, 1866-04-20

pay q part of the loss which your
family may sustain by your death, and in
Stock Insurance it will remunerate you
for the death of your horse or COW, and,
for aught we know, of your cat and your
dog. Companies are formed for i~nsuring
against damage by any of these various
happenings.
What is insurance? 1t seems to be
the offer by society, for a certain sum
paid by you annually or in hand, to take
upon itself the risk and burden of some
of your misfortunes. If fire or accidents
happen to you, being insured, the shock
is taken from you, pecuniarily, and dis
tributed over the whole mass of your fell
low insurers. 1t is therefore said to be a
benevolent, or at least a beneficient insti-
tuition. 1t is also considered, in some re-
Spects, q money-making thing to the in
sured. Why, sir" said an eloquent
agent of q Life Insurance Company to us
the other day, eff I should take a thou
sand dollar package from my pocket and
say to you, Il will exchange this for two
hundred and fifty dollars you would
have no hesitation in accepting my offer.
Yet this is substantially what intend to
do i'll offering you a policy in the Com
pany."
Insurance purportlng to be mainly a
system for equaliZing and distributing
losses, it has been sometimes a mystery
to us why rich men are so fond of figur-
ing in il, and why the Insurance Compa-
MES are so eager and competitive in their
efforts to diffuse their benevolent protec-
ton. We are somewhat enlightened on
this point by the recent report Of the
Insurance Commissioners of MaSsachu-
sets, who while recommending the syS-
tenn of Life Insurance show that 'EOf q
little over thirteen millions of dollars
Ohe past year,, about two millions and
a quarter of cash has gone to pay for the
working Of the apparatus" SO that in
surance as now practiced is something's
more than purely a p~hiIanthropic enter
prise.
Notwithstanding, however, the merce-
nary elements in it, insurance is obvious
ly a good thing. 1t is an invention look
ing towards social combination, and eve
ny step Of its extension is an argument
for unity. Says the american Cycopodia,
of insurance, "It must be regarded as pro-
minent among the many illustrations of
that tendency to association which is at
once the effect and cause of our adVan-
cling civilization. BY means of insurance
the resources Of many are aggregated
for the protection of each And, says
the report Of the Massachusetts Insurance
Commissioners, "While all other sorts
of Communism interfere too much with
individual liberty to be widely or long
tolerated, here is a form of it which
allows unreStrained individuaIism, with
out the penalty of beggary e~ntailed upon
dependents or descendants"
Insurance, then, is confessedIy a form
of Communism. 1t is also an invention
contessedIy incomplete, New applica-
lions and powers of protection are found
in 1t from time to time. Let us aScer-
tain if We can tell the direction and extent
to which its future development will lead.
1t is plain that when sufficient solida-
rlty shall be established in society, in
suranc instead of undertaking simply
to pay for damage after it is done, will
undertake to seek and find means for
preventing damage. The effect of in
Surance is already felt in this direction.