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London, England, 1844-08-13 00:00:00

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No. 16,222. LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING SUN 9 AUGUST 13, 1844.

PRICE sd.

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CLERICAL, MEDICAL, and GENERAL
LIFE ASSURANCE SOCIETY, 78, Great Russell-street,
Bloomsbury.
Notice is hereby given that a DIVIDEND of FIVE PER CENT.
(less Income-tax) on the Shares of the Society will be PAYABLE at
this Office on and after TuEsnAY, the 20th day of August instant.
GEO. H. PINCKARD, Resident Secretary.
August 12th, 1844.

AUSTRALASIAN, CI
RAL LIFE ASSIJRAN
Capital 200,0001.,

:OLONIAL, and GENE-
7CE and ANNUITY SOCIETY
in 2,000 Shares.

THE COUNT NESSELRODE.
The Count Nesselrode, who has just arrived on a
visit to this country, is of a Hanoverian family, which
has been settled in. Livonia for nearly a century
and a half. His father had been Minister Plenipo-
tentiary of the Empress Catherine 11. to the Dukes
of Wurtemberg, and was entrusted by the Czarina
with the business of negotiating the marriage of the
Grand Duke Paul with a Princess of the house of
Wurtemberg. o such of our readers as have
travelled in the north of Europe, it is unneces-
sary to say that a Livonian differs as much from
a Russian, as a Russian from an Englishman. Al-
though the provinces of Livonia, Esthonia, Ingria,
and Carelia, have been Russian for more than 130
years, yet they have ever clung with tenacity
to their national language and customs, and are
as much, probably more German now, than they
were before the battle of Pultava, in 1709. It is true
that all public officers and all clergymen are obliged
to be acquainted with the Russian language; but
when not under surveillance, or civil or military
parade (for civil life in Russia may be said to have its
parades as well as military), these worthy, primitive
people relapse into the language and habits of their
fathers, and cultivate their corn and hemp as their
ancestors did in the time of Charles XII. Since the
time of Peter the First the Livonian nobility have
always been patronised at the Court of Petersburgh.
Though speaking the language, and professing the
religion of Luther, they have nevertheless, since the
time of Gustavus Adolphus, been in a measure dis-
sociated from Germany, and have always looked
either to Sweden or to Russia for favour or employ-
ment. Not being in heart and soul entirely Ger-
man, they were not anti-Russian ; and not being
entirely Russian, they were untainted with that old
leaven of Moscow Muscovite discontent, so occasion-
ally formidable to the Emperor. It is, therefore, no
marvel that the Czars have more than encouraged
this plastic race in whatever career, whether of arms
or of diplomacy, to which they dedicate themselves.
The present Prime Minister of Russia was born in
1770, and is now in his 74th year. His earliest
studies were at the college of the Gerdes Nobles, at
Petersburgh. He did not, however, enter the military
service till after the death of Catherine. On the
accession of the Emperor Paul, who was partial
to his father, the young Nesselrode received an
officer's commission in the regiment of Guards, and
was immediately chosen one of the Emperor's
aides-de-camp. At the end of a few years, either dis-
liking the monotony or the unsettled wandering
nature of a soldier's life, he left the army to follow
the profession of his father—the career of diplomacy.
We are not aware whether Count Nesselrode accom-
panied the Russian army, commanded by Suwarrow,
in the expedition to Italy or Switzerland. We think
it probable that he did not; but that, aware from his
position of aid-de-camp that the first extravagant
hatred of the Czar, his master, against France and
her revolution had changed into a passionate admi-
ration for the great military genius who was conduct-
ing the French people from victory to victory, and a
desire to entertain intimate relations with him, he
concluded the peace about to be signed would he of
long duration, and that the career of diplomacy pre-
sented a fairer field to his ambition than the career of
arms. Be this as it may, no sooner was peace signed
than the young Nesselrode was dispatched to Paris
as an attache to the embassy of Marcow. He had
previously been employed at the Chancellerie of
Foreign Affairs at Petersburgh, and had not been
long in Paris before his diligence and spirit of
routine caused him to be appointed conseiller d'am-
bassade. In that day Russian ambassadors were fre- -
-quently remarkable for ignorance of diplomatic forms,
and though Marcow and Besborodkow had acquired
in Russia reputations for a certain species of clever-
ness, yet placed by the side of European statesmen,
they were not only pigmies in mind, but deficient in
education and the knowledge of the commonest rou-
tine. In this respect the defects of the chief of the
embassy were supplied by the conseiller d'ambassade,
and his knowledge of routine and business-like habits
were of the greatest use. Marcow soon fell under
the displeasure of the eccentric Emperor. lie was
recalled, fell into disgrace. and was. Be a matter of
course, banished, and by a refinement of cruelty
