Fayetteville observer. [volume] (Fayetteville, Tenn.) 1850-1966, 1868-07-09
Life Insurance.

almost all Of our commercial cities
fire and marine insurance offices,
many of which have survived the
changes and disasters of the war.
Since the war many have been char
tered and are actively urging their
claims upon the confidence of the
people, as well in the country
as in the towns;. many farm
house is now insured, whose own
err, surrounded by his faithful
slaves, would not have thought of
because with the labor
and resources at his command he
could easily have replaced it in
the event Of its consumption by
fire or tornado.
Prior to the war every owner
OF slaves had productive force
which in the event of his death,
could work out a debt upon his
estate of moderate size, and sup
port his widow and minor children.
Slavery supplied the place of life
insurance companies. For invest
ments in that species of property
when well cared for, as it almost
always was, by its natural increase
wrought as wonderful results in
the lifetime of generation as
does the compound interest on
insurance premiums. Life insu-
rance with us did not command
that attention which it does now,
nor are we inclined to think
that our people manifested a want
of intelligence and shrewdness in
thus neglecting it.
Hence, as said above, life insu-
rance in the South was, before the
abolition of slavery, confined to a
few salaried and professional men.
Now it has become a substitute
for that extinct institution, when
viewed as a means of securing a
certain support for family or de-
pendents after the death of a mon
reproducing life. 1t is not aston
ishing, therefore, that among as
intelligent people as ours, the
claims of life insurance are attrac-
ting attention, and its principles
are being assiduously studied by
them. Companies are teing or
gained and our people being urged
to insure their lives in home insti-
tutions by numerous active and
intelligent agents throughout the
South, and a new field opened
thereby for energetic, earnest men,
who, while pecuniarily profting
themselves, are engaged in work
which is fraught with numerous
blessings to the women and chill
dren of the country. 1t does,
however, strike us that canvassing
for life insurance has been some
somewhat brought into disrespect
in some localities in consequence
Iof the extravagant assertions of
agents, whose zeal surpasses their
knowledge-whose ignorance of
the fundamental principles of the
business, as well as Of our people,
seems to us objectionable. This
ought not to be. A financial in
vention so useful and so important
to modern society ought to CON-
mand the careful study of every
intelligent man in the commune
ty, who has leisure to devote a
1 thought to a business which is be-
ling rapidly and permanently en-
grated upon our social economy.
The mathematicians of the
South, with few exceptions, have
given little attention to life insu-
rance as a practical application of
their special science to the econom-
ical demands of society. So far
as we know, Professor G. +. McCay,
of Augusta, is the only mathema-
tician in the South who has been
for years an insurance actuary,
and his answers to certain ques-
tions in regard to the valuation
of policies, addressed to him by
William Barnes Superintendent
of the Insurance Department of
the State of New York, as pub
lished in the report of that officer
for 1866, for definiteness and clear
ness of mathematical demonstra-
ton, rank him as high in our esti-
nation as any professional actua-
ry in the land. We understand
General A. P. Stewart, Professor
of Mathematics in Cumberland
University, is now giving the sub.
ject careful attention with the
view of performing the actual la
hor. for ono of tho Life Tnsuropoo