The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-04-03 00:00:00

assurer a
tice of th,

any untrue averment

ed as to subve

•ed was.

nit
the
the exec
feit ure

,ortanee to adopt the rule

rnient as to age, there shall be no for-
•ments be fradulent as well as untrue.
ust and reasonable construction of the

Of the Deed f.

lon, the directors would have governed
But according to a principle already
sound course to be that the security of
lerived, not from their discretion, but
~Deed of Constitution. This is the full
nciple of indefeasibility can safely be
ie maintained by some that the policy

carried, for. t

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Ten if fraud did (
sons which are too c
st reasons for defem

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perpetrated would prof
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rate'information can be
encouragement should t

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the correction of innoce

ors by the am

also been thought advise
ca es, and to modify it it
die b frinfaitui:e has

131 e to
n a third

:nnul the rule in two specific

been the result if the assured should

tabled by Assurance Companies that it was their auty-rxrattc.,
a kind of Moral police, and partly from the actual danger of
loss accruing from the state of the law and the unhappy usages
of society. A sanguinary code of laws multiplied capital
punishments, and a false idea of honour had rendered the
practice of duelling of too common occurrence. But capital
punishments have, partly by the alteration of the laws, and
partly by public opinion operatingthreugh the verdicts ofjuries,
ceased to exist, except in cases of deliberate murder. Duelling
is now almost extinct, and in the few instances where it does oc-
cur the results are so seldom fatal, tnat, as a cause of death, it
is so minute as to be inappreciable. No countenance can justly
be held to be given to the practice by abrogating the for-
feiture; and the true tone which Assurance Companies should
now adopt is to regard duelling as an evil, the immediate ces-
sation of which, it may be safely assumed, will be accomplished
by the joint influence of principle and of the improved habits
of society. _ _

W bile These forfeitures have been abrogated, another has been
modified, as involving matter of difficulty. According to a strict
view, suicide should be a cause of forfeiture only where it has
been committed with the intention of defrauding the assurers.
But the extreme difficulty of obtaining proof that such was the
object, has rendered it necessary to adopt a broaderrule, which
has varied in the regulations of different Assurance Societies.
In some there is a forfeiture if the party assured die by his
own hand, although the act would not amount to fel() de se;
while, in others, it was provided that lie must be held felo de
se, and, therefore, of sound mind. The former rule is ad-
verse to every dictate of justice and sound feeling. For, if
the suicide be insane, although his hand be the instrument,
his malady is the true cause of death, as much as if he died
through cholera or fever. In accordance with this view the
rule has been so modified as that there shall be no forfeiture
unless the deceased was of same mind, or, in other words, wil-
fully and deliberately took away his life. In thus modifying
the forfeiture, the loss by suicide will he hardly appreciable.
From statistics which have been furnished to your directors.
by high medical authority, it appeals that the deaths by suicide
amongst the members of the community whose habits of mind
would lead •them to assure are so very few that a calculation of
loss would be practicably unattainable.
Where the policy has been assigned for onerous cases, it is
proposed that. there shall be no forfeiture, as far as regards the
interests of such onerous holders, by the failure of the life of
the Assured by suicide. No argument is necessary to estab-
lish the propriety of th;s alteration, whether with regard to
justice to the Policy-holders, or with a view to the commercial
value of the Policies.
This Report, with the relative States and the Report by the
Auditors, having been read by the Manager,
ROBERT CHALMERS, Esq., Publisher, submitted the fol-
lowing Motion:—
"The Meeting approve of the Report now read; and further
approve of the alterations on the Deed of Constitution and
Laws and Regulations submitted by the Directors, and adopt
the Laws and Regulations so altered as the Laws and Regula-