Morning journal and courier., 1881-03-05

cleared any money on the business. The l said eleven companies made $5S4, ,685, whilt 6s companies lost $74s,67s. These 79 com panies, in the possession of $57, ,629, ,757 ir
 assets, including capitals, are only able tc make this disheartening exhibit. Of the 55 American companies of other States, doing business in New York, with assets amounting to $66, ,O5e, ,23o, only eight made q profit The total gains of these eight were $2ss, ,672. while AT companies suffered sheer
 loss of $1, ,5o7. 1906. Thus 1s4 American fire
 insurance companies, with aggregate assets
 of $123, ,6ss, ,9S7, made last year profit of
 only $873, ,357. These figures refer only to
 the underwriting business, not to the interest
 on investments or the enhanced value of gov
 ernment bonds but to the fruit of the office
 and field work. The Times says further ::
 "Were stockholders acquainted with the
 whole truth, they would be either driven to
 despair, or would, as they ought, insist upon
 an advance in rates. In the companies pres
 ent depressed condition, how could they
 stand up against sweeping and extraordi-
 nary loss to which they are liable at any
 time. Were confagration like the great
 fires of Chicago and Boston to occur, how
 many companies would survive the ordeal i?
 In the dry goods district of New York city
 there are clements for 8 fiery catastrophe
 which would infiict vastly greater pecuniary
 loss than was sustained at the memorable
 Chicago and Boston calamities. If the insu- rance companies do not at once adopt wise and protective policy, they will ignore the
 common principle of self preservation.
 We are accustomed to think that our post office system is a pretty good one, but the
 Boston Rerald points out that this is simply
 because we don't know any better. It de- scribes the German system and says: The postmaster general of the empire is one of the best educated and most thoroughly train ed men in the nation. He has made scien- tific and practical study of the postal system,
 which has been under his supervision for ten years, and has brought it to state of efi- The improved methods of our city deliveries
 would not answer at all for the "slow" inhabi- tants of Berlin, with their swift pneumatic dispatches encircling the city, their tele- graphic and telephonic auxiliaries, their greater utilization of railways and other fea- lures that make our best features seem crude and clumsy. The wonder Is, when the two systems are compared, that we have secured even so toferab1e service as we now enjoy. Instead of trained man at the head of the department, we put in every four years some new storekeeper or lawyer, totally ignorant of the construction or workings of the ma chine he is to run and confide the execution of the laws and orders throughout the coun- try to set of small politicians selected by members of Congress. Nothing but the re- markable aptitude of our people for business affairs, which has been developed by our in stitutions and the freedom enjoyed under them, has enabled the service to keep pace with our progress in other directions. And, where men talk with complacency about our having ''the best civil service under the sun, it is simply the result of their igno- rance. They don't know what a perfect sys- tenn is, nor what other nations have accom- plished in this direction. Let them learn what Germany has done, in training her postal officials from the highest to the low est in making entrance to the service de- pend upon fitness, not favor, and promotion to go by merit-both ascertained by exam ination and trial and in making the public service truly by and for the people, not by and for party, and it will take down their conceit