Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1908-12-26
THE TONTINE PLAN.
System Of Gambling on Lives Devised
to Raise Royal Revenue.
TnoM MooLunnla MAeAEME.
Observation-Disclosures

One Of the most conspicuous hang
ers on of the early court OF Louis
XIV. was a certain Lorenzo Tonti,
Neapolitan banker. Tonti was one OF
that numerous brood of spectators
who found 80 fruitful a field OF spec
ulation in the European courts OF the
seventeenth century. OF an adven-
turous disposition, unlimited person.
al resource and unbounded confidence
in himself and his schemes, he read
lily wormed his way into the royal IA
vor, became a confidential secretary
to Cardinal Mazarin, a pensioner OF
the Crown and valued adviser on all
financial affairs. He abounded In
ingenious devices for increasing the
national revenue, paying of the debts
of the. clergy, erecting great public
works and building up the foreign
trade, especially In the East Indies
and the South Seas. At one time he
aroused much speculative interest in
a plan for stimulating the growth of
silkworms by planting mulberry trees
on all the highways Of France. His
fame rests almost entirely upon the
fact, however, that he was the inven-
tor of that scheme of gambling on
human lives now generally known as
tontine.
Tonti first proposed his plan to
Mazarin in 1866. Like Mazarin,
however, he was an Italian and there
Rouo ,o,conaIIy rnnop,,Iar par1ia-
ment refused to register the under
taking, and the public, in spirit of
ridicule, gave it its present nickname
of tontine. Tonti himself soon for
feited the royal patronage; lost his
pension, and, for some reason now
unknown, landed as prisoner in the
Bastile. Thence he indited many ap-
pealing letters to the King and Col
bert, describing his misery and pow
erty and continually harping upon the
advantages of tontine. Tonti's death,
which took place toward the end Of
the seventeenth century, is another of
the many mysteries enveloping the
Bastile One Of his sons was that
Chevalier Tonti whose adventures
among the Indians of the Northwest
with La Sale and Iberville is one of
the romances of early American his
tory.
King Louis, although he neglected
poor Tonti himself, never entirely
abandoned his scheme. In 1859,
when surrounded by European Goa
lition, harassed for money and unable
to borrow further from the bankers
or to wiring another penny in taxes
from his exhausted peasantry, he
raised l 100000 livres on the tontine
plan. He followed precisely the pro-
gram mapped out by Tonti more than
thirty years before. He invited sub
scriptions, at 800 livres each, to a
general fund. He agreed to pay the
total interest on this fund to all sur
viving subscribers. Each members
share of the income was to cease at
death and revert to those who still
lived. Each members income. that
is, increased in proportion to the
deaths of his associates. IT was clear
ly a lottery in annuities, in which the
prizes went to the long lived men,
bers. 1t acquired popularity because
of this gambling feature and because
it apparently promised provision
for old age. It's essential advantage
to the King was that the capital fund
itself need never be redeemed. It
was a State loan, that is, upon which
interest only was paid and which was
entirely liquidated when the final sur
vivor died.
King Louis first tontine apparent
ly had successful career. 1t met all
its obligations and continued until
1925. The solitary survivor was a
widow, one Charlotte Barber, who
died in her ninety-sixth year. At that
time she drew an annual income Of
$4,000 livres, in return for an orig
inal subscription of 800. King Louis
and his successors frequently utilized
this method of supplementing the
public funds. In the eighteenth CEN
fury private spectators also estab-
lished large number of tontines; in
France there was little less than a
tontine craze. Nearly all these pri-
vate undertakings, however, ended
disastrously. In most instances the
tontine managers were dishonest The
greatest private tontine, the Caisse
La Fargo, cheated the public out OF
nearly 6O,00O,000 francs. Dishones-
ty was inherent in the plan itself.
Tonti did not devise his original
scheme in the interest of the people,
but of the Government. II believe
this is an easy way" he wrote to Col
bert from the Bastile, whereby the
King may get several millions from
his people which would never be sub
ject to redemption. The King might
use them to redeem his domain, and
for the execution of other designs.
This might be done without its being
known. 1t transforms France into a
gold mine for the monarchy" Pri-
vate capitalists adopted the plan in
an Identical spirit; to get large cap
ital fund which they might use for
their own immediate purposes, and
Whlch they never need pay back. Their
swindlings became so outrageous that
ultimately the State prohibited ton
tines by law. In England and Amer
lea the idea was chiefly utilized as q
method of raising money for public
buildings and hotels. In this case
the property was held intact and ulti-
mately divided among certain nomin-
ated survivors. The Tontine Coffee
House in New York, at Wall and
Pearl streets, was constructed on this
basis. These enterprises also usually
failed of complete success. Toward
the close of the eighteenth century
there was no more odlous word ia
Europe than tontine.
Madrid's Trying Climates.
Queen Victoria's complaint against
the terrible summer heat and equally