The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-01-18 00:00:00

NORWICH UNION FIRE OFFICE

On Tuesday last, the 11th instant, the annual general
meeting of the proprietors of this noble institution was held
at the Office, in Surrey-street, Norwich, pursuant to public
advertisement. Rumour had heralded that the Society's
financial affairs were in a highly prosperous condition, and
that the report of the Directors would be of a most gratifying
nature. By twelve o'clock (the appointed hour of meeting)
the board-room was nearly full, and soon after the Directors
and Officers of the Society entered. We observed amongst
the persons present on the occasion, the worthy President,
E. T. Booth, Esq., the Vice-President, Lieut.-Colonel
Harvey, Major-General Sir R. J. Harvey, C. 8., Re-
corder Jenny, of Stanfield-hall, George Morse, Esq., of
Catton-park, William Herring, Esq., of Flethersett, Anthony
Hudson, Esq., Charles Evans, Esq., Barrister-at-Law. Dr.
Evans, William M. Seppings, Esq., Edward Stewart, Esq.,
and the Secretaries, A. Taylor and Samuel Bignold, Esqrs.,
besides a numerous and highly influential proprietary.
The President having taken the Chair, called upon the Se-
cretary, Samuel Bignold, Esq., to read the advertisement
from the London Gazette convening the meeting, and the
classes of the Deed of Settlement, pointing out the object
for which the proprietors were assembled, viz., " to receive
the report of the Board of Directors." This report consisted
of the usual annual account of the income and expenditure of
the office, and the cash accounts showing the amount of the
capital in hand, and the nature and quality of the invest-
ments. These preliminaries having been gone through, the
President, Mr. Booth, rose and spoke as follows :—He ob-
served that the customary duty devolved upon him of sub-
mitting to them the report of the Directors on the results of
the Society's transactions for the twelve months commencing
at Michaelmas, 1840, and ending at Michaelmas, 1841, and
on the present state and prospects of the Society ; and a most
gratifying duty it was which he had to perform, for there was
probably no parallel in the country to the high prosperity,
and the well-deserved reputation, of this great institution.
The principal features of the year consisted in a steady in-
crease of the Society's business, the annual premiums
amounting to £78,794—a great diminution in the sum paid
out for losses by fire—a reduction in the Office expenses
—and the closing and exhilarating fact of a net profit
of £27,400 on the year's business. (Hear, hear, hear.)
He had to state that the Directors had determined to appro-
priate this sum, which, according to the provisions of the
Deed ot Settlement, belonged to the insurers and to the pro.
prirtors in defined proportions, viz., three-fifths or £16,440.
to the former, and two-fifths or £10,960. to the latter. The
important sum this year's business had thus realised for the
insurers, added to former accumulations, would enable the
Directors to make an immediate return of 1:15. per Cent-on
£309,328. 17s. 6d., being the amount of the premiums recei-
ved by the Society from September, 1837, to September, 1841.
This per tentage would be paid to every insurer, without ex-
ception, whether his policy had been in existence the whole
period or for only a single year, or even but for three months;
an advantage, he believed, not afforded by any other society
whatever. This return would cause a distribution among the
the parties insured of £4u.395. in the next four quarters.
(Hear, hear.) He would now advert to the situation of the
proprietary, would be this, a moiety of there gains this year,
or £5480. would he added to their reserve fund, which would
thus be augmented to £57,305., and the tit her moiety, with
the balance of interest on the capital. would, be available for
the annual dividend on the shares, which he had the pleasure
to announce would be £l2t. per Cent., or £3. 153. per share,
causing an immediate distribution amongst the proprietors of
£8,250. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Booth then announced that the
dividend to the proprietors would he payable at the East of
England Bank on and after the 24th inst., and added, that
if any proprietor then present desired information on the ac-
counts or affairs of the Society, it would be immediately
given.

Joseph Stannard, Esq. wished to know whether incendi-
ary fires had increased or diminished in the last sear.

Samuel Bignold, Esq. replied that the losses from this cause
were less in the year just closed than had been experienced in
any year since that of 1830 to 1831.
Mr. Stannard would ask one other question. Had the
great business of this Society on farming insurance been kept
up or fallen off? He asked because of the great advertising
of an office styled " The Farmers' Office."

