L-1. NOTICIAS Secretas de America, sobre el Estado Naval, Militar, y Politico de los Reyno del Perú, &c.: Gobierno y Regimen particular de los Pueblos de Indios: Cruel Oprésion y Extorsiones de sus Corregidores y Curas: Abusos escandalosos introducidos entre estos Habitantes por los Misioneros, &c., &c.: por Don Jorge Juan, y Don Antonio de Ulloa. Sacadas á luz para el verdadero Conocimiento del Gobierno de los Españoles en la America Meridional, por Don David Barry. 2. Coleccion de los Viages y Descubrimientos que hicieron II.-Anne Boleyn, a Dramatic Poem, by the Rev. H. H. Milman 351 III-1. Biblical Researches and Travels in Russia, including a Tour in the Crimea, and the Passage of the Caucasus; with Observations on the State of the Rabbinical and Karaite Jews, &c. By E. Henderson. 2. Voyage dans la Russie Méridionale, et particulièrement dans les Provinces situées au-delà du Caucase, fait depuis 1820 jusqu'en 1824. Par le Chevalier Gamba IV.-1. English Synonymes discriminated. By W. Taylor, jun. 2. English Synonymes explained in Alphabetical Order; with Copious Illustrations and Examples drawn from the best Writers. By George Crabbe, A. M. V.-I. Voyage of His Majesty's Ship Blonde to the Sandwich 2. Narrative of a Tour through Hawaii, or Owhyhee; with Remarks on the History, Tradition, Manners, Customs, ART. Page VI. 1. Missionary Registers, 1825, 1826. 2. Memoirs of the Life of Thomas Fanshaw Middleton, D.D., late Lord Bishop of Calcutta. By Dr. Bonney. 3. A Farewell Sermon, preached in the Parish Church of Hodnet, County of Salop, April 20, 1823. By the Rev 4. The Omnipresence of God; a Sermon preached August 5, 1825, on the Consecration of the Church of Secrole, near Benares. By Reginald, Lord Bishop of Calcutta VII.-Narrative of the Burmese War, detailing the Operations of Major-General Sir Archibald Campbell's Army, from its Landing at Rangoon in May 1824, to the Conclusion of a VIII.-1. Peveril of the Peak; Quentin Durward; St. Ronan's THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. ART. I.-1. A Comparative View of the Various Institutions for the Assurance of Lives. By Charles Babbage, Esq., M.A., F.R.S., &c. &c. London. 1826. 2. Deed of Settlement and Bye-laws of the Society for Equitable Assurances, together with the Addresses of Mr. Morgan, Actuary, from the year 1765 to 1825. AMONG the various Institutions in which Great Britain may justly pride herself, as being instrumental to public as well as private benefit, there are none of more importance, or of more general utility, than those Associations that have been formed with the view of securing a competency to the widows and children of such persons, chiefly in the middle ranks of society, as have only a life-interest in their incomes; and who, from the smallness of those incomes, and the uncertain duration of human life, are, in very many cases, utterly unable to lay by any provision for their surviving families. In this description are comprehended a great part of the clerical profession, civil officers and clerks holding situations under government, annuitants in general, and that very numerous class of naval and military officers, of whom a large proportion can barely subsist on their pay, and who must continually and painfully be reminded, that the pension to which their widows are entitled, liberal as it must be considered on the part of the public that bestows it, is far from being adequate to the decent maintenance of a family. To these may be added, the greater number of professional men, as lawyers, physicians, surgeons, &c., who may happen to marry and have families, while only in moderate practice; as also, merchants, bankers, shopkeepers, and various tradesmen under the same circumstances, who may not have the means of leaving a provision for their families or near connexions, in the event of premature death. To all these the various Institutions for the Assurance of Lives hold out relief, available for the most part by all such as are able and willing to resort to them; and the truth is, that even the very highest ranks of society have now frequent recourse to them, in order to make a provision for the younger children where the family estate is entailed. Such Institutions are almost exclusively confined to Great Britain; indeed they could only exist in a country where public credit has has been long established on the basis of good faith, and property of all kinds secured by just and equal laws. They are even of modern invention in England; and yet, young as they are (the oldest, except two of a somewhat different nature, being established little more than sixty years), their importance and extent may in part be appreciated by the single fact of that oldest (the Equitable) having at this moment an accumulated capital of not less than ELEVEN MILLIONS! So little indeed were the benefits to be derived from Societies of this nature at first understood, that a period of thirty years was suffered to elapse before another, the Westminster, was established. They now, however, amount to between thirty and forty. That among such a number, and in such an age, when speculation is the prevailing mania, some of them should be conducted on unsound or unsafe, and others on dishonest, principles, is not much to be wondered at. Mr. Babbage says, In the Doctrine of Life Annuities and Assurances," Mr. Baily has anticipated me in giving a sketch of the offices then existing: so many new ones have arisen since the period at which he wrote, that they require a volume rather than a chapter for their analysis. In exposing the disgraceful practices which prevail at some of them, I am merely repeating sentiments which he has more forcibly expressed; and, although his remarks have not yet had the effect of removing the evil, I feel confident that little more is requisite, than by rendering those practices generally known, to make them universally condemned.