No greater encouragement can probably be given to the practice of life assurance than the making its contracts as secure as the nature of them will admit, and the rendering as light as possible the consequences of any breach of them. How strongly this is felt by those more immediately interested in the extension of the system may be seen in the constant efforts, more or less legitimate, made by them in this direction. Thus, from more than one quarter the public has the offer of “indisputable” policies, and, from others, “unchallengeable” ones; and Companies are not wanting which liberally enough intimate that they hold, for a considerable time, at the disposal of the assured, the value of the assurance which he has accidentally or intentionally altogether abandoned.

The principal circumstances affecting the value of individual live, have reference to sex, age, personal peculiarities, habits, occupation, residence, family history, previous ailments, and present health. These are brought before the medical referee, in the printed forms of examination and inquiry adopted by Life Assurance Societies, in a series of questions calculated to elicit the information required. In the present treatise they will be considered under several heads.

The recommendations were—“That a work should be published, in which should be given the history, and an analytical and comparative table, of the different systems of weights, measures, and coins of the different nations of the earth, to be translated and published, under the supervision of the branch societies, in all the languages of the nations represented in the Association. 2. That, to ensure the accuracy of such a work, the branch societies should furnish information as to the monies, weights, and measures prevalent in each country, with their values in terms of the Metrical System. 3. That each branch society should use every means, especially by aid of the press, to enlighten public opinion on the subject, and to prepare for the meeting of an official International Congress for discussion thereon. 4. That, in the meantime, the branch societies should make every effort to procure that, in all statistical tables and documents, public and private, the different quantities and values should be accompanied by their reduction into the monies, weights, and measures of the Metrical System, so that all nations may have a common medium of comparison. And 5. That unity in the fineness of the coin, unity in the standard of value, and unity in weights and measures of all kinds, should be pursued, in order to facilitate the adoption of a uniform system.”