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panies which does not deserve better to-day than the estimate we gave of it seven years ago? Still more correct, if possible, would the other side of the insurance picture, as given years ago, prove to our readers as improved by the hand of time; but we are rather averse to gloomy, unamiable portraitures at Christmas time. We prefer to give the delinquents time to improve their morals during the holidays, and wait until we see whether their annual reports afford any evidence of such improvement. But to return to the state of affairs in the past, so that we may be able to comprehend certain "new features" of the present.

Seven years since, insurance had become an object of speculation merely as a means of making money; numbers who had failed in various kinds of business turned their attention to the new project. Those who could not insure themselves from bankruptcy, or from being turned out of their boarding-house for non-payment of board, could raise hundreds of thousands of capital, in a few days, to see that the widows and orphans of all endowed with the proper faith should be comfortably provided for.

This was the class that we undertook to put the public on its guard against; thousands have since learned, when too late, that insurance companies may make a large display of figures as capital, assets, etc., and yet be downright, habitual swindlers. No year has since passed without an increase of this class; within the last two years they have multiplied. At this moment there are not fewer than a score of new companies in process of "organization." Scarcely a session of the courts passes without suits against insurance companies that refuse to pay under one pretext or another, when lives they have insured drop.* Those whose chief business it is to cheat know how to be prepared for these suits; even when judgment is given in favor of the plaintiff he is by no means sure of his money.

Again, there are hundreds who bring no suits; if they have even the means, which is seldom the case, judging by the experience of their neighbors, they think that instead of gaining they would, in all probability, only increase the loss they have already sustained. Yet, nobody seems to profit by their example; nay, those swindled seldom profit even from their own case. An agent comes to them and tells them they deserved their fate; they should not have insured in any such company; had they or their friends insured in his company they would have had their money now, etc. If the trick does not succeed with one agent it will with anotherprobably with his accomplice; the second company, as might be expected proves, if possible, still more dishonest than the first; yet, the credulity of our people rather increases than diminishes, and hence it is that the chief difficulty is now to find new names for the new insurance companies as fast as they are organized !"

As for "capital," that is as easily manufactured as the cheapest drug in the market; a few hundred thousands, more or less, have only to be mentioned, and anon there are the figures! Even when these figures only exaggerate; when really wealthy men become underwriters, it is by no means certain that the insured may calculate on the amount of their policies, since

The latest instance we have observed is one against the Traveller's, of Hartford; one of Batterson's concerns. The suit was brought in the Kings County (N. Y.) Supreme Court Circuit, before Judge Tappan, by Eliza C. Mallory, to recover $2000, being the amount of a life insurance policy issued by defendants to plaintiff's brother. The jury returned a verdict for plaintiff for the whole amount; but whether the lady has got it, or will get it, until she loses nearly as much as the original sum by law, if even then, is the question!

men may have much money-no matter how they got it-and very little honesty or principle. It was the opinion of Franklin, that rich swindlers did far more mischief than poor swindlers. But it may be said, even by those most willing to believe the truth, that we exaggerate the present condition of the insurance world. The dupes will think it impossible we could be correct! This very numerous, if not sensible or respectable class, will insist that the insurance organs were right in abusing us-that we deserved to be abused for making such monstrous statements. But let them not be too confident. What will they say if those organs are obliged to admit themselves, at the present day, much worse, in regard to their patrons, than what they abused us for? First let us see which organ is recognized as having the best right to speak er cathedra of "the profession." If we are not mistaken, it is the Insurance Times that enjoys this distinction at the present moment. In the absence of any other evidence, we should infer the fact from its being the most scurrilous of the whole tribe. Then, let us hear a specimen or two of the sort of information it gives its readers. Take this to begin with:,

"Now, life-insurance is no cheat; but there is more misrepresentation, more deception, more fincssing associated with it than with any other respectable business in existence. Every new plan for insuring lives is but another form of plausible decer tion, intended first to please, and then destroy. Who does not know that officers of companies always have some condition in the contract exceedingly obscure when the policy is taken, but exceedingly prominent when the policy is settled?"—Insurance Times for November, p. 463.

Now, let any one compare this and one or two other passages of the same kind, which we will also make room for, with the remarks we made in the articles on the "Quackery of Insurance Companies," in Nos. X. and XII. of this journal, written six years ago, and judge from all how long it takes an insurance organ to make a discovery. But let us hear a little more of the confession:

"We have been many years in the life-insurance business, and we know most of the larger and more popular companies. But we have never known a company that was thoroughly honest-never one that was free from overreaching devices designed to gain advantage over those unfortunate policy-holders who were compelled to leave the company. There always has been, and is to-day, a disposition to skin alire all who enter the ranks and leave them again. Gain by lapses is a piece of iniquity as dark in every moral aspect as stealing."-Ib.

