The Sun.
London, England, 1852-12-28 00:00:00

LIFE ASSURANCE.

DECLARATION OF THE MANCHESTER
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE.

The following very important paper, bearing the sig-
nature of Mr. Bazley, as President of the Manchester
Chamber of Commerce and Manufactures, and issued by
" order and on behalf of the directors" of that body, has
been made public in Manchester. It appears to have
been immediately called forth by a letter, which we also
publish, addressed to Mr. Bazley, in his official capacity,
by Mr. J. Young Caw, on the 23d of September last—
at the time when it will be remembered that public
attention had just been directed to the subject of Life
Insurance by the appearance of one or two pamphlets,
by the prominence given to it in our own columns, and
by other causes. Mr, Bazley's letter is a most valuable
document, and we direct attention to it with peculiar
pleasure, seeing that is expresses views, and contains
statements, which correspond closely with those which,
from. the commencement of the controversy, have been
adopted and enforced by ourselves. We give in the
first place the letter of Mr. Caw, and in the second the
reply which it called forth from Mr. Bazley
:
"Bank, Mosley-street, 23d Sept., 1852.
"Dear Sir,—ln bringing before your directors the
state of the life assurance offices, I believe I am doing
that which in some shape or other has already been done,
for the public press has recently so often alluded to it,
that in some degree or other it must have been considered
by all of them. Still, as there are some points of im-
portance which deserve special consideration, I trust I
may be excused in endeavouring to select from many
objects of attention, those which appear to be the most
practical and most prominent. Life insurance, con-
ducted upon prudent principles, is of immense advantage
to the community. Having enunciated this proposition,
so universally admitted, it remains to examine what are
prudent principles ? A prudent man will be desirous, when
he insures his life, to know that when he dies the engage-
ment will be duly met. This brings on the consideration
of the office in which he ought to insure. Now, the returns
recently published by authority of Parliament, give a
certain amount of information as to companies formed
under the 7th and Bth Vict., cap. 110 ; and as since the
passing of that act, 105 assurance companies have regis-
tered themselves, it may tend to assist some if the state
of these accounts be considered. I have not the slight-
est hesitation in pronouncing a very large proportion of
these offices to be practically insolvent ; and there is not
any one of common judgment in business matters who
can arrive at any other conclusion after examinine, the
accounts these officers have furnished. The first item
that appears of importance is preliminary expenses,
under which vague title most of the offices place a large
amount of money. The second is, the large sum for
directors's fees. The third is, the large law expenses.
And the fourth, the charge for establishing agencies.
These matters require much attention. The next point
is, a great reduction of premium. This has been carried
to an excess, and ruin must be the consequence. Many
of the offices to which allusion has been made are esta-
blished in London, and have placed in Manchester local
boards as an inducement for the people at Manchester
to insure. It is to this point particularly that I beg the
attention of your directors. No legislative enactment
can interfere in this matter with success. Any such en-
actment would be an opposition to free trade. But the
moral influence of your society in expressing an opinion
upon the following points, which every insurer ought to
inquire into, may be of service. How this is to be done
must be left to the judgment and discretion of your di-
rectors. Persons have lent their names as local direc-
tors' without holding shares in the company, and with-
out being insured in their own office. The deduction
from this is, that weak and ignorant persons have been
puffed up through vanity to show their extraordinary
benevolence, and have lent their names without any in-
terest in the society. Some persons have been induced
to lend their names without taking shares or insuring,
because they have been allowed a fee for their attendance
as directors. This class are perfectly contemptible ant
degraded, and but for the mischief they may do, are not
worthy of consideration. Another class insure for a
small amount, and receive in fees more than their pre-
miums—a class of decoy duck. It appears evident that
something may be done to protect the young men of Man-
chester from the dangers which threaten them ; as it is
to be observed that these recklesss offices pay agents,
exorbitant commissions, and high salaries, which the
business cannot afford. One mode of protection is,
to inquire at the local boards if their names are
used with their own consent ; to ask whether they are
shareholders and liable in any degree for the policies,
or whether they are liable for 201. or 1001. paid up by
shares ; and, further, to know whether the local board
dare trust their own office so far as to ensure their own
lives in it. I bring the matter before you for your con-
sideration. If you can do anything to avert evil, do it.
At any rate, the fact of its being laid before you will
probably neutralize much mischief. I may further add,
that although the above remarks refer' more particularly
to offices registering under 7 and 8 Vict., cap. 110, there
are offices established prior to that act in England, and
also Scotch offices, whose rates of premium are so ruin-
ously low that by-and-bye they will be found out and
ruin follow. Cheapness in life assurance is not always
an advantage.—l remain, my dear sir, yours very faith-
fully,
" J. Y. CAw.
" Thomas Bazley, Esq., President of the Chamber
of Commerce, Manchester."

