The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-01-08
THECHRISTMAS GIFTS
 OF A Great Life Insurance Company

tan Life Insurance company will read the Christmas Announcement" just issued by that famous organization with a lively feeling of self cong ratu- lation: and even those who have no personal connection with the Com pany will examine the announcement With deep interest and appreciation of the spirit in which it is made.
 It is undoubtedly the temper of the times to condemn more and more the callous methods of powerful corpora tionSs which secure inordinate wealth for themselves with no thought of benefiting the thousands to whose CO., operation their success is largely due; and the public is quick, on the other hand, to commend a policy quite the opposite.
 The Metropolitan Life Insurance cred by its remarkably successful con- duct of Life Insurance as a purely business proposition, has created and consistently maintained a bond of phu- man sympathy between itself and the great multitude of people who are both contributors to the Company's s prosperity and dependent upon it for their own relief in time of need. This Company has voluntarily paid to its policy holders, within a period of sew enteen years, twenty-five millions of dollars MORE THAN THEIR POLL GEES ENTITLED THEM TO-twenty- five millions in excess of the Com pany's promises or the policy-holders expectations.
 The voluntary distribution of cash benefits that make up (with the ex- ception of four millions added to Re- serve Liability this stupendous total has taken place at pretty frequent in tervals. Whenever a period of de- creased mortality, or of lessened ex- ir, %o of Hl7S e. mess, or of excess interest earnings, has created fund from which sub- stantial bonuses could be paid, it has been applied to that purpose. A fresh announcement of bonuses payable by the Metropolitan Life is now taken more or less as a matter of course, It is not spasmodlc. generosity, but "a consistent policy of the Company to share with it's policy-holders al earn .ings in excess of the estimated PROF. ABILITIES upon which their policies are based.
 This years Christmas Announcement deals with Industrial policies. 1t is in teresting to observe the considerate manner in which it's benefits are dis tributed. An aged person who has car- ried Industrial Insurance for many years is the one most likely to find the premium payments a burden. Hence all policy-holders who pass the age of 75 in the year 1910 receive bonus sufficient to pay their further premiums for a full year; policies of 30 years durance are awarded sums covering six months premiums, and so on down to the policies issued be- tween 1896 and 1905 which are award ed bonuses covering five weeks pre- rniunns.
 Perhaps the most notable award in this present distribution is the pay ment of two hundred and fifty thou sand dollars on dea th-claims that had already been settled in full between January 1, 1907, and July 1, 1909. One can imagine. the conditions that may have made these unexpected sums a godsend to those who received them.
 During 1910, each death claim pay ment on an Industrial policy will cov- (that is, all that the beneficiary is entitled to by the terms of the policy). but there will be paid an ADDITION AL sum varying from per cent to 30 per cent, of the claim, according to the length of time the policy has been in force.
 Including this last apportionment of estimates it's total voluntary payments from the fund now available at some thing over five and 8 quarter millions of dollars.
 It is a fact. that many of the old policies which may mature within the year by death will be so much increas- ed and at the same time have their premiums so much reduced that the cost of insurance by the old Indus- trial policies will be actually less than the cost of regular old line participa- ting insurance according to the pub lished rates of the latter. This is a remarkable commentary upon the complaints that are so usual as to the cost of Industrial workingmen's s insurance,
 When one realizes what constant ef- fort and self-sacrificing economy are involved in the eternal saving up' for the next insurance payment among millions of moderately insured per- sons, and what loads are removed in many cases even by the crediting of small sums to lessen future payments. it is easy to understand the strong hold that the Metropolitan Life In- surance company has secured, by it's more. than liberal methods, upon the confidence and gratitude of hundreds of thousands of human beings to whom it is in very truth "A light that nev- CT fails.''
 Fur trimming has appeared on some of the most notable opera