This, it will be seen, goes farther than we have ever gone. We have never said that no company is thoroughly honest; nor do we now. We know more than a dozen that are, most emphatically, thoroughly honest, and we have mentioned them above. But the writer we have quoted has an advantage over us; he has been in the business many years-we have never been in it one year or one day. If, having belonged to swindling companies, and been in the habit of associating only with cheats, he thought all were swindlers and cheats, like his accomplices, perhaps we ought rather pity than blame him for placing all in the same category.

In the December number of that organ, we have another article on the same topic, but this is marked "communicated." The editor seems to think that this acquits him of being a party to the charges made. But let us hear a little more:

"Moreover, it is generally believed that managers of life companies are fair, honest men, with no disposition to take advantage or overreach. This is also a mistake. In many companies the reverse is true, and it is a constant study, not how the

interests of policy-holders may be promoted, but how they can be ignored and evaded." (P. 565.)

. The truth "will out" sometimes. This is precisely what we told our readers more than six years ago. At least one of the editors of the Insurance Times abused us at the time for doing so, and many a time since. We had no objection to this, nor shall we in the future. It will be remembered that we gave a specimen on one or two occasions of the sort of courtesy with which the insurance organs treat each other, remarking that why should we blame them when they treated us not only as politely as they did each other, but incomparably more so? Accordingly, we rather fee obliged to them than otherwise. If any of them said as naughty things of us, as what we are now going to quote, it will be admitted that they could not have said worse at all events. A long diatribe against the Insurance Monitor, which it seems has the temerity to pretend to rival the Insurance Times, commences as follows:

"Insurance papers, starting without capital, are conducted on a principle which combines some of the worst features of mendacity and swindling. They constitute some of the most transparent, and yet most successful, impostures in existence. Their editors are frequently men who have failed in the insurance business, and are too indolent or incapable to work or prosper at any other." (P. 496.)

If the writer of this extract had only the honesty to include his own luminary in the category which he describes, we would agree with him quite as readily as we do now in his estimate of his brethren. The editor waxes warm in true Billingsgate style, and comes to a climax as follows: "Hine's Insurance Monitor Weekly is one of these infamous sheets." (P. 496.) This may seem bad enough, but it is mild and gentlemanly compared to what follows.

Yet, as we have said, there is no one so fond of misrepresentation but that he will sometimes have to tell the truth. Accordingly we make no apology for placing the insurance luminary on the stand again for a moment, or two. No doubt he knows what an "approver" is, or one who turns king's or queen's evidence, and we are willing to treat him with all the consideration due to that class of witnesses, when their testimony is duly corroborated, as in the present case. But let us hear the witness:

"It will startle our good citizens to learn that on all the small and special risks in this city at least one third of the insurance is utterly worthless. It has not at its back capital enough to pay the smallest fraction of the risks it pretends to carry. A more complete delusion and flagitious cheat was never imposed upon the public."-Insurance Times, Dec., p. 565.

It was a grievous sin on our part to say such as this; it was as clear as daylight that we had some abominable motive for doing so; but our insurance oracle says the same for the pure love of truth! There is a slight difference, however; the following will tell how:

"But whence are these companies without honesty or capital? and who introduces them into this State, which boasts of an Insurance Department created on purpose to prevent the fraud they commit daily all the year round? They come from New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and various other States, and are represented, under the rose, in this city, by about three hundred brokers, most of them members of the Board, and many of them standing high in that fraternity." (P. 566.)

Just so. No insurance swindlers or impostors in New-York at all; all that class come from the rural districts. Let everybody be good enough to remember that there is no "complete delusion" or "flagitious cheat"

among our metropolitan companies! We look about a little to see how it is that New York has become so pure in that respect of late, and we find two of our companies spread over as many of the large quarto-pages of our insurance oracle. The "Home Fire and Inland" covers the whole face, or first page, except about an inch and a half at the top, occupied by the title of the organ, and the "International Marine and Fire" fills half the last page and half the preceding one. Under such circumstances NewYork companies should, of course, be like Cæsar's wife; all ladies of doubtful virtue come from the country! Be this as it may, we ask, are the most serious charges we have ever made against a certain class of insurance companies fully corroborated, or are they not?