peculiarly Russian, the Czar would not allow the
tragic actress Hus, who had partaken of the ex-
Minister's good fortune, to share his sorrows and his
exile.
The conduct of the negotiations for bringing
about that armed neutrality of the northern Powers
which provoked the battle of Copenhagen, were en-
trusted to Nesselrode. But Paul, who had been
the soul of the coalition, did not live to witness the
appearance of the triumphant fleet of Nelson before
the mole of Cronstadt. His son Alexander succeeded,
and a complete change took place in the foreign
policy of Russia. The intimacy between Russia and
France suddenly cooled, and Nesselrode and the
whole of the Russian legation were speedily recalled
from Paris. On his return to Petersburgh he was
attached to the private chancellerie of the Emperor.
Alexander soon discovered in his secretary great
aptitude for labour, considerable acquired knowledge,
suppleness, intelligence, and a seriousness and gravity
which are often found more useful than more brilliant
qualities. In a word, he was a most useful instru-
ment, ready with thought, pen, or sword to obey the
will of an imperial master. Nesselrode accompanied
the Emperor in the campaign of 1805, and was pre-
sent at the interview at Erfurt in 1807. At this pe-
riod the Court, the Nobility, and the Russian nation,
were divided into three parties. The first, exclusively
Russian, was for rejecting the friendly advances of
Napoleon, without going
the length of open war.
At the head of this party was the Empress Mother.
The second party was called the Oriental party.
It aspired to the occupation of Constantinople, to the
enfranchisement of Greece, and to the extension
of the Russian frontiers towards Persia and India. At
the head of this party was Capo d'lstria, and Napo-
leon had shown himself partial to it at irfurt. The
third party was in some sort the work of Count Nes-
selrode, ,onangdm,i,thiwas
the struggle between these ideas
a
sort of juste milieu between both.
For a
continued, and Capo d'lstria, who to much grace of
manner and a ready eloquence, joined a mysticism
which pleased and gratified Alexander—himself a
s 1 rod el
pupil of Madame de Krudener, and, if report speak
truly, something more and dearer than a pupil—was
thought to be a favourite and in the rscendant till the
French armies passed the Niemen ; but then, and
from that epoch, the names of Nesselrode and Pozzo
di Borgo became more "Ramiliar in men's mouths,"
and it was plain that circumstances had given the
Livonian and the Corsican the vantage ground over
the Greek. Nesselrode now played the part which
Maret Duke de Bassano enacted with the " man of
destiny," for he treated directly, in the name of his
Sovereign, with the Plenipotentiaries of European
Cabinets. It was he who, at Rheichenbach, on the
15th of June, 1813, concluded with the Prince liar-
denberg and Baron de Stein the intimate alli-
ance between Pruissia and Russia. On the
same day he signed, with Lord Cathcart, the con-
vention between Russia and England, by which
we agreed to pay the Russian subsidies during the
first six months of 1813. But that which fixed him
in the favour of his master, and crowned his reputa-
tion in Russia was the negotiation which preceded
the alliance of Alexander and of Francis I. In the
negotiations which subsequently took place at Prague,
he but appeared asp enipotentiary for M. D'Anstell
(an Alsatian by birth, a French subject, and after-
wards Minister of Russia at Dresden), was invested
with plenary powers, but it was well-known that
Nesselrode possessed at this period the entire confi-
dence of Alexander, and really directed the negotia-
tions. During the years 1813 and 1814 he never
quitted the side of the Emperor Alexander, and to
him and to Pozzo di Borgo are, in Russia at least,
attributed the greatest portion of the successes of
those campaigns. But out of Russia it is well known
that the military science of Moreau, of Bernadotte,
and the veteran Dumouriez (who furnished the Eng-
lish and Russian Cabinets with many excellent
plans), were of more importance than the plodding
labours of any Livonian, or the cunning devices pf
any Corsican.
It was Nesselrode who, on the Ist of March, 1814,
signed the treaty of the quadruple alliance of Chau-
mont, which decided the fortunes of tbe empire. In
entering Paris the conduct of Alexander and his
Minister were marked by moderation and reserve.
At the Congress of Vienna it was this Minister who
held the diplotnatte pen of Russia. He lent a helping
hand to the creation of the Germanic Confederation,
demanded the partition of Poland, and the cession Of
Saxony to Prussia. To the credit of Talleyrand and
Castlereagh be it spoken, they stood up manfully for
Poland ; and that country was only united to Russia
by the link of her constitution—a constitution after-
wards shamefully violated, not by rebel subjects, but
by regal and imperial rebels to solemn sworn oaths
and imperious duties which they owed their subjects,
and which they violated and left, and leave to this
day, unfulfilled. On the 31st of December, 1814,
the Plenipotentiaries at Vienna, and Nesselrode
among the rest, signed the fatuous declaration which