" Chamber of Commerce and Manufactures,
Manchester, December 9, 1852.
" Dear regret the delay which has intervened
in replying to your letter of the 23d of September last,
in which you call upon the directors of this chamber to
use their influence towards averting from the young men
of Manchester the dangers which you foresee to impend
over them from the position into which the business of
life assurance in this country has recently fallen.
" When your communication was first brought before
the board, the pure philanthropy and honourable mo-
tives which prompted it, were duly appreciated, but
some hesitation was felt as to how far the subject fell
within the province of this chamber. Mature conside-
ration has, however, convinced the directors that your
apprehension of dangers is well founded, and that they
cannot be wrong in endeavouring to direct the attention
of their fellow-citizens to a careful consideration of so
momentous a question. I am, therefore, to state, as
briefly as I can, the grounds upon which this board ven-
tures to Lraise a warning voice, and to exhort all, and
especially the young men of Manchester, to exercise the
utmost caution in a matter which involves the future
weal or woe of the objects of their tenderest affections.
The board agrees with you entirely, that life assurance,
condlicted upon prudent principles, is of immense advan-
tage to the community. If it be not prudently conduct-
ed, if it fall into the hands of imprudent men, or of
reckless adventurers (of which examples have not been
wanting), it may become in the one case a source of
misery, in the other, of heartless robbery.
In the first place it will be useful to consider what is
the nature of a life assurance.
It is a contract between two parties—one of which
engages to provide a given sum on the death of the insurer,
the other to make given payments until that event
occur ; but, unlike every other species of contracts,
neither party is desirous of an early termination. The
risks, however, may not be equal. The assured must
make his yearly payments, he parts annually with
the stipulated capital, and has no control over the
manner in which it is to be managed ; he is bound
for life, and even should he subsequently have cause
for suspicion, he cannot recede without severe loss.
The obligation of the assuring office is so to manage
the funds entrusted to it, that, on the determination of
the contract, it shall be prepared to fulfil all its engage-
ments. The very first consideration for a person about
to assure his life should therefore be to connect himself
with such institutions only as shall give the strongest
hope of eventually performing the promises they have
held out. The board believes that many such exist,
which, by careful management, the length of time during
which their operations have continued, the amount of
realised capital, and the fortunate circumstances which
attended their infancy and growth, have placed them-
selves in a position to deserve unlimited confidence. But
the directors have seen, with deep regret, in the promises
held out by the almost innumerable projects of latter days,
such a departure from the prudent course of the older
offices as to excite in them great alarm, and they there-
fore desire to throw out some suggestions which they
think may be serviceable to the young community around
them.* The scheme of life assurance is supported solely
on the hypothesis that the contributions of the members
taken year by year and invested in some fund which will
produce an interest thereon, will be sufficient, of them-
selves, to spay to the representatives of each member,
when his life drops in, the sum assured under his policy,
and the contingent promises held out to him. The
realisation of this hypothesis obviously depends on
several considerations, the most important of which

