latter case the contrary; the average amount insured is at least 1,000l., and its premium, in one case with another, 32l. 12s. 6d.; five per cent. on 32l. 12s. 6d. is 17. 12s. 7 d.; and at forty years of age, one person with another, twentyeight premiums are paid. The more it is dwelt upon, the more monstrous does it appear that such a sum should be called "remuneration ;" and the following statement will make it still more apparent that it is not remuneration, but douceur. Insurer John entrusts the effecting an insurance to agent Thomas; agent Thomas does the feat, and of course receives the commission on the first premium; after which he hands over the policy to his principal, telling him that he must remember to pay the annual premiums. In a year, insurer John receives the printed notice, and walks off to the office to pay his second premium. Not a word does the clerk who receives it say about returning five per cent. ; but in a few days afterwards comes agent Thomas, reminds the office that he is agent Thomas, and receives his five per cent. on the second premium. This may go on for twenty years, agent Thomas having in the meantime quite lost sight of insurer John, until one day, when he walks to the office to be "remunerated," the clerk says, "No, no, Thomas; you are no longer agent Thomas; your man is dead; we paid his claim three months ago. Can't you bring us any body else?" We are not certain that all offices which give commission carry it to this point; but we believe it to be the general rule, that it is the original bringing of business which gives the claim to commission, and that it matters not who pays the subsequent premiums.

This matter is so bad, that it has never been openly and fairly discussed; it is one of those dubious practices, the friends of which wince when it is mentioned, and the advocates of which are driven to queer shifts of argument; like the writer in the Quarterly, who can only meet it by confounding the agent of another person with the agent of the office; and to make the confusion still more complete, by partially imposing on the latter the duty of acting as the former.

It is impossible to legislate against this practice-(though be it known, that if it were an annuity instead of an assurance, by 53 Geo. III. cap. 141, any person acting as broker, and taking more than ten shillings per cent. on the money advanced, is punishable by fine and imprisonment; and it has been decided in Bromhead v. Eyre, that where a solicitor purchases an annuity for a third person, he is not entitled even to this commission;) but the insurer will put an end to it

himself; and any one who will attend to the directions we are going to give, may have five per cent. on his premiums.

First, let us suppose a person living in London, or being in London for the time. He wants to insure his life. When he has determined upon an office, let his first question be, "Does this office give commission to those who bring business?" If the answer be "No," let him proceed as usual; but if the answer be "Yes, five per cent.," let him rejoin, "I want to insure my own life; I am my own agent, and I expect the same commission as if I were that of another person.' If the answer be in the negative, let him say, "Then I must go elsewhere." Before he has left the office he will find himself called back, and he will then do his business five per cent. cheaper than he would otherwise have done. But in all probability the clerk will put on one of those half-comic halfrespectful looks, which a man of business so often gives to a person who he sees is up to him (or down upon him, or whatever the phrase may be), and will at once accede to the proposal.

Next let us suppose a person living in the country-and before we begin let us stop to say, long live Rowland Hill!-let him not have anything to do with the agent of the office, but let him write, under a government plaster, informing them of his intention, and requiring the commission as his own agent. He should have ready the certificate of his usual medical attendant, and that of two persons to whom he is well known. He will find his proposal accepted, and the office will manage to make all necessary inquiries, and to take him on his own terms; or if not, let him write to another, or to one of the offices which give no commission. Such must be the natural death of the system of commission; every body must become his own agent; after a time solicitors will become ashamed of taking so large a "remuneration," and will do this business, as they do all others, for a proper charge made at the time. when the trouble is taken.

An office might, (but we really hope and think no office would) evade the allowance of commission to the assurer himself, by giving it to him for the first year, when he is to be caught, and refusing it in the second and subsequent years, after he is caught. Should such a thing happen, the precaution in future cases must be to have the premium agreed for in the policy, made five per cent less than that in the office tables.

On the vital questions which remain, as to the management of the offices, it is not our intention to enter: the object of this article being, solely, to excite attention to those points

which must be canvassed before parliament, and that shortly. When the solvency and respectability of the management is secured at the outset, and it is forbidden to state falsehoods in the prospectus when, moreover, the liabilities of those who engage in this traffic are made more heavy, there is no fear that honest and intelligent men will be found insufficient to manage a concern of this kind without legislative directions.

In the meantime, the turn which the present system is taking is frightful; bad enough as to assurances, but absolutely ruinous as to annuities. We have before us a pamphlet,* by Mr. Christie, of Edinburgh, written to prevent the irruption into Scotland of a society called the Western Annuity Society. Mr. Christie has no interest in this question, except that which every man feels when he sees his fellow-countrymen invited to hazard the subsistence of their children in attempts to make something out of nothing. It fully appears from Mr. Christie's statement, that the society in question is attempting to grant deferred annuities upon premiums which do not warrant their paying more than half what they propose to give. It is an error of judgment, originating in benevolent motives, and supported by men of high station; but it can only end in disappointment; that is to say, the families of those who have the good luck to die first, will eat away the premiums of those who live longest. Societies are now in existence which commenced their career upon an understanding that the premiums paid were sufficient to secure an annuity of 50l. to survivors, and which are now paying less than 107. instead of 50l.

