ABSTRACT
IT is estimated that the sum insured in the Life Assurance Institutions of Great Britain is not less than 150,000,000l – a wonderful provision for the well-being of numerous individuals for many years after those who have made it are mould-ering into dust. Such a subject is at all times of great importance to the thrifty middle classes, who rely on the assurances they eff ect on their lives for the sustenance and comfort of the persons dear to them, who are often unable to struggle with the world, and must perish if not thus provided for. But now it is of more than usual importance, because providence, so long recommended, has grown into a strong and almost general passion. Almost every person in the receipt of an income which depends on his life and his exertions, now makes a provision for his family by assuring his life; and the general disposition to do this is enforced, encouraged, and recommended by almost innumerable assurance companies, which compete with one another for business, and promise the assurers great advantages from assuring with them. Our own journal every week contains several advertisements setting forth such advantages, the companies promoting, by every means in their power, the extension of that virtue of forethought, which is one great distinction of civilised man as contrasted with the savage.