1. That the probable average duration of life shall
have been correctly estimated, but especially that it
shall not have been over-rated.
2. That the full rate of interest assumed by the society
in its calculations shall be actually realised.
3. That a surplus shall be annually created at least suf-
ficient to discharge all the expenses of management.
4. That an equal or nearly equal degree of risk be
distributed over all the lives.
5. That the funds of the society shall be invested in
such securities as will not fail to reproduce them un-
diminished in value when required for the necessities of
the institution.
On the first of these considerations depends the rates
which each office shall assume. The board would not
presume to give any opinion whatever upon the proper
rates to be charged ; but it has seen a constant tendency
in the recently-established offices not only to make great
reductions from the rates charged by the older societies,
but, at the same time, to promise much greater advan-
tages. These allurements are sought to be justified by
the assertion that the rates of the old offices have been
excessive, and that the average duration of life has in-
creased. The board will not deny either of these pro-
positions to some extent ; but it does not hetitate to ex-
press a very strong fear that the reasons so assigned are
pushed beyond the reality in both cases, and that a reck-
less competition, if no worse motive, has given birth to
some delusive and most dangerous associations. The rates
of payment are certainly an important element in a con-
tract for life assurance, but they sink into comparative in-
significance when ultimate security is taken into account.
The solidity of an assurance society cannot be tested in its

* Extract from a very valuable pamphlet, entitled " Life
Assurance, its Schemes, its Difficulties, and its Abuses,"
published 1852, by W. S. D. Pateman, price ls., which the
board would recommend to the perusal of all who wish to
&come their lives. '