Now we have to say a brief word about the so-called Chamber of Life Insurance. We wish we could devote a whole article to it for the amusement of our readers. At its third annual meeting the Chamber, as first constituted, ended as it began its existence, in a cloud of froth. To this we can add, without fear of contradiction, and without making any claim to the prophetic gift, that it has ended precisely as we predicted three years ago. We need hardly inform our readers that Mr. Benjamin J. Stevens, of the New-England Mutual Life, elected as its first president, has never once presided-never attended one of its meetings; that sort of work he left to Mr. N. D. Morgan and the worthy officers who have aided him so well in making a laughing stock of the whole party. However, we are not without a Chamber; le roi est mort; vive le roi ! Morgan is dethroned, but we have Batterson in his place. Need we say that Europe and America, and Africa, too, might have been searched in vain for a more worthy successor? Let everybody thank Guy Phelps for this. In future the worthy doctor's claim to a niche in a certain gallery will not rest exclusively on his tomato pills and his insurance wooden nutmegs.

It is true that three intelligent, shrewd underwriters, whose integrity cannot be impugned, have sometimes attended the meetings of the Chamber, namely, Mr. Edward A. Jones of the National Life, Mr. Samuel H. White of the Charter Oak Life, and Mr. Pliny Freeman of the Globe Mutual Life; but it should be remembered that each of those gentlemen is very fond of a joke. It amused them to attend; and by putting in a word here and there they helped to amuse the public, by encouraging Morgan, Eadie, Bucklin, Batterson, etc., to make foolish speeches. But when new officers were to be appointed, on the 19th of November last, the three declined in turn to be nominated. Prof. Wright was declared Actuary-inChief; but that gentleman regarded his election as a doubtful honor at best. But with Batterson as president, Eadie as vice-president, Cole, of the Brooklyn Life, as secretary, and another member of the Morgan family (nominated by President Morgan, and "recommended from a respectable source") as treasurer, everybody must be satisfied that the "Chamber" will prove fully worthy of its name!

We never see an elaborate eulogy in an insurance paper but we think there is something wrong; that the "assets" are in a deranged state; that "contested claims" have attracted too much attention, etc. And most people who think regard the matter in the same light. There are several of these suspicious rhapsodies in the insurance journals before us, some of

them extending to three columns. As this is the size prescribed in the most desperate cases, we feel rather sorry. However, we will say nothing until the holidays are over; then, perhaps, the patients would be "smart" again, and not need our peculiar mode of treatment. In the mean time, we would respectfully remind them of the fable of the Lion and the Donkey. Young Master Leo took a great fancy for the company of a herd of donkeys that pastured some distance from the residence of his royal father; on his return he began to show his accomplishments, by braying at an immense rate, until the king of brutes nearly knocked the life out of him with a blow of his paw.

As to the existing controversy relative to the respective merits of the mutual and "mixed" life companies, we have nothing to do with it. Good, bad, and indifferent men belong to each, and, perhaps, nearly in the same proportion; and it is by the conduct and character of the men we judge, not by their rules or theories. Let us be only sure that the man is honest and trustworthy, and we do not care a wooden nutmeg, or a tomatopill, whether he be a "mutual" man or a "mixed" man.

It is certainly as agreeable to us to notice vindications as accusations, or recriminations; indeed, much more agreeable, when we know that the former are honestly received. That this is true of the vindications of the Knickerbocker Life, of this city, and of the Etna Life, of Hartford, most of our readers are aware; for there are not two more honorable companies in the United States. Both, it seems, have been libelled; but those who do right have nothing to fear in the long run; in nine cases out of ten truth and justice will prevail. The following manly statement from General Maury, of Virginia, speaks for itself, and we are sure that Mr. Lyman is generous enough to accept it as sufficient satisfaction for the unfounded statements made against his company.

"Editors of Rusk Observer :

After consideration and investigation, I am convinced that my disparagement of the Knickerbocker Life Insurance Company, in my letter published in your paper last month, was altogether wrong and unjustifiable. All I can now do is to make this expression of my regret and acknowledgment of my error as public as was the assault. I will thank you to send a copy of the paper containing this amende to every agent of the Piedmont Company who may have received or read my letter, with an injunction to abstain in future from all disparagement of the Knickerbocker or any other designated company. DABNEY H. MAURY."

The vindication of the Etna comes from the New Dominion of Canada; this, also, tells its own story:

"ETNA LIFE INSURANCE Co.-As articles derogatory to this company have at various times appeared in these columns, which were written without a full knowledge of all the facts discussed, and would not have been published had we possessed the data now within our reach, we feel it due to that company, and our own character for truthfulness, to state that we are not aware of any thing in the standing or business of the Etna Life Insurance Company, which the public would have cause to distrust."-Daily News of Montreal, November 27th, 1868.

This is a much wiser course for those who make accusations without thought or knowledge, than to await the decision of a court. Alluding to legal affairs reminds us of a somewhat curious suit recently brought before

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