Much of this bad speculation in annuities arises from more or less of adherence to the old Northampton table, which, making the duration of life too short, has benefited the assurance offices, and injured the annuity societies. The reason is evident tables which make life too short, will give premiums higher than is requisite, while the value of annuities will be made too small. But as many readers will not even see this clearly, let it be thus stated:-In the assurance, the office pays a fixed sum, and receives annual contingents, depending on the life of the party; in granting an annuity, the office receives a gross sum, and pays an annual contingent. The positions are therefore reversed in the two cases, and whatever is calculated to benefit the office in the first case, is also calculated to injure it in the second; and vice versa. If an office which

"An exposure of the unsoundness of the Western Annuity Office Society established at Exeter, &c., &c., and of certain kindred societies. By Robert Christie, accountant in Edinburgh." Bell and Bradfate, Edinburgh; Longman and Co., London; and J. Cumming, Dublin.

both grants annuities and takes assurances, could choose its own lives, it might make itself certain of realizing a profit on any table of mortality whatsoever.

We have not said a word about the actuaries, or other scientific advisers of the different companies, and we do not think that much is necessary on the subject. The only question that could arise would be this: Is it expedient that from henceforward every person wishing to practise as an actuary should undergo an examination before a competent board, and receive a certificate of competency? Should this profession, in fact, be placed on the same footing as the medical and clerical? We must, in answering this question, put the history and present state of this method of gaining a livelihood before our readers.

The earlier professional actuaries were excellent mathematicians. The first of whom we know is De Moivre, of whom it is on record that he subsisted in his later years principally by answering cases, which was done in a methodical, though not what we should now call a business-like manner. The actuary and his client repaired to a tavern in St. Martin's Lane, where, over a bottle, the calculation was made, and the fee paid. It is to be hoped they drank fair, and that the client did not get all the wine while the actuary was consulting his tables. At this time, and throughout the century preceding, the profession of an accountant was in high repute; since it so happened either that those who turned their attention that way were led to the cultivation of liberal science; or, which is more likely, that in the then state of elementary writing and instruction, it was not easy to learn a little only with any chance of being able to apply it in practice. Collins, the correspondent of every man of science in Europe, the associate of Barrow, Newton, &c. was a poor accountant; the writers of common treatises on arithmetic were men of finished education. The most trifling problems relative to accounts were thought necessary to be certified by the highest names; and the book of leases which is still sold as being the production of Newton, was so called because it was considered expedient to procure his attestation of the truth of the methods employed in it. In the times succeeding De Moivre, but still anterior to the present, Thomas

* We have lately had occasion to glance through hundreds of folio pages, in which good Latin and bad astronomy were applied to form a rule for finding Easter. We quote it as a strong instance of the depth into which simple things were thrown. A child of our day might have learned how to find Faster, and have calculated a century of instances, in less than six hours; but the men of 1500 A.D. learned a couple of simple rules out of a number of pages, the mere recitation of which would have taken twelve hours.

Simpson, Dodson, and others, preserved the connexion between the pursuit of accounts as a means of gain, and the cultivation of the higher branches of science. Nevertheless we may say that, till about the close of the last war, and even beyond it, the number of assurance offices was so few, that the professional class of men whom we now call actuaries,* did not exist. When a new office was established, a person "skilled in calculation," was induced to abandon his other pursuits, and the remuneration was of course liberal. The actuary was sometimes an excellent mathematician, sometimes moderately skilled in that science, sometimes not at all so. With the increase of the offices, a number of actuaries, trained in the older establishments, swelled the ranks of this profession, which were still further augmented by recruits from miscellaneous quarThe rate of an actuary's remuneration fell, of course; and as the number of such functionaries, actually engaged in the superintendence of offices, and still more of aspirants, is on the increase, it may naturally be supposed that the fall is not yet finished.

ters.

On this last point the whole question turns, with which we began this part of the subject. Up to the present time there has been no occasion to wish for legislative regulation of the conditions under which a person shall hold himself out as fit to manage the important and extensive pecuniary interests which have been committed to the charge of these functionaries. That they were in good odour at the time of the Friendly Societies' Act, is evident from their admission as guarantees of the soundness of the rules of the institutions to which that act refers, under no limitation as to who should be considered as entitled to the name: and also from the rejection of a proposition which was made, that the actuary of the National Debt Office should be the only authority on such matters. No past expe

*We do not know exactly when this title came to be used in its present sense, though we imagine the Equitable Society was the first assurance office which gave it to its principal officer. That of the Amicable (the oldest society) is called registrar. Actuarius (according to Ducange) was, in the middle ages, Scriptor publicus, qui facit acta; but under the empire, actuarii were officers appointed to receive the corn from the storekeepers, and distribute it to the soldiers. They also advanced pay to the soldiery before it was due, that is, discounted their bills, and as no doubt they made good allowance for the chance of the debtors being knocked on the head, their first occupation was not entirely alien from their present pursuits. To judge from the number of regulations made concerning them in the Theodosian code (referred to by Ducange in verb.), they must have been troublesome gentry. In later times, the word meant the registrar of the proceedings of a court or other public body; and they are described as using shorthand. The clerk of the convocation is called actuarius. They are recognised in the modern sense by the Friendly Societies' Act, as "actuaries or persons skilled in calculation."