The National tribune., 1885-05-21
FACTS ABOUT ToNT1NE.
The Allegel .tnormitr Of Its Miekcaness.

The Alleged En0rnifty or ITS WicEedness.
ANOTHER LETTER From PRESIDENT GREENE
-SI7,O 7,OO0,00 INSURANCE SAID TO BE LOST
TO FAMILIES OF .ToNTINE PoLICYHoLDERs
IN TEN YEARS i--4H sCATHING DBNUNCIA-
TIoN OF THE SYSTEM.
From as NEG. York Tribune.
To the Editor:
SIR: In your issue. of March %, ult., in an
swering the statements and criticisms of Messrs.
Beers, Hyde. Alexander aud McCurdy, | showed
that the TOntint principle in life insurance is
absolute unqualified gambling, because 1t makes
man stand to lose by lapse that which need not
he lost by lapse; that which lapse ought not to
cause the loss of at all; it therefore makes
him needlessy and of Set purpose expose to the
risk of loss that which need not and would not
be at the risk OF loss hut for his act. This is
gambling pure and simple.
And, aside from this aspect of Tontne, which
directly involves public morality, have shown
this peculiar vice about this particular form of
gambling namely, that there is lost, not merely
what one has paid to a company over and above
the cost of his insurance up to the time his pol
icy lapses, but the paid dup insurance which that
Overpayment ought to secure for his family at
once If he cannot carry on the original insurance.
and which such overpayment would secure had
he taken policy framed upon the true princi-
Piles OF life Insurance..
THE THING GAMBLED FOR.
He is rot only gambling but he is gambling
with his famly's protection; and the purpose
of his gambling is to win from other families the
value of the protection they may be made to
forfeit by lapse during the Tontine or seni-Ton-
| tine period. The profits of TOntine are forfeited
reserves and surplus; the profits of semi-TOn-
tine are partly foI feted reserves and wholly for
feited surplus; and both reserves and surplus
ought, in case of lapse. to give paid up insurance
to the family or other dependents for whose
protection the insurance was originally taken.
The profits of either form of TOntne are, th"re-
FORE the price of paid-up insurance which
ought to have gono to the families of those
who had to lapse their policies. And the in
slant and constant protection of families is the
one function, the one public utility. of life
insurance, the only thing that cannot be done
better and more cheaply some other way.
The only reply to this analysis that have
seen is by way of renewed attack upon the
Connecticut Mutual and myself.
The phase of Tontne which have hitherto
discussed has been its effect upon the sindivid
ual family. which loses its needed protection to
fatten the Tontine pool.
| wish now to call attalt;oI to the aggregate
effect of Tontne on the community, upon the
multitude of families whose protection is put
at hazard to make up its winnings, and to indi-
cate something of the tremendous scope and
magnitude of its present, and still more of its
prospective, scale of operations.
SIGNIFICANT FIGURES.
Let us trace the progress of Tontine for the
last 10 years in the two companies which have
promoted it longest and with peculiar energy,
and see just what it means. We will take first
the New York Life Insurance Company. On
Jan. l, 1875, it had already accumulated Ton
tine fund of $l52, 1854; during the next 10
years it lost business by lapse, and added to its
Tontine pool as follows: