It will be within your recollection that in the course of the discussion which followed the reading of Mr. Sunderland's paper in December last (see p. 257 ante), I stated that while endeavouring to obtain information with regard to American insurance business, in connection with, the subject of that paper, I found to my astonishment that a large amount of business was apparently being carried on in that country upon lines more or less resembling a fallacious principle which had long ago been exploded in this country.

The two following papers contain contributions to the statistics of insanity in Scotland, which have been compiled with care and accuracy. They may therefore prove of service to actuaries who may be called upon to deal with problems where the ordinary vital contingencies are complicated by the element of insanity.

Omitting from consideration the speculative and evanescent schemes which were the precursors of life assurance companies, and taking into account only the properly-constituted life offices, we find that up to 1 January 1837 the total number of such companies which had been established was 94, of which 20 had ceased to exist, leaving 74 then in operation. The average age of these 74 companies was 17¾ years. Not more than 18 of them had been 25 years in existence, while the remaining 56 had only attained an average age of 7 years. It at first strikes us as a very remarkable circumstance that only 20 offices out of a total of 102 had succumbed in the long period of 131 years, dating from 1706, when the Amicable was founded: but it has to be borne in mind that in 1837 the great majority of the offices had not attained an age sufficient to test their stability.