Mr. Bignold had much pleasure in informing the worthy
proprietor that our great connection with the farming inter-
est had not in the least suffered from the competition he al-
luded to. The Norwich Union Office had now for 50 years
been the favourite office with the great body of British agri-
culturists, and the aggregate insurance effected with this
office by that class amounted to £9,532,000, which was about
one.fifth of all the insurances effected in the country by the
other 44 offices collectively. He also added that the sum in-
sured was greater in the last than in any previous year,
This important statement produced a feeling of general sa-
tisfaction throughout the meeting; and no other proprietor
rising, the secretary, Mr. Samuel Bignold, spoke as follows :
He said,

I hope I may be allowed to offer my congratulations to the
numerous and opulent proprietary and to the hundred thou-
sand insurers in this great and prosperous office on the
splendid results which have attended its operations, not only
on the year which has this day been the subject of our annual
report, but on the last eight years. The year just closed has
been, it is true, a most successful year, but it has been only
one of a series of successful years, for which the profits in
1841 amount to £27,400: the profits of the previous seven
years are £168,000, besides leaving a clear balance in hand
of £6124, thus yielding an average on eight consecutive
years of upwards of £25,000 per annum. (Hear, hear.)
I am persuaded that no office can compete with ours in so
auspicious a balance sheet. It has been achieved by great
watchfulness and caution on the part of the numerous active
agents of the office, well stationed over the whole kingdom,
and by the prompt, liberal, and honourable settlement of
every just claim. The great and increasing business of the
office sufficiently attests the truth of this remark ; for, whilst
in 1834 its total amount of insurance was below fifty millions,
the present aggregate sum insured is .Z37,846A9, and its
course is still onwards, the last year's increase in every class
of business, commercial, trading, and agricultural, being
greater than that of the previous year. All this prosperity
has been attained without any adventitious aid whatever, if
(added Mr. Bignold) I except the friendly co-operation and
interest taken by a concern, which, though it is entirely
separate from this office in every way, yet does influence
many insurances to this society—l allude to the Norwich
Union Life Insurance Society, which, through its many
thousand insurers and its numerous mortgagers, yields much
connexion and support to the fire-office. I trust the same
friendly spirit which has always prevailed between the two
institutions will continue. I know of no cloud to obscure
the sunshine which now beams so effulgently on Loth socie-
ties ; and I can only say, so long as prosperity such as we
are reposing under continues to attend us, we may afford to
one deadly foe the full vent to his malice ; for myself, having
through a large portion of my life conferred favours on that
individual, I can only feel that contempt for him which in-
gratitude like his must ever give rise to.

The Rev. J. P. Chambers-, of Heidenham, rose to perform
an agreeable duty, though from his little connection with
public affairs he should be brief in what he had to say. The
position of this office appeared to him to be one of great
and signal prosperity, and every person he thought must feel
proud of having so great an establishment here. It could
only have been brought to its present eminence by great di-
ligence and active superintendence, and seeing so many of
the directors present, he should avail himself of the oppor-
tunity of tendering them, and the active officers of the
society, the cordial thanks of the proprietors for their wise
and judicious management of the society's affairs, from
such profitable results to the public at large, and to this
propritary, had ensued. (Hear, hear.)
Joseph Stannard, Esq., had much pleasure in second-
ing a proposition which so entirely recommended itself to
the meeting.

The proprietors then separated, every one evincing his
perfect satisfaction at the proceedings of the day.

By taking revenge a man is not even with his enemy ; but
in passing it over he is his superior.

A man cannot call in a better physician than himself, if he
will take all the good advice he gives away to others.

Many are asking, " How can the people most appropri-
ately honour the infant Prince of `Vales?" 1 answer, and
who can gainsay ? " By founding a Royal Asylum for the
poor factory cripples !" True, they have not been wounded
in the outside battles of their country, but they have been
wounded in the civil wars of capital! Their strength has
been wasted, their limbs have been torn, or crippled, or lost,
in the strife of the leaguers—the strife of money-getting.
The Standard truly says of these child-tormentors, " Their
money is their country :" and Burke remarked of such like
men, "Their ledger is their Bible, their counting-house is
their church, and their money is their God."—Fleet Papers.
Cuntous QUESTION.—M. Delahaye, Inspector-General
of the assurance company La Secnrite, resigned his situation,
•and brought against M. D' aici

