Gentlemen,—For the honour which you have done me by electing me Honorary President of our Society for the new Session which we inaugurate to-night, I return you my most sincere and cordial thanks. All the more do I appreciate the compliment in that, during the greater portion of my business life, I have been more or less intimately connected with the Societ, and have learned much from the many important papers which have been read at its meetings, and from the discussions which have taken place upon them.

It has occurred to me that a fitting subject for this evening would be an historical sketch of the rates of premiums charged for Life Assurances, and a consideration of the grounds upon which such premiums have from time to time been adjusted, together with an examination of tendencies at work which may yet lead to further modifications in our methods or our results.

Life Assurance appears to have been practised to a limited extent in the seventeenth century, and earlier part of the eighteenth, as a simple branch of underwriting. Those whose business it was to insure ships against loss at sea, came in due course to be asked to insure also masters of vessels—not against death, but against the risk of their being taken by the Moorish or Turkish pirates, etc., in order that, in such an event, a fund might be available to pay their ransom.