Huntsville gazette., 1892-09-17
called "the industrial !. and that it is


there that it reaches women. When the
industrial department was inaugurated,
twenty-three years ago, it was practic-
ally out of the question for persons on
small wages to leave anything to their
families, or to provide for any debts
that they might owe at death, because
insurance was then beyond the reach OF
people of moderate means. The COM
panies in general accepted only male
adult lives; declined to insure women
and children; to write policies for less
than thousand dollars, or to accept
dues oftener than once in three EionthS.
Under the modern plan, men, S'omen
aud children are taken, from the grand
parent of seventy to the babe a year
old. The insurance costs five cents per
week upward, the dues are collected at
the homes of the insured, and policiea
are paid promptly at death.
The desirability of insurance of this
description need not be discussed at
length. No life is SO valuable to fam
ly as that of the bread winner; but
when death invades the circle, robbing
it either of parent or child, it not
infrequently comes hand in hand with
poverty, and finds the family without
the means of decent burial. Here it Is
paid does such great service. The
policies are, of course, small when COM
pared with those people of means af-
ford; but what more consoling than a
few hundred dollars at time when the
world seems at it's blacl<est. Further
more, it should be said that the indus
trial companies do not confine their
business to any class, although, of
course, their principal work is among
the poor. Any one in good health may
secure policies. and, as a matter of fact,
many professional men and women do
so. Ten or twenty cents a week Is
easily saved, and the payment of it TO
the collector when he calls reduces the
trouble to minimum.
At first blush the insurance business
would seem to offer good opening to
enterprising women as agents or can
vassers. The commissions paid are un-
doubtedly much more remunerative
than the outcome of many other occu-
pations to which women devote them
selves. and the work is not of an insult
able character. 1t certainly is no worse
than book canvassing, and the securing
of single ten thousand dollar policy
would bring better returns than could
be possibly expected from several weeks
persistency in that line. Yet it is fact
that a woman insurance solicitor is 50
great rarity that l have never met
one, although l am told there are some
in the field, and that they have met
with marked success The experiment
has been tried in the industrial depart
means the same as in general insurance
work. In the large cities the work Of
the industrial companies, by its char
acter is naturally largely confined to
the tenement house districts, and the
climbing of stairs requires more ply
sical backbon than most women pos
sess. Again, the field has to be gone
over every week, for the canvassers are
also the collectors, SO the labor is prac-
tically unending. In the smaller cities
and towns where the working classes
have their homes, in cottages or every
day houses, this great obstacle to the
entrance of women to the field is not
presented, and many have been able to
make very fair compensation. 1t is
found that sensible woman, when
face to face with struggling sister, can
bring home the truths about life insur-
ance much more forcibly than the aver
age cold -blooded man.-Walter II. Bar
nett, in Ladies' Home journal.