placed Napoleon under the ban of Europe. It was
he, too, who after the battle of Waterloo, while the
Anglo-Russian army were under the walls of Paris,
sided with the Duke of Wellington in counselling mea-
sures of moderation and mercy, when Blucher and the
Prussians were calling out for plunder, and Austria was
throwing out dark hints of a partition, and intimating
how gladly she would resume possession of Alsace
with the three bishoprics—or Trineveckes, as they
were anciently called—of Metz, Toul, and Verdau.
Nor were the counsels of Nesselrode less humane, in
suggesting that a moderate contribution only should
be levied on the people of France. It is a mistake to
suppose that the Holy Alliance was a state inspira-
tion, proceeding from the brain of the Russian Prime
Minister, for the idea was altogether the conception
of the Emperor Alexander himself, whoso mystical
tendencies we have before alluded to. The tendency
of this Emperor's political views had been originally
Oriental, but the unsettled state of Europe induced
him to think that he had a mission to fill in Western
Europe, and he was accordingly present at the Con-
gresses of Troppau, Laybach, and Verona. Nesselrode
accompanied his sovereign on these occasions, and
daily rendered himself more useful to his imperial
master. The disgrace of Capo d'lstria, in 1821,
left him undisputably without a rival. From that
period he has alone remained charged with the di-
rection of the department of Foreign Affairs.
When the present Emperor ascended the throne, he
showed more than a disposition for the Oriental
system. Nesselrode pliantly yielded to the imperial
-volition; and by so doing probably preserved - his
place, The influence which he has since acquired
over the mind of the Emperor, notwithstanding his
advancing age and feeble health, he owes, in a great
degree, to his experience and knowledge of affairs, to
his passionless and persevering character, but in the
greatest degree of all, to his being the faithful inter-
preter, the systematic transcriber, of the mandates of
the royal will. To compare great things with small,
that which Murat was to Napoleon has Nesselrode
been to Alexander, and is to Nicholas. The name
of Nesselrode is certainly mixed up in all the
great diplomatic transactions of the last quarter
of a century; but it is mixed up as a mere name
—a long one, certainly, consisting of no less than
ten letters—but after all but a name, without a
system—without a spirit to vivify it—without a
device, or a motto, or a free independent thought
belonging to it. The names of Chatham and Pitt,
and Fox, and Canning, and Grey, represent
great principles ; the names of Thagut and Kaunitz,
Metternich and Hardenberg, and Stein and
Stadion, represent large, continuous, and consis-
tent systems, well followed out from generation to
generation ; the names of Danton, Marat, Robes-
pierre, Legendre, and Lebeau, represent the fearful
and ferocious energy of revolutionists, as the names
of Thurgot, Necker, Chaptal, Carnot, and Moreau
represent sects and systems and schools; but what
does the name of Nesselrode represent but the fiat of
a czar, the whole amount of the wisdom and reason of
which is summed up in four words, stet pro ratione
voluntas
We hear much, from the ignorant and unintiated,
of the great address of the Russian diplomatists, and
of the successful issue of their negotiations. The ad-
dress is little more, after all, than cunning and deceit,
which often in the long run overshoot the mark ; and
the successes, such as they are, are attributable, not
to the talents or genius of the negotiators, but to
the knowledge that they were always supported by
a large force, by a command unlimited of money, by
the most unprincipled means, and by unblushing
perfidy. We have only to look to the treaties made
in the reign of Alexander, to see how easily and
readily he could give up the claims of an ally when-
ever his own private interests and that of his own
kingdom merely were at stake.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs in Russia is the
mere automaton—the plenipo puppet in the hands of
an Imperial Autocrat—unless under some extraordi-
nary conjuncture of circumstances. Such a conjunc-
ture has not arisen in the time of Nesselrode; and it
is, therefore, impossible to say what he might have
been if left to himself, or had he been placed in cir-
cumstances of urgency, with unlimited power. But
viewing him as he actually is, we can only say that
he is a well-trained, moderately well. informed, cool,
calm judging, passionless man, of 74, who implicitly
obeys the commands of his master. There are hun-
dreds of thousands of such men in England, France,
Germany, Spain, and Portugal ; and to such common-
place characters we cannot accord the high rank of
statesmen—neither can we place them in the foremost
rank, nor even in the second or third classes of re-
table politicians.—Chronicle.

