The assurance of a capital sum payable at the death of a husband is of much more recent adoption than the provision of an annuity during the life of his widow. Some of the earliest Assurance Companies were instituted with the main design of providing annuities to widows and sisters—now, however, forming a very small portion of their business—and very many funds and schemes, instituted at a very early period, are now in existence, throughout the various sections, professions and trades, of the community, whose only end is to secure annuities commencing on the death of the person upon whose income the annuitant may be supposed to be dependant.