The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-10-09 00:00:00

in a commercial position, and hope to live b 3
government patronage. H

gh contracts and Royal

Charters are the leading elements of su

!ess in

fashionable watering places ; but we really feel con-
cerned for those credulous shareholders who part
with their money on the strength of empty sounds.

The one

is the impersonation of the shipper and the

merchant, and the others are the fag-ends of long
trains of way-farers. We can make money of
such realities without taxing the public for
advantages which are far more apparent than real.
Mail contracts are our shipowners' make-weights--
mere trifles in .a ship's books. The country will
find this out in time, and when they are once
convinced that the postal enterprise of South-
ampton owes its origin and perpetuation to the
most extravagant drafts on the Imperial Exchequer
and on the distant Colonist's pocket, we shall soon
see the end of the system, and the London
newsmongers left to supply their constituents
with foreign and colonial intelligence from a less
costly and far more ligitimate source.

A VERY important life assurance case was tried
at Liverpool at the last Assizes. The plaintiff was
the representative of THOMAS LAURIE. The
defendants the Merchants' and Trailesinens'
Mutual Life Assurance Society. The circum-
stances of the case are briefly these :—ln the latter
part of 1854, THOMAS LAURIE insured his life for
5001. in the above office. The proposal% was made
in the usual form, and after the Society had made all
the necessary enquiries as to the age, health, habits.
&c., of the party proposed, they accepted the
proposal, and issued a policy on the deceased's life,
which dropped shortly after the agreement was
fully completed. Application was made in due
course by the deceased's administratrix for pay-
ment of the policy, which was refused, on the
ground, as the defendants alleged, that the true
state of the deceased's health was not disclosed to
the Society, and that, therefore, they were unable
properly and adequately to calculate the risk they
were about to incur. This is the substance of the
defence set up, and it would be difficult to conceive
one which would be more likely to defeat the objects
of life insurance altogether. Once a Society issues a
policy there should be no going back to the previous
health of the assured. Companies can take their
own time, and may make all the enquiries they
please, prior to their signing a contract to pay a
certain sum in consideration of a premium mutu
ally agreed upon by the parties to that contract.
There would be no end to litigation if, after death,
the whole story of health, habits, &c., was to be re-
opened In this case, it appears that the relatives
could not tell what disease THOMAS LAURIE died
of, and this was thought to be sufficient to justify
the Society's refusing to pay
the amount they had
guaranteed, after receiving the repoils of the local
agents and medical officers ; and this def,,n,;e was
entertained by a jury of twelve san asses. The door
is now open, therefore,. to the g injustice.
Suppose, for instance, a man was to insure his life
some years before getting married, and that in or
about ten or twenty years after his death, the
insuers were to demand of his wife or children a
true description of the diseases of the
insured
previous to his marriage, or the disorier of which he
died, are there not a thousand chances to one that
the information could not be supplied ? Questions
might be put to the representatives of
deceased
persons which their medical attendants could not
answer. How many men die of unknown
mala-
dies! Post-mortem exszninations do not always
reveal the actual cause of death, and we frequently
find Coroner's juries returning verdicts of "found
" dead, but how the deceased.
came by his death

"there is no evidence to show."
A verdict of this kind would be fatal to the
claim of every dead man's wife and children,''
if the
defence relied upon by the Nercbants and