Widows' Funds and Burial Societies have existed in Germany already for more than 200 years, and in very great numbers. There was no town of any importance that did not possess one or more establishments of that kind. The guilds (corporations) of artisans usually maintained such institutions for their members; seeking in them, at the same time, a tie of stronger combination, and uniting their corporate interests. The love of these institutions, and the endeavour to provide, by means of them, for those left behind, spread from the guilds of artisans to the other classes of the people, in consequence of which, many hundreds, even thousands, of those little Burial Societies and Funeral Funds are to be found in Germany, from which, at the death of a member, a certain sum of money is paid to the survivors, to defray the expenses of interment, and to provide for the family immediately after the death of the subscriber. An extensive use was also made at all times of these establishments by such classes of people as were not so wealthy, because even the poorest are ambitious to take measures that they may have after their death a decent burial furnished at a fixed expense. This motive induces many, and particularly women, to subscribe to a Funeral Fund in Germany.

It is not an uncommon occurrence with certain classes of professional men who have settled themselves in this country, and perhaps assured their lives, without any intention of leaving it, to be called to a position which takes them to a residence permanently, or at least for a lengthened period, abroad. The principle on which an Office should increase their payments for assurance forms both a speculative and practical problem of some interest.

An article published in this Journal last January (vol. viii., p. 316), proposed itself the problem of furnishing a test whether the degree of uniformity, or the reverse, observed in a table of statistics, required to be assigned to any other cause than the relative magnitude of the numbers of combinations which each figure in the table represented. The formulæ obtained in that article gave a general solution to the problem proposed, by giving an expression for the ratios of the numbers of such combinations which would be embraced under any figure in the table; and, consequently, expressing the relative frequency with which each number should be expected to occur from the mere consideration of counting the combinations represented by it.

In the year 1832 there was published, in my name, an extensive collection of Life Tables, founded upon the discovery of the law which, in my belief, governs the mortality, according to age, of all nations and classes of men, from the earliest infancy to extreme old age. In these tables the numbers living or surviving at successive ages have been deduced from a simple formula expressing the proportion of survivors at any age in terms of the mortality. They are the first Tables of this kind ever published, and they have been used daily in the practice of life assurance, and in the valuation of life contingencies, for a period of thirty-two years, including four years before publication.