News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1889-03-21
Insurance For Babies.

''Life insurance has been brought
down to such fine point nowadays
that | am told, says John Preston
Beecher, in the New York Neoos, "a
company is being organized to insure
the lives of babies. A baby's life is q
very precarious thing, and l should
think there would be quite as much risk
attached to it as there would be in in
suring big piece of plate glass, and
yet they insure plate glass against break
age Just as they do ones arm or leg. AS
far as babies are concerned, / should
fancy that the rates of insurance would
have to be graded on very high basis
They are susceptible to colds and diph-
liberia in the winter time, and to cholera
infantum in the summer, to say nothing
of measles, chicken pox, ,whooping cough
and scarlet fever all the year round. How
ever, the charges on thousand dollars
insurance on a baby's life might be
scaled in this way. For a 81 600 policy
for n one-day old baby premium of
1899 might be charged. Then the in
surance company should agree to return
one dollar day as long as the baby
lived until the premium was reduced to
$40. At the age of two and a half years
the result would be still 81 900 insurance
on the baby's life at an annual cost of
but So If the child should die when
it was but a week old, though, you
would be 1892 out. Still you can't rea-
sonably expect to insure an infants life
for nothing. 1t would be possible to
avoid this heavy percentage by waiting
until the child was two years of age be-
fore buying policy. That is the only
solution of the problem that | can
see.
If the wealth of the Vanderbilts be not
overstated, it amounts to nearly $780,
100000. With this sum they could
purchase 312 tons of gold and have
something left over, but they couldn' t
buy two tons of gallium, that rare metal
being worth SO, $50 an ounce. With this
metal the highest price is reached, and
it may well be called the rarest and
most precious of metals.
Glucinum is worth $3.50 per ounce;
indium $158; iridium 1868 a pound;
lanthanium, $175, and ithium $3.50 per
ounce. Niobium costs $12S per ounce;
asmium, palladium, platinum, potas-
SUM, and rhodium bring respectively
$540, S400, $130, $50, and $512 per
pound. Strontium costs S128 an ounce;
Ulntilulll, p1f1 tSIuI1llHl, po, tloIIIiHl,
$272; vanadium, $500; yttrium, $144,
and chromium $3.50 an ounce.
Thus we see that the commonly received
opinion as to what are the most precious
metals is quite erroneous. Barium is
more than four times as valuable as gold,
and gallium more than 162 times as
costly, while many of the metals are
thrice as valuable. Aluminium, which
now costs sS or SO pound, will eventu-
ally be produced as cheaply as steel.
When this can be done it will push the
latter metal out of great many of its
pres ent uses, as it possesses great
strength, toughness, and elasticity, with
extreme ightness of weight: Its sour
ces OF supply are inexhaustible, and its
present high cost arises from the diff
Guilty of its extraction in a metallic form.
Indium seems to be chiefly used fol
pointing gold pens, and many of the
metals mentioned have but a limited
sphere of usesulness.-Glo6e Democrat.