Dm,
Edward Barnard, Esq., F.R.S.
Robert Brooks, Esq.

Gideon Colquhoun, Esq.
Charles E. Mangles, Esq.
Richard Onslow, Esq.
William Walker, Esq.
yard Ryley, Esq.
lie premiums charged by this Com-

Henry Buckle, Esq
John Henry Capper, Esq
SEcarrea3r—Ed`
The following are specimens' of t
pany for the assurance of 1001.
Age. I 2O I 30 I 40 I 50 60

NATIONAL LOAN FUND LIFE ASSUR-
ANCE SOCIETY,
26, CORNHILL, LONDON.
Capital X. 500,000.
:Empowered by Act of Parliament.
DIVISION OF PROFITS.
The steady success and increasing prosperity of the Society has
enabled the Directors, at the last annual investigation, to declare a
second Bonus, averaging GO per cent. on the amounts invested on each
Policy effected on the Profit scale.
EXAMPLES.

An. Prem. £1 10 3 I a 62 0 7 £2 15 3 £4 1s I .£9 3 9

This Company offers the advantages of the guarantee of an ample
subscribed capital--of permission to retain one-third of the premium
in their own hands (the portion so retained, with interest upon it,
being deducted from the policy when it become a claim),—of ascend-
ing, descending, and other scales of premiums,—aud of participation
in the profits at the end of every five years.
TO EMIGRANTS, TO THE AUSTRALASIA' COLONIES,
assured for the whole of life, this Company offer the permission to
proceed to, and reside in, any of those colonies without extra pre-
mium, and to pay their premiums there. For residence in New
Zealand, a moderate extra premium is charged.
In Sydney, a Board of Directors, and Agents in all tke principal
settlements—Bankers in the colony. The Bank of Australasia (in.
corporate' by Royal Charter, 1835), No. 2, Moorgate-street, London.
ANNUITIES.
Annuitants participate in the profits of the Company, and receive a
rate of annuity much more favourable than can be granted by any
Company making its investments wholly in England. The Company
is enabled securely to grant these favourable terms from the advan-
tage it possesses of investing a portion of its funds at a high rate
of interest

