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conducting business. This is the vital question: "Are the assets of the various companies of such a character that I (the cmmissioner) can safely recommend to the public to whom, through the legislature, my report is made, to insure in them their lives and property ?" If the assets do not come up to a standard adopted by the several States, then the answer must be in the negative. If the assets are of a high character, a fact which can easily be established by reference to financial authority, then it is the duty of the commissioner to say that he finds the corporations solvent, by which is meant, by implication, that he endorses their standing. There is reason to find serious fault with the labored essays upon life insurance which emanate from incompetent officials at our State capitals. There is nothing in the mode of life or education of an insurance commissioner, with one or two exceptions, to give him any special standing in the community, over and above any intelligent person who has read the prospectus of a well regulated life company. It is exceedingly to be regretted that the office of insurance commissioner has been prostituted and made the vehicle of conveying to the public individual ideas upon life insurance.

The first few pages of the Seventeenth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Commissioner (Life and Accident insurance), are mostly tabular statements of the condition of the various companies transacting business in that State. These tabular statements, so easily understood by an adept, are sufficient to blind any ordinary mortal, and there would be little use in transferring them to our pages. A full state ment of the standing of companies-or their solvency-is all we have to do with in an official document like this. There is no company doing business in Massachusetts which, according to a valuation of its liabilities by the Actuaries' Table of Mortality, interest at four per cent., does not show an excess of assets over liabilities. The five Massachusetts companies exhibit an average of $111.66 of assets for every one hundred dollars of its liabilities. The companies of other States, forty-nine in number, exhibit an average of $111.20 of assets to every one hundred dollars of liabilities. Assuming that the character of the assets is good-and this is where the opinion of the insurance commissioner or inspector is vital to the public interest, then it follows that every company doing business in Massachusetts is solvent. If the commissioner has not scrutinized the investments thoroughly, then he is derelict in his duty to the public, and should insolvency occur through his neglect, he will be held morally accountable. No commissioner can afford to take for granted

the sworn statements of the officers of any corporation, if he have any suspicion thereof. An honest and well managed corporation will not hesitate to exhibit its funds to any official empowered to carry on an investigation. Any hesitation on the part of a life company to afford the commissioner the fullest information of its affairs, should be followed instantly by a thorough investigation, for where there is smoke, there must fire be also.

Having examined that portion of the commissioner's report which is of value, and upon which we have commented as above, there remains very little important for the public to know. As to modes of procuring business-new schemes, tontine dividends, savings bank life insur ance, and a variety of other topics upon which the commissioner discourses-they are no more within his province to discuss in an official publication, than the contents of Webster's Dictionary, and they are of no more value.

If our criticism of what we conceive to be the duties and responsibilities of a commissioner appears harsh, we can only say that it is the opinion of at least one-half of the insurance community, who believe the voluminous reports of the insurance officials of the various States to be simply fat jobs for printing, and then food for the waste basket.

No one acquainted with the subject can devote any attention to life insurance in Massachusetts without being reminded of the New England Mutual, which is as much above all other companies of that State as the great Public Library of Boston is above all other Massachusett's libraries. And as the Library is a credit to the Modern Athens, and to the whole State, so, undoubtedly, is this company. Nor is it alone in Boston, or Massachusetts it is regarded in this light, but throughout New England-nay, it is so regarded, by all who know it, throughout the United States. But let us see how it stands in the Report before us as compared with all the other Massachusetts companies.

SUMMARY OF THE ASSETS, LIABILITIES, AND BALANCES OF THE SEVERAL COMPANIES, DECEMBER 31, 1871.

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But no figures speak so well for this company as its always honorable, unblemished character.

On our way to New York from Boston, we take a glance at the condition of affairs in Hartford, which ought henceforth to be called Insurance City. Here we find companies worthy of comparison with the best either New York or Boston can boast of, not excepting even the Manhattan, the Equitable, or the Continental. There was a time when no company anywhere had a higher prestige than the Etna Life. For years, Mr. Endors, always its principal manager, continued to distinguish him self by enlightened, liberal views as to the just claims of the widow and orphan. But, unhappily, there are some whose heads are not able to bear a high degree of success, and we are sorry that the manager of the Etna seems to belong to that class. Within the last two years his head has been growing more and more dizzy. We should fain hope that his malady may not come to a crisis; but his recent elevation to the presi.. dency of the company was evidently too much for him. Very soon after that event took place, certain symptoms supervened which are always to be regarded with alarm in such cases. Having no wish to enter into particulars in so delicate a matter, we will confine ourselves, on the present occasion, to the remark that, whereas, in former times, no one was more opposed to litigation than Mr. Endors, he seems to have got it into his head of late, that, next to enriching its officers, the best use that can be made of the money paid to a life company by its policy holders, is to spend it in going to law with the widow to satisfy "impartial" judges that there is some reason or other why her policy of insurance should prove nothing better than an expensive tantalizing hoax! For what Mr. Endors had been before he began to imitate the practices of such widow protectors as Batterson, Bucklin, Griswold, etc., we sincerely hope that he will resume his old, honest and honorable plan of giving the policy holders their own money, instead of squandering it on lawyers.