esprez, the director of the
company, a demand of 701 f. 28c. for arrears of salary.
latter gentleman offered to pay this sum, but Delahaye. -
re-
fused to give up to the company the papers and letters which
had come into his possession whilst in office. His advocate
maintained that in principle the correspondence belonged to
the party who had received it ; that if a ministerial circular
had decided otherwise with respect to a certain class of offi-
cers, that decision could have no influence whatever upon
private interests, and that it was the interest of his client to
retain the letters (all of which bore testimony to the able
manner in which he had discharged his duties) in order that
he might thereby be furnished with some means of defence
against the imputations alleged against him by the company.
In spite of the efforts made by the opposite counsel, the tri-
bunal rejected the demand of M. Desprez for the restitution
of the letters and correspondence, and ordered him to pay
the amount claimed as well as the costs of the trial.—Paris
Paper.

UNITE t)

The royal mail steamer Columbia arrived at this port on
Saturday morning last, having made the passage from Boston
in 13 days and 18 hours. She brings New York papers to the
31st ult., Halifax to the :Id, and Boston to the Ist instant,
In the proceedings in Congress, on the 22d ult., a member
of the senate presented a memorial from an insurance com-
pany at New Orleans, which set forth the loss the company
had sustained through the liberation by the British authorities
of Nassau, New Providence, of ZS slaves, which were insured
against rapture or seizure by the British government. After
considerable discussion, the memorial was rererred to the
Committee on Foreign Relations. .

On the 29th. 11,1r.' Clay, in pursuance of a notice be had
given, laid before the senate three joint resolutions proposing
certain amendments to the constitution of the United States.
The first of the resolutions proposes to amend the constitu-
tion by restricting the veto power. The second proposes to
amend the constitution by vesting in congress the appoint-
ment of the secretary of the treasury and the treasurer of the
United States. The third resolution proposes to amend the
constitution by prohibiting the appointment to office of any
member of Congress during the term for which he was
elected. Each resolution has in view the same object—the
curtailment of executive power and influence, and the reduc-
tion of that power and that influence within safe and proper
limits. A long debate followed, the conclusion of which had
not been received at New York on the 21st ult.

On the 27th ult., in the senate, the following resolution
was carried ; _ .

" Resolved,—That the President he requested to inform
the Senate, if in his opinion it may be done without detriment
to the public interest, whether any proposition has been made
to or received from the British Government since the 4th of
March, Ifd 10, relative to a mutual right of search ; and, if so,
to lay before the Senate all such correspondence, together
with any instructions that may have been given since that
time by this Government to our Minister at England, re-
lating to that object."
On the same day a bill was brought in, and read twice,
for the postponement of the operation of the bankrupt law
until the Ist July.

The Secretarirof the Treasury had submitted to Congress
his report, describing the President's plan for a new national
currency, and for a final adjustment of that question. The
report occupies a whole page in the New York papers. The
plan which it embodies proposes the establishment of a Go-
vernment Bureau with agencies—first, possessing the power
to issue 15,000,000 dollars of Treasury notes, from 5 dollars
to 1000 dollars, redeemable in specie at the point of issue,
and receivable for revenue everywhere ; second, authority to
issue certificates of deposits made in specie, redeemable in
the like way as the Treasury notes ; and third, power to buy
and sell domestic bills of exchange at certain stipulated rates,
and within appointed times and distances.
The British ship of v;ar Illustrious, 74, Captain Erskine,
arrived on the 30th December, from Porstmouth (England),
whence she sailed on the 16th November, having on board
Sir Charles Begot, the new governs-general of British
North America. She is said to be the first English line-of-
battle ship that has visited the port of New York since the
revolution. On her arrival at quarantine, the British consul,
Mr. Buchanan, proceeded thither in the steam-boat Frances,
for the purpose of bringing his excellency up to the city, but
on account of the storm he decided to remain on board the
ship until the following day. A suite of apartments had
been taken for him at the Globe Hotel. It was understood
he would leave for Canada on the following Monday. The
Illustrious, would not come up to the city, as she was to take
her departure in a few days.
A justice named Wiley had been convicted of having been
connected with thieves and bank robbers, for whom he had
negociated rewards on the restoration of their plunder !

The judges of the courts at Philadelphia, to whom the
grand jury had made a presentment against Nicholas Biddle
and others, on the alleged ground of their having defrauded
the Bank of the United States, had unanimously decided
against entertaining the subject. It was rumoured that the
officers of the bank would be indicted in some way.