FATALITY OF A RING.—In October, 1845, a man,
named Donald Fraser, was transported for the theft of
the same ring which formed a very important link in
the chain of evidence against George Christie for th
murder of Mrs. Ross and her grandson.
STRANGE MEETING.—One afternoon, last week, a very
singular meeting took place in High-street. A labouring
man passing up the street observed a woman (in com-
pany with a man, somewhat like himself id years and
circumstances) whose features. he was sure had been at
some period familiar to him. Curiosity prompted him
to accost the woman, which fie did, and the three ad-
journed into a public-house. After much conversation
as to the one and the other, all three having seen each
other before, it ultimately was elucidated that the woman
was the wife of the labouring man, and that he with
whom she was accompanied was also her husband. The
surprise of all the parties on such a revelation may be
imagined. It appeared that the first husband, on the
night of his marriage, 25 years ago, had deserted his
better half, and had not seen her before the day in ques-
tion with the husband she had married in his absence,
under the belief, no doubt, that the first was dead.
The parties, were, however, mutually satisfied with the
existing state of things ; the first husband giving the
second every privilege with the wife's portion of his
property, and all got merry together.—Perth, Courier.
THE EDINBURGH REVIEW.—The gentleman who is to
replace Mr. Empson in the editorship of the Edinburgh
Review is Mr. George Cornewall Lewis—long the Whig
financial secretary at the Treasury—and on three occa-
sions the unsuccessful candidate for election into the
present Parliament. Mr. Lewis is favourably known as
an author—is distinguished for his knowledge of political
economy—and though not himself a contributor to the
higher classes of literature, is said to appreciate literature
in all its branches with a hearty and discriminating relish.
In his hands, therefore, the Edinburgh may probably
again become more a representation of general literature
than it was under Mr. Empson's management.
Athenceunt.
CHRISTMAS CUSTOMS IN NORWAY.—At Christiania,
and in other Norwegian towns, there is a delicate
Christmas way of offering to a lady a brooch, or a pair
of earrings, in a truss of hay. The house door of the
person complimented is pushed open, and there is thrown
into the house a truss of hay or straw, a sheaf of corn,
or bag of chaff. In some part of this " bottle of hay"
envelope, there is a " needle" of a present to be hunted
for. A friend of mine received from her betrothed, ac-
cording to this Christmas custom, an exceedingly large
brown paper parcel, which, on being opened, revealed a
second parcel with a loving motto on the cover. And
so on, parcel within parcel, Motto within motto, till the
kernel of this paper husk—which was at length dis-
covered to be a delicate piece of minute jewellery—was
arrived at. One of the prettiest of Christmas customs
is the Norwegian practice of giving, on Christmas-day,
a dinner to the birds. On Christmas morning, every
gable, gateway, or barn-door, is decorated with a sheaf
of corn, fixed on the top of a tall pole, wherefrom it is
intended that the birds shall make their Christmas din-
ner. Even the peasant will contrive to have a handful
set by for this purpose, and what the birds do not- eat
on Christmas-day, remains for them to finish at their
leisure through the winter. The carolling of birds about
these poles make a Norwegian Christmas in the fields
quite holy to me.—Dickens's " Household Words."
[ADVERTISEMENT.]—DEAFNESS—NEW DISCOVERY.-
39, Albemarle-street, Piccadilly, observe, opposite the
York Hotel. The Organic Vibrator, an extraordinary
powerful, small, newly-invented instrument for deafness,
entirely different from all others, to surpass anything of
the kind that has been, or probably ever can be, pro-
duced. Being of the same colour as the skin, it is not
perceptible ; it enable's deaf persons to hear distinctly at
church and at public assemblies ; the unpleasant sensa-
tion of singing noises in the ears are entirely removed ;
and it affords ' all the assistance that possibly could be
desired. The Royal Exhibition—Valuable newly-in-
vented, very small, powerful Waistcoat-pocket Glass, the
size of a walnut, to discern minute objects at a distance
of from four to five miles, which is found to be invaluable
for yachting, and to sportsmen, gentlemen, and game-
keepers. Telescopes, possessing such extraordinary
power that some, 34 inches, with an extra eye-piece, will
show distinctly Jupiter's moons, Saturn's ring, and the
double stars. They supersede every other kind, and are
of all sizes, for the waistcoat-pocket, shooting, military
purposes, &c. Opera and Race-course Glasses with won-
derful power; a minute object can be clearly seen from
10 to 12 miles distant. Invaluable newly-invented
Spectacle.—S. and B. Solomons, aurists and opticians,
39, Albemarle-street, Piccadilly, observe, opposite the
York Hotel.
BENEFICES, &c.—The annual return obtained by the
Marquis of Blandford respecting benefices in England
and Wales was on Friday printed. According to the
document, there were 11,782 benefices. The total resi-
dents numbered 8,077, and the non-residents 2,952, of
which last-mentioned class there were 1,137 performing
the duties of their respective parishes. Under the class
" miscellaneous cases' 699 were returned, including
vacancies, sequestrations, &c. In England and Wales
there were 8,214 glebe-houses when the return was
made. Another part of the return was required to show
the net annual value of the several benefices in which
the incumbents were non-resident in each diocese in
England and Wales according to the returns for the
year 1850, made to her Majesty in Council by the re-
spective archbishops and bishops, in pursuance of the
Act 1 and 2 Victoria, chap. 106, sec. 53. No return of
the value was made to 1,297, and in the others the value
was from 101. to 2,1801. a year. The total was 2,960/.
A TOUR OF INQUIRY THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY.
By Edmund Spencer, Esq. 2 vols.—At a moment like the
present, when events are enacting at our very doors that
startle as much by their suddenness as they agitate the
whole civilised world by their importance, it affords us
pleasure to announce a work entitled, " A Tour of Inquiry
through France and Italy, illustrating their present Social,
pence
Political, and Religious Condition," by Edmund S
r,
Esq.. a gentleman favourably known in the world of litera-
ture as one of tho mo::t tihtin3uislied traveller:, u.'tlia day,
and who, having long resided in France and Italy, is emi-
nently qualified to throw light on the causes which have
led to this upheaving of the nations, and its probable
effects on the future prospects and civilisation of Europe.