In the meantime the Phoenix Mutual continues as straightforward, liberal and energetic as ever; and to this we need hardly add, that it continues prosperous and progressive; what is perhaps better still for its policy holders, its managing officers have heads which cannot be turned. Neither Mr. Fessenden nor Mr. Burns is made dizzy or pompous by success. On the contrary, the more successful they are, the more courteous, the more unwilling to enter the courts, even when they have good reason to do so. Now what are the comparative results of the two lines of conduct? Our readers know that we have

often indicated the wonderful progress made by the Etna before the symptoms alluded to began to manifest themselves in its manager— that is before he began to adopt the policy of our great "reformer," Andrew Green-the policy of paying no claim that could be evaded by the quibbles of lawyers. Then it was in advance of the Phoenix in increase of business, because at no time has the latter company been in greedy haste to get rich. Like our own Manhattan, it has always preferred a solid foundation to a showy superstructure; like that sterling company, it has preferred that its progress should be sure and safe, rather than fast. Still it is in advance of the Etna at this moment in the best test of prosperity and progress. In illustration of this, we snatch a few figures from one of the most important tables in the Massachusetts report. Under the head of " Summary of New Business done," etc., there are some Arabic characters which we place side by side, thus:

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These figures with the signs prefixed to them, tell their own story. The most careless, intelligent reader will observe that while those of the Etna are "negative quantities," those of the Phoenix are "positive quantities." In other words, while the Etna figures show decrease, the Phoenix figures show increase. What is instructive as well as remarkable is the fact that the falling off on the part of the former is very nearly in proportion to the increase of the deplorable dizziness, or hallucination of its once excellent manager.

The Connecticut Life is very much like the Mutual of New York, in the immense difference between its promises and its performances. But as the Phoenix has presented a contrast to the Etna since the latter has altered its plan of operations, so has the Charter Oak always presented a contrast to the Connecticut, by its straightforward, up

Mass. Rep., P. viii.

right dealing with its policy holders. Although Mr. Walkley is a lawyer himself, and had long practiced at the bar with distinguished success, no underwriter has less taste for going before the courts to resist claims. Indeed, no one who is any judge of human nature and has any faith in the "human face divine," as a mirror of the heart, could see that gentleman, and converse with him for half an hour without feeling satisfied that he is incapable of wronging the widow, whose most important interests are committed to his care.

ears.

In returning to New York, we are reminded of a circumstance which is somewhat noteworthy. One of the sharpest and most honest of the insurance journals has discovered in 1872, what we discovered in 1862, namely, that there are underwriters in New York and elsewhere, vastly more honest than Winston, of the Mutual Life. This discovery, at the eleventh hour, by one who delivered, regularly, once a month, for several years, at least one eulogy of enormous extent on the numerous virtues of that personage, must be regarded as a highly remarkable feat. Some may think that the Insurance Times has been rather slow in making that discovery, and that its editor cannot boast much on account of it, either of his eyes or his The Insurance Monitor, however, has a very different idea of the affair; for that very impartial journal rewards the discoverer only by considering his case under the head of "Editorial Insanity," and belaboring him with abuse for having thus gone wrong in the head! "Call him insane," says that incorruptible moralist, "and let it pass at that. Speak not of ingratitude when one turns upon his best benefactor, and, with a deliberation and persistence inconceivable, strives to rob him of his life-work, while with the tongue of a serpent he spits venom and fury in the endeavor to cover his good name with obloquy!" Ah, how handsome! But the tirade, of which this is but a small sample, is somewhat spoiled in its effect by the enormous puff of the Mutual Life, which immediately follows it. That, however, we have nothing to do with; we readily acknowledge that the Monitor has a perfect right to devote four columns more, or twenty columns, to the same subject since its stomach can so well bear that sort of thing. Our readers are aware that while the Insurance Times praised all rich companies alike, we never quoted a word of its praise, even in those instances in which we knew it was well deserved. Now, however, we view its testimony in a different light, and accordingly we do not hesitate to extract the following paragraph from an article in last month's number, on a company which we have always held in high estimation,

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