and have, nevertheless, their origin in no less an authority than that of Sir William Blackstone, it may be a matter of interest to the readers of this magazine to investigate the subject.
In our last Number we gave some details of the fires in London for seventeen years, classified under the different trades and occupations in which they occurred. In elucidation of the same subject, the following paper, containing the actual rates of premium charged by a French Fire Insurance Company, according to the greater or less danger attributed to the nature of the trade or manufacture, may be worthy of notice.
