Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-10-13


Your widows may be rich when you're forgotten
A company was formed, with paper capital
of G2,000, 900 to insure horses, whereupon this
squib followed:
.1osthat keep horses to preserve your ease,
And pads to please your wives and mstresses,
Insure their lives and if they die Wen make
Full satisfaction or be bound to heak"
pertinacous were the agents who solicited
custom for these companies that an outraged
postmaster of the day complains
"By fire and life insurers next
Pm intercepted, pestered, yexed
Almost beyond endurance;
And though the schemes appear qnsound,
Their advocates are seldom found
Deficient in assurance
Among the numerous bubble companies
were the following, whose titles seem even to
our speculative generation sufficiently absurd.
A company for insuring and increasing chill
dren's fortunes.
An insurance Office for horses dying natural
deaths stolen, or disabled, Crown Tavern,
Smithfield.
VIM. Helmes, Exchange Alley, Assurance
of Female Chastity.
Insurance from housebreakers.
Insurance from highwaymen.
Assurance from lying.
Plummer & Petty's Insurance from death
by drinking Geneva.
Rum insurance.
But the worst was not yet In a few years
were openly laid on the lives of all pYbIc men.
When George ii, fought at Dettingen, Is per
cent. was paid against his safe return. When
in l745 the Pretender was defeated, thousands
of pounds were laid upon his capture, his
DEATH and even his whereabouts When Lord
Nithsdale escaped from the tower, by his wife
taking his place, the wretches who had peried
money on his life, and to whom his impending
execution would have been a profit, were
noisy in their complaints and eXecrations.
But no sooner was 1t known that he was really
free, than they turned about and wagered
upon his reeapture. Sir Robert Walpole's life
was insured for many thousands, and at peri
DDS of political excitement when his person
seemed in danger the odds were proportonate-
ly enlarged by the SPECTATORS When Wilkes
was committed to the tower, policies were
granted at 10 per cent. that he would remain
there a specified time. King George, when he
was ill, and Lord North, when he was unpopu-
lar, were both good objects on the brokers'
schedules. When Minorca was lost, and the
Duke of Newcastle began "to tremble for his
place. and the only thing which was dearer to
him than his pace-his neck" there were
plenty to open policies on his life. assurances
were made on the life of the Regent Of Or
leans; and. when he was succeeded by Louis
NV, they insured not his life indeed but the
continuance Of his mistress i'll the royal favor
Lord March made wager with young Mr.
Pigot," that Sir VIM. Codrington would die
before old Mr.. Pigot; but as the latter hap
pened to be dead when the wager was made,
the profigate son refused to pay. Whereupon
Lord March compelled him by process Of law
To such a degree was public sentiment per-
verted by this iniquitous betting that the
London Chronicle, the eminently respectable
paper of its day, remarks i'll l76S, in what
would now be called its money article:
"Hhe introduction and amazing progress of
Illicit UominU ot lows pOffpp- hnuSn ic q
others, a powerful and very melancholy proof
of the degeneracy of the times. Though
gaming in any degree is perverting the orgi-
nal and useful design of that coffee-house, it
may be in some measure excusable to specu-
late on the following subjects Mr.. Wilkes
being elected member for London which was
done from 5 to so gIineas per cent Mr.
Wilkes being elected members from Middlesex,
from 20 to 70 guineas per cent. Alderman
Bonds life for one year, now doing at per
cent. On John Wilkes life for one year; now
doing at per cent. N. B.-Wauanted to
remain in prison during that period On a
declaration of war with France or Spain in one
year, guineas per cent But when politics
come to be opened on two of the first peers in
Britain losing their heads, at los Cd. per cent.
or on the dissolution of the present Parliament
within one year, at guineas per cent, which
are now actually doing, and underwriting
chiefly by Scotsmen, it is surely time to inter-
tere."
Ministers were not above specializing on
their private advices it was a well known
fact that certain ambassador insured 100000
on Minorca when he had in his pocket at the
time news that it was taken. A common sub
ject for insurance was the duration of the lives
of persons believed to be on their death-beds.
The leading newspaper in 177l was obliged to
announce, "from the most undoubted authori-
ity, that the Princess Dowager Of Wales, be-
l.. o., s., Inpn urn
entirely false such reports being only calcu-