CONCLUSION. It has been declared in the Introduction that the preceding pages were intended for the consideration of those who, from being thought ineligible for life assurance, have ceased to enquire as to the means of securing the advantages it presents. The direct and immediate object of the writer is to lead public attention to the merits of an Institution, in which the lives of persons suffering under chronic diseases, or travelling beyond the limits of Europe, may be insured at rates of premium according with the mortality by those diseases and climates. There are many thousand persons of delicate constitutions, irregularity of form, of declining health, suffering from hereditary predispositions and from the effects of tropical climates, who would be anxious to insure their lives, provided they could be certain of obtaining their object on proper terms, and without being subjected to the humiliating reflection that they were admitted as partners with men of robust health who fancied their accession an incumbrance, on any terms. As there is nothing a man is so justly proud of as health, so there is no point on which he feels so justly sensitive. The idea of a bare possibility of being rejected as unsound by a board of directors, is repugnant to the minds of many; but when to this is added the probability of being accepted as an object of commiseration at an exorbitant price, the contemplation in itself generally operates as a restraint. Pretty much the same feelings engross a man who proposes an insurance on his life, when he is going to a climate which is generally considered less healthy than England. The Asylum Proprietary Company, confines its business exclusively to these cases. The sum secured by the policy is paid without increase or diminution-the premiums are calculated in each case, to accord with the particular risk; and as the Company derives its support from such cases only, the Directors are not called on to protect the interests or to consult the wishes of persons differently circumstanced.-A prospectus of the ASYLUM COMPANY will be found in the Appendix. APPENDIX. No. I, ASYLUM LIFE ASSURANCE COMPANY, No. 70, CORNHILL, LONDON. ASSURES THE LIVES OF OFFICERS AND OTHERS TRAVELLING, RESIDING, OR LIABLE TO BE CALLED BEYOND THE LIMITS OF EUROPE,-FEMALES IN A STATE OF PREGNANCY, PERSONS AFFECTED BY MANIA, MELANCHOLIA, RUPTURE, OR CHRONIC DISEASE,—AND THOSE, WHO FROM INADEQUATE TESTIMONIALS, UNCERTAINTY' OF · DATE OF BIRTH, UNHEALTHY OCCUPATIONS, OR OTHER CAUSES, WOULD BE REJECTED BY THE GENERALITY OF OFFICES. DIRECTORS. SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH, M. P. President. THOMAS FRANKLAND LEWIS, Esq. M. P. Vice President. C. W. HALLET, Esq. FOSTER REYNOLDS, Esq. J. RICHARDS, Esq. MEDICAL OFFICERS IN LONDON. JOHN MASON GOOD, M. D. F. R. S. Guildford Street. M THE importance of Life Insurance to those who, in mercantile and professional pursuits, derive limited or fluctuating incomes from personal exertions, has been universally felt and acknowledged; and if so salutary a mode of providing for families, be sought by men who are capable of active exertion, or can promote their objects by a residence in a healthy country, how much more desirable must the benefits of such a system be to those who labour under bodily infirmities, or are obliged to prosecute their efforts in climates uncongenial to their constitutions. Important as this last consideration must be to a very large portion of mankind, it is a matter of surprise that no equitable system has hitherto been formed for the protection and security of persons under such circumstances. The Directors of Life Institutions, generally, not having procured the necessary data for accurately ascertaining the law of mortality in foreign countries, permit their fears to exaggerate the danger of a hot climate, until they almost bring themselves to believe that immediate death awaits those who venture within its influence. A proposer for insurance is frequently obliged to have recourse to various Offices, without the certainty of attaining his object at any; and, after great loss of time, and having his mind agitated by the contemplation of imaginary perils, he is frequently rejected; or if accepted, considers himself an object of favour, indebted to the compassion of the Institution, for granting him Assurance at a premium which he and the Directors (who always err on the side of caution) believe to be excessive-30, 50, or even 100 per cent. The same observations apply with still greater force to the cases of persons subject to slight deviations from health-persons who, though far from being in a dangerous state, are not considered as select lives, and are therefore rejected as altogether uninsurable. Many who are conscious of some slight bodily ailment, or supposed hereditary taint,-a constitutional debility, or some peculiarity of form,-are deterred from making proposals, by the apprehension that after they have disclosed circumstances of extreme delicacy, and subjected themselves to exposure by referring to their friends, to satisfy one Board of Directors, they may be rejected as altogether ineligible in that Institution, and be driven to make similar exposures to another Board of Directors, on the chance of being again rejected, or left no other alternative than the payment of an extravagant rate of premium. In many instances, especially in the case of Pregnant Females, it is desirable that the parties should be kept in ignorance of an Assurance being effected on their lives. In others, persons are unable to furnish certificates or satisfactory evidence of the precise date of their birth: and many, from the death of medical attendants, and other fortuitous circumstances, are unable to comply with the forms generally required by Life Institutions. Persons suffering from rupture, are frequently not inclined to make known their situation to a Board of Directors who profess to confine their Assurances to select life only, and who would therefore discuss, with appalling perspicuity, the measure of danger attendant on the slightest deviation from robust health and strength. Officers on half-pay sometimes decline to insure their lives, lest they should at a future day be called into unhealthy climates, at the risk of forfeiting their Policies, or submitting to an exorbitant rate of premium for the extra risk. Thus Life Insurance, to which every prudent and well-disposed man turns his thoughts, is withheld from the very persons who, from precarious health or particular circumstances, are peculiarly entitled to receive consolation and to court indemnity. The Directors of the Asylum Life Assurance Company have ascertained, by great care and research, the true law of mortality for various climates and diseases; for the purpose |