c7is 04'
gPremium. Bonus Bonus In ca
5 added. Cash. FE," • rag
.£ Xs d. Xs,d.£e.d.£s. d. X s. ds
1837 170 9 3 77 5 1 12 3 9 346 2 3
1000 74 3 4 , 1838 144 2 2 64 5 6 9 16 4 296 13 4
11839 116 16 0 51 6 H 711 9 247 4 3

The division of profits is annual, and the next will be made in De-
cember of the present year.
This institution offers malty important and substantial advan-
tages with respect both to Life Assurances and Deferred Annuities.
The assured has, on all OCCASIG43, the power to borrow, without ex-
pense or forfeiture of the Policy, two-thirds of the premium paid,
(see table) ; also the option of selecting benefits, and the conversion
of his interests to meet other conveniences or necessity. Assurances
for terms of years are granted on the lowest possible rates.
F. FERGUSON CAMROUX, Sec.

INDIA.
Tables of Premiums for Assurances on the lives of officers engaged
in civil, or in naval or military service in the East Indies mad China,
may be seen at the Offices of the Company.
♦GENTS IN INDIA.
Calcutta Messrs. Boyd, Beeby, and Co.
Madras
Bombay Messrs. Skinner and Co.
Ceylon
Prospectuses and full particulars may be had at the Offices of the
Company, No. 126, Blshopsgate-street, corner of Cornhill.

DISEASED AND HEALTHY
ASSURED.

MEDICAL, INVALID, and GENERAL LIFE
OFFICE, 25, PALL-MALL, LONDON.

TRUSTEES.
Charles Hopkinson, Esq., Regent.street.
Sir Thomas Phillips, Temple.
Alfred Waddilove, D.C.L., Doctors' Commons.'

DIRECTORS.

Edward Doubleday, Esq., 249,
Great Surrey-street.
George Gun Hay, Esq., 127,
Sloane street.
J. Parkinson, Esq., F.R.S., SO,
Cambridge-terrace, Hyde-park,
Benjamin Phillips, Esq., F.R.S.,
17, Wimpole-street.

C. Richardson, Esq., 19, Brit-
ton.street, Berkeley-square.
Thomas Stevenson,Esq., F. S. A.,
37, Upper Grosvenor-street.
Robert Bentley Todd, M.D.,
F.R.S., 26,Parliamontatreet.
Alfred Waddilove, D.C. L. ,
Doctors' Commons.

_
AUDI'
John Pursord, Esq., 7, York- I
terrace, Regent's-park.
Joseph Radford, Esq., 97, I
Cambridge-term., Hyde.
park.

[TORS.
I S.

Stirling- Taylor, Esq
14, Upper Gloucester-place,
Dorset.square.
Martial L. Welch, Esq.. Wynd-
I ham-place Bryanston-square.
STANDINQ COUNSEL--JOhti Shapter, ESQ., Lincoln's Inn.
BaNlCEßS—Messrs. C. Hopkinson and Co., Regent-street.
SOLICITORs—Meosrs. Richardson and Smith, 2g, Golden-square.
DEPARTMENT OP MEDICAL STATISTICS—WiIIiam Farr, Esq.,
General Register Office.
ACTUARY—F. G. P. Nelson, Esq.

