The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1875-01-17

Insurance is one Of the wonders of the mod
ern organization of society. In the abstract,
the notion that the losses by fire or water or
other casualties that would ruin any individ-
ual sufferer may be made trivial by making
that sufferer one of body of ten or twenty or
fifty thousand persons, upon whose united
capital the loss shall fall and out of small
tax upon which capital the victim shall be re-
imbursed-this, in the abstract, is one of the
conceptions of financial schemes that is as
benevolent as it is magnificent; but there
seems to be some doubt whether or no this
conception realizes in fact all the good of
which, contemplated in the abstract, it seems
capable. Doubt falls more pointedly at the
present time on that branch of insurance in
which the mass of the people have, perhaps,
the greatest concern-the branch which deals
with the insurance of mems lives Faith in
this is the property of the poor, and the con-
dition of life insurance companies generally,
or of any considerable number of them, is q
very important matter of public interest
Our public debt is in the neighborhood of
two thousand millions of dollars, and the
amount of the outstanding policies of life in
surance is in the neighborhood of the same
figure. One hundred and twelve millions of
dollars, sum about sufficient for the interest
on the public debt is the annual income of
our life insurance companies. These SINH
larities in volume with the great national
fiscal burden will give some general compre-
henson of the magnitude of an interest that
is as general in its relations as it is vast in
extent, for it takes every other household by
the purse strings. 1t appears now there are
reasons to mistrust the way in which this
enormous fund is handled and the likelihood
of its meeting eventually the obligations
upon whose presumed certainty the whole
fabric rests. There is the old story Of unex-
ampled dividends, princely palaces, presiden-
tial salary grabs, unprnclpled perquisites and
self-perpetuating administrations. Last years
official reports, even allowing for the panic,
seem to indicate O public alarm for they
show q net result Of new business scarcely
greater for all than the business of many q
single company in more prosperous years.
Well established companies, hitherto in fair
repute, nave maze DO new policies IOT many
months Nine companies are suspended by
the Commissioner and fourteen are reported
below the standard of solvency.
The Insurance Commissioner, in appealing
for legislative interposition, talks of estate
ments falsely made" hints at perjury"
"repudiation" and the duty of stop
ping all new business, where officials
are merely gaining few dollars
of salary while they continue ito
rob the widow and orphan" With such q
condition, then, the state of the best compa-
mes is critical, unless they can distinctly
dsentanglc themselves from the mass upon
which must fall the consequence of facts
sure to entail the loss of public confidence.
Perhaps no such catastrophe will result as the
general injury of policy holders, or even the
casting OF extensive discredit on the prin-
ciple of insurance; but to make this certain
it may be necessary to seize the remedy that
the facts seem to indicate. Apparently the
evil is sort of "over-speculation" in lnsur-
ance there are not only more companies
than are necessary to do the business, but
there are hundreds more than can probably