-Pref. ix. It is, indeed, of high importance, where so many thousand families are so deeply concerned, that the public should be satisfied as to the honour and integrity of those, under whose management these Institutions are placed; for of all frauds that can be committed, none are more scandalous and more detestably wicked than those practised against the interests of charity and humanity--more especially still, where the objects are the widow and the orphan. Mr. Babbage, we need scarcely say, ranks among the first mathematicians of our age; and he is not merely an abstract calculator, spending his time in solving problems of transcendental geometry, constructing algebraic formulæ, or raising infinite series to the n'h power, but a man of general science, of varied talent;--and one who to his other acquirements adds that of being a good practical mechanist. We need no further proof of this last point, than the machine which he has actually constructed for the computation of logarithmic and other tables, and which alone would entitle him to rank with such men as Herschel and Brunel.* We had some right, therefore, In a letter to Sir Humphrey Davy, Mr. Babbage says of this extraordinary engine, which we have seen at work, that it will "calculate tables governed by laws which have not been hitherto shown to be explicitly determinable, or solve equations for which analytical methods of solution have not yet been contrived." The invention includes also another singular therefore, to expect that his Comparative View' would throw considerable light on an obscure and complicated subject, and were prepared indeed for close mathematical reasoning, deep research, and new algebraic formulæ for facilitating the various calculations required to obtain correct results in all things relating to Assurances on Lives. Nothing of the kind, however, appears in the book now before us; but in lieu of all this, a plain statement of facts, most of which, as the author observes, had been already, in some shape or other, before the public. In short, Mr. Babbage avows himself to have been induced to bring forward the subject in a popular form, from having had occasion to observe how very imperfectly the merits of the numerous and complicated institutions for the assurance of lives were understood, even by persons otherwise wellinformed. The design is, without question, entitled to praise ; and not less so, on the whole, the manner in which Mr. B. has executed his task, though it is neither free from the occurrence of mistakes, nor from the charge of omissions. The style is plain, and his statements sufficiently clear and intelligible to the commonest reader. The book is, in fact, well calculated to convey important information on a subject in which vast numbers are interested. It requires only to be generally known to become generally useful,—if it were but that it must give rise to further inquiries; and, in aid of this view, we shall embrace the opportunity to draw up a brief and popular sketch of the system and practice of assuring lives at the various offices for conducting that business. Few of our readers, in all probability, can need to be told, that an Assurance on Life is the assurance that a certain sum of money will be paid on the event of the death of a certain person named, either within a specified number of years, or (as is more generally the case,) immediately after his decease, in consideration of paying at once, or annually, a certain sum; the party contracting to make such payment being called the assurer, the payment the premium, and the instrument binding the contract the policy of assurance. It will be evident, that the amount of the annual payment, or premium, must be proportionate to the age of the assurer, and the sum to be assured to his executors. The uncertainty of the duration of human life, proverbial as regards an individual, is not applicable to an aggregated multitude of individuals. If, for example, we take the population of a large city, or of a whole kingdom, the uniformity in the number singular and most ingenious contrivance. These machines not only make the calculations for which they are set, but are so framed, that "they themselves shall take, from several boxes containing type, the number which they calculate, and place them side by side; thus becoming at the same time a substitute for the compositor and the computer; by which means all error in copying, as well as printing, is removed.” |