Mr. SPEifS on Life Insurance. 219 



out from the Equitable experience are a little more. The near agree- 

 ment of the two maj be generally explained by the Amicable experi- 

 ence being on the one hand considerably more unfavourable, partly 

 no doubt from the longer duration of the policies, and that of the other 

 offices being doubtless considerably more favourable from the shorter 

 duration of the policies, and of course the greater benefit of selection. 

 Upon tlio whole, the tables of the Equitable experience appear to offer 

 as favourable a view of life as can be anticipated in the experience of 

 any office, and from the number of the policies, and length of time 

 over which they extend, are better adapted for the solution of such 

 questions as the present, than the tables of experience of the seventeen 

 offices. 



5. Referring then again to the Equitable experience, on the assump- 

 tion that lives are better when they first enter into the society, that is, 

 that persons, say of the age of 50, who have been thirty years in the 

 society cannot be expected to be so good lives as those entering at 50, 

 and of course then select lives, it will be obvious that the values of 

 annuities deduced from their general experience will at young ages be 

 stated too high, and, in a society of such long existence as the Equi- 

 table, at old ages too low, while they will be correct somewhere about 

 the middle ages. This will be readily seen when it is considered that 

 in the calculation of the values of annuities on young lives, they will 

 derive the benefit of a continued influx of select lives at older ages, 

 while the values of the old lives will be deteriorated by their being 

 mixed up in the calculation with lives which, from their long duration 

 in the society, will have lost much or all the benefit of selection. 



6. With the view, no doubt, towards such calculations as I have 

 made, most useful tables are given in the tables of experience of the 

 seventeen offices, namely, tables II, showing the results of the Equitable 

 experience for separate classes. These show the probabilities of living 

 one year at all the older ages of the following number of lives admitted. 



Table H 1, on 7,259 lives admitted, from 26 to 34 inclusive. Deaths 1,203 



2, — 6,270 •— 35-44 — 1,597 



3, — 3,436 — 45-64 — 1,301 



4, — 1,317 — 65-64 — 685 



18,282 4,786 



The ages at which the above total admissions took place were as 

 follows, and I have placed opposite different ages the numbers exposed 

 to the risk of mortality at each age, so as to enable a better estimate 

 to be formed of the value of the observations : — 