This Office is provided with very accurately constructed tables,
by which it can assure unsound lives on equitable terms.
Similar tables enable the Society to grant increased annuities on
unsound lives, the amount varying with the particular disease.
Members of consumptive families assured at equitable rates.
Healthy lives are assured on lower terms than at most other
offices.
The first Life Assurance Society eommenced business in 1705,
and the principles of life contingencies, understood at that time to
a very limited extent only, have repeatedly undergone important
changes and improvements; but till the establishment of this So-
ciety in 1841 no attempt had ever been made to assure the lives of
_ _ ..

persons who suffer from disease.
The science of statistics has only within a recent period been
successfully applied to the duration and mortality of disease, and
hence tables on the probability of these results could not have been
formed ; and it would evidently have been unsafe and hazardous
for any society to have undertaken the risk of assuring the lives of
persons afflicted with any particular malady. The statistical in.
formation, however, rrow collected, and in possession of this office,
is of so great an extent as fully to warrant the extension of life
assurance to such cases, and, in fact, to place the application of life
assurance on diseased lives on a more secure basis than even that

on healthy lives.
It is hoped that while kept clearly in view that this Society, in
common with other offices, will assure the lives of healthy persons,
it is as yet the only one established to assure the lives of persons
labouring under disease; and to this latter feature particular atten.

tion is directed.
In the first place, because it opens a larger field for business than
all other offices can have unitedly ; and in the
Second place, because that branch of assurance must, from Its
own nature, be less hazardous, and its principles rest on a more

permanent foundation.
These are two highly important facts, mad we shall enter into an
explanation of each ; and first, as to the prevalence of disease.
The period of life most important to an assurance of is that be-
tween 15-60 years of age, and is the following remarks we refer

