Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1892-10-06

calleQ the industrial, ana Inat II .
there that il reaches women. When the
industrial department was inaugurated,
twenty-three years ago, II was practic-
ally out Of the question for persons on
small wages to leave anything 10 Their
fami- ;. or to provide for any debts
that they might owe al death, becaus
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 a thousand dollars, or TO accept
dues oftener than once in three months.
Under the modern plan, men. women
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 policies
are paid promptly at death.
The desirability of insurance of this
description need not be discussed at
length No life is so valuable to a fam
ly as that of the bread winner; but
when death invades the circle, robbing
II either of parent or child. il not
infrequently comes hand in hand with
poverty, and finds the family without
the means of decent burial Here il is
that the insurance money, promptly
paid, does such great service. The
policies are, of course, small when COM
pared with those people of means az
ford; but what more consoling than a
few hundred dollars at a time when the
world seems at its blacklist. Further
more II 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 a good opening to
enterprising women as agents or cam
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 so
great a rarity that | have never met
one. although | amp told there are some
in the field, and that they have met
with marked success. The experiment
has been tried in the industrial depart
ment, but there conditions are by no
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
steal backb bone 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 a sensible woman, when
face to face with a struggling sister. can
bring home the truths about life iusur-
ance much more forcibly than the aver
age cold-blooded man. Walter II. Bar
nett, in Ladies' Home journal.