AN IMPROVED MEANS TO BE EMPLOYED IN CONDUCTING A CERTAIN CLASS OF MONETARY UNDERTAKINGS."
Year: 1879

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by James Gray Lawrie and David
George Hoey at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 11th
July 1879.
"
JAMES GRAY LAWRIE, of Kelvinside, Shipbuilder, and DAVID GEORGE HOEY, of
Glasgow, Public Accountant, both of the County of Lanark, North Britain. AN
IMPROVED MEANS TO BE EMPLOYED IN CONDUCTING A CERTAIN CLASS OF MONETARY
UNDERTAKINGS."
The monetary undertakings to the conduct of which this Invention relates, are
of the class known as tontines or associations in which money is raised or property
held by a body of shareholders under the condition that the shares which belong to
the individual partners or shareholders are held upon a tenure by which they are
respectively terminable on the occurance of certain events, the whole money or
property ultimately falling to one or more of the partners.
In working these undertakings it has hitherto been the practice for each
shareholder to name a life upon the survivorship of which the continued existence
of his share is to depend, or a separate life for each share when he holds more than
one, and on the death of the person so named, the interest held under that share
lapses, and the money or property represented by the share falls to the holders of
the remaining shares. The value of such remaining shares thus goes on to increase
as shares continue to lapse on the deaths of nominees, until the money or property
falls to the shareholder whose nominee longest survives, or is divided among a
limited number of shareholders as may be provided for in the constitution of any
particular tontine.
In a tontine with a large number of shareholders, or when the shareholders
reside in various localities, difficulties arise in carrying out the business of the
tontine with separate nominees for each share. The nominees though resident
when named in convenient places may afterwards become dispersed all over the
country or out of the country, and to follow up numerous nominees thus scattered
to ascertain and record their respective survivorships would involve a large amount
of correspondence, a large amount of book-keeping, and very great expense. It
would moreover probably happen that in some instances no certain information
even with great correspondence and great expense would be obtained respecting"
the survivorship of the nominees, and thus both by the laborious correspondence
and the uncertainty of the information received, the object of the tontine would or
might be defeated.
This Invention provides means for overcoming these difficulties, for diminishing
the correspondence, and for reducing the labour and working expenses; and it

page_text: essentially consists in a special arrangement or construction of share certificate with
correlative tables containing groups of lives or nominees. This certificate provides
-means_by_which the shares can be divided or classed in distinct groups, each of
which has by the same means a name imparted-to-it,_and_each_group of shares
having a correlative group of lives or nominees lapses or survives in a manner-
dependent upon the relative group of lives. The special share certificate also
provides means by which the number of shares that survive gradually decreases
until the limit is reached, provided for, and intended by the constitution of the
tontine.
+
For an example of one way in which this Invention can be carried into effect,
each share certificate has a number, or numbers, letter, or letters of the alphabet, or
other special denoter or denoters attached to or forming part thereof, or on a
separate instrument relative thereto. If more than one number, letter, or denoter
is used on each share certificate, they are arranged and called,
First, number, letter, or denoter,
Second, do.
Third, do.
Fourth, do.
do.,
do.,
do.,
and so an through all the number, letters, or denoters that the constitution of the
tontine provides.
The share certificates thus constructed with numbers, letters, or denoters affords
the means by which the shares can be divided and classed in groups under the first
number, letter, or denoter, which at the same time imparts a name to the group
classed under it. The shares may by the same means be similarly divided and
classed in sub-groups under the several second denotors. They may also be classed
in sub-groups under the several third denoters. They may in like manner be
classed in sub-groups under the several fourth denoters, and so on under any
number of successive denoters.
There are provided also correlative to the groups of shares, groups of lives, or
nominees specially selected, which are enumerated in a relative list or table, and
each group of lives or nominees has attached to it one or other of the numbers,
letters, or denoters used on the share certificates, giving by these means names to
the groups of lives or nominees, the same as the names of the groups of shares.
Under this Invention and with the shares classed under the first number,
letter, or denoter, when a death occurs in any group of lives or nominees, the
group of shares having the same name as the group of lives lapses, and the
proprietors thereof cease to have any interest in the property of the tontine,
the money or property in these lapsed shares falling to the remaining shareholders.
When a death occurs in one of the other groups of lives or nominees, the group
of shares having the same name lapses, and the property of the shares contained
in that group falls as before to the remaining shareholders: Again, when a death
occurs-in-another-group of lives or nominees the property as before falls to the
remaining shareholders, and this continues until only one group-of shares remains
standing. Thereafter, the shares of this surviving group of shares are divided
and classed into sub-groups under the second number, letter, or denoter of the
letters of allotment, and these sub-groups lapse as before on deaths occuring in
the groups of lives or nominees until one sub-group only survives, which again
is divided and classed in further sub-groups under thee third number, letter,
or denoter. These sub-groups again lapse as before, and this continues until the
surviving shares are reduced in number to the extent provided for in the con-
stitution of the tontine, and the whole property then falls to the owners of the
surviving shares.