exclusively to this period of life.
It will be found that the deaths in the metropolis for the two
years preceding 1842 were, from all causes, 30,518 ; and from
consumption alone, 10,688 ; showing that mere than one-third of
the total deaths in that period of life takes place from the preva-
lence of a single disease; and if the same inquiry were instituted
with respect to other diseases, such as asthma, dropsy, diseases of
the head, heart, &c., it would be found that more than one-half
of the whole population would, on medical examination, be refused
admission into an assurance office. If the inquiry be carried to
the principal towns in England, like facts are elicited—in Bir-
mingham, Liverpool and Manchester, the deaths from all causes,
per annum, are about 5,023, while those from consumption are
1,988, forming considerably more than one-third of the whole. The
same thing will be found to hold good in the large towns in Scot-
land, in six of which the deaths in a given period, from all causes,
amounted to 23,078, those from consumption alone to 6,359, and
from six important diseases, 9,754 ; in the latter case forming more
than 42 per cent. of the deaths from all causes. On reference to
the returns from the city of Glasgow for 1836-1840 It will be
found that the deaths in that period, from all causes, were 14,107,
from consumption 4,087, and a list of five diseases, 6,423, being
more than 45 per cent. of the deaths from all causes.
The diseases here alluded to are such as exist in general in a
chronic form, frequently for many years prior to death, but which,
on a strict medical examination, would effectually exclude the
persons so affected from the benefits of life assurance ; and since
it thus appears that a majority of the population is included in this
class, the value and importance of the new feature of this society
cannot fail to be justly appreciated.
The second point to be explained is the fact that there is
much less risk in assuring diseased lives. This is a feature of
paramount and vital importance to the interests of this society, and
deserves to be carefully considered.
The real risk incurred in all assurance transactions consists in
the chance to which an office is liable of experiencing a different
degree of mortality from that expected by the tabjes on which its
osculations are founded. This difference is termed the fluctuation
of mortality, and will be found to be much less among diseased
lives than over the general population, and among selected lives.
The deaths from consumption in the metropolis per annum are
sufficienily near the annual number which takes place in Glasgow,
from all causes, to admit of a comparison, and by reducing the
matter to figures it is found that while the fluctuation per annum
in the latter case is as high as 45 per cent., In the former it is only
9 per cent., or, in ether words, the fluctuation of mortality in
consumption was only one-fifth of the other ; and in Manchester,
Liverpool, and Birmingham, even with the disadvantage of
smaller numbers, the fluctuation does not exceed 3 per cent.,
showing a remarkable uniformity in the law which determines the
mortality of this disease, and that it is more positive and absolute
in its results than that which regulates the general population.
Consumption has here been selected, not because it was consi.
dered more favourable in its results, but simply on account of the
larger numbers affording a more satisfactory proof of the question
under consideration; but the same test has been app.ied to a great
number of other diseases, and like results obtained. Among nine
diseases in the metropolis, including asthma, dropsy, rheumatism,
disease of the liver, of the heart, of the nervous system, &c., the
fluctuation was only 71 per cent., and in five diseases in a different
district the fluctuation was about 7 per cent., while among eleven
in another locality, and even with small numbers, the fluctuation
did not exceed 6.2 per cent. ; and taking the principal towns in
England, including Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds,
Sheffield, &c., the fluctuation over eleven of the more important
diseases was 6,4 per cent.
The remarkable uniformity in these results cannot fail to pro.
duce a conviction of the positive character of the law of mortality
in disease ; indeed, there seems to be nothing within the whole
range of the doctrine of probabilities so well defined as the mor-
tality of diseased lives. The mortality of the general population
has frequently been referred to by writers as an example of the cer-
tainty of common events, but the preceding remarks must show with
how much greater certainty the mortality of diseased live. can be
depended on.
It is perhaps right to state, that, in applying the test of
fluctuation to disease, it has not been confined to one place or
class of lives, but has been extended to the principal towns in
England and Scotland, as well as to niany rural districts in Eng-
land, and included the experience • one or two large societies of
select lives. This has afforded an opportunity of judging of the
effects of locality and its sanatory condition on the duration of
life, and a remarkable fact has thus been developed, viz.,
that the value of life generally is much greater in the coun-
try districts than in large cities; but that of these persons
who suffer from disease the value of life Is nearly the same. As
an example of this—the expectation at the age of 30 in the country
districts is 36.7 years; in cities (viz., Glasgow) 27.6 years—diffe-
rence 33 per cent. nearly; but take the case of persons of that
age in whom the consumptive tendency is developed, and who will
ultimately die of consumption, and their expectation of life in the
counties of Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk, will be found to be 14'5,
in cities (Glasgow) 14.4, and in the metropolis, Manchester, Bir-
mingham, 13'9 ; difference •017 per cent. (or 1.57 per cent.) It
therefore appears that while the difference between country and
town life in the former case is about 33 per cent., that in the latter
instance (consumption) the difference is almost nothing, and the
results nearly uniform. The same thing holds good with some
ether diseases, which have been investigated in this manner. This
fact, although not generally understood, is only what might have
been expected by a careful consideration of the conclusion formerly
arrived at—that the fluctuation of the law of mortality in disease
is confined within a very narrow limit, and consequently little in-
fluenced by external circumstances.
It hence appears that the fluctuation in the mortality of diseased
lives is much less than *along select lives and the population gene-
rally, and therefore the risk of assuring diseased lives must also be

less.
To apply this conclusion to the affairs of an assurance e.ffice, it
nay be stated, that supposing the number of lives in a society,
taking only select lives, was such that the table of mortality would
indicate 100 deaths per annum, it would be necessary to have
always sufficient funds at immediate command to meet 145 deaths ;
on the other hand, an office assuring only diseased livid need not
provide for more than 109 deaths per annum; that is to say, the
risk of assuring diseased lives is to that of average lives as 9 to 45,
or only one.fifth. This fact is highly important to the interests of
this Society, and establishes beyond doubt the safety and correetness
of the principles on which it is founded.
For further information, reference is made to the prospectuses
and othee published documents of the Society, which may be 01)-
tinned_ on applioation at the Society's offices.
P. G. P, WEISON. 4.ctuary,