1. At the request of the Committee, I undertook to consider the graduation of the Whole-Life Without-Profit Experience, and I now have the pleasure to submit the result of my investigation.

2. In the graduation of this experience, it has been borne in mind that the main practical purpose to which the table will be put will be the calculation of premiums, rather than the determination of reserves. It is most important, therefore, that the graduation should not under-estimate the mortality, and, consequently, the premiums.

In order to define the object and scope of the present contribution, it may be well to state at the outset that it puts forth no pretensions to be a complete survey of a subject which embraces in its wide sweep almost the entire field of practical Life Assurance. The author's design is merely to give a brief sketch of the development, from early times, of the systems and practice of Life Offices in ascertaining their liability under Policies of Assurance, and distributing the surpluses brought out by such valuations among those entitled to them; and the idea has been consistently held in view that it is mainly to assist foreign students that each country is asked to give a record and state the lessons of its past experience.

Part II of Dr. Tatham's decennial supplement to the 55th report of the Registrar-General, published in 1897, contained extremely valuable statistics relating to the relative death-rates and what are known as the “comparative mortality figures” of men engaged in different occupations. These statistics dealt not only with deaths from all causes in conjunction, but also from certain diseases; and the latter figures throw important light upon the influence of occupation on the mortality, for instance, from tuberculosis and cancer.