80 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [Vou. VIII. 
invested, which, considered in conjunction with the tables of mortality, 
afforded a clue to the rates properly chargeable. 
The first tables of mortality were made by the celebrated English 
astronomer Halley,and published in 1693. They were based on observa- 
tions as to the duration of life at Breslau, Germany. The first tables of 
premiums were prepared from English mortality returns of 1741, for the 
Equitable Society, and were revised twice, once according to the London 
bills of mortality and again according to the deaths in a Northampton parish 
from 1735 to 1780. These Northampton tables had a considerable vogue 
and were a credit to the patience and ingenuity of Dr. Price, who prepared 
them. A still better system was, however, introduced by Mr. Joshua Milne, 
actuary for the Sun Life Assurance Society, based on the records for nine 
years, 1779-87, of two parishes in Carlisle. These tables took into account 
the numbers living as well as the deaths, they came into general use, and 
I think they are more in accordance with Canadian mortality than any 
others. The majority of insurance companies deal only with medically 
approved lives, a practice which calls for a different standard, which has been 
supplied by the experience of twenty companies, collected by the Institute 
of Actuaries, and in several other ways. 
A new life insurance company, therefore, has to consider first by what 
tables of mortality it will be guided, next what rate of interest it will use 
in its premium calculations, and having thus established its net rate it must 
add enough to cover expenses, which is called loading. Profits are made 
by investment at a higher rate than that assumed and by exceeding care 
in the selection of lives for acceptance, which involves examination of the 
person offering himself for insurance by a capable medical doctor, and a 
scrutiny of his personal record and family history by the company’s manager 
and directorate. It goes without saying that the expenses must be kept 
within the margin allowed, or capital will suffer. I have heard a good 
authority say that a hundred risks will establish a rough average, but it is 
of course safer to have a thousand, and still more so to have ten thousand. 
At first, all risks should be of moderate amount, none of magnitude taken 
on old persons, and as large an area of this little world should be at once 
exploited as the directorate can supervise. Life risks huddled together 
in one locality are as dangerous to a company’s solvency as an excess of 
fire risks in one city block, for a steamboat accident, a theatre fire or even 
a bad epidemic may ruin a small local company. But, by attention to each 
of these important matters, of which security in investment is perhaps 
the most essential, our company may feel reasonably sure that, in spite 
of occasional alterations from average, the general result will be in accordance 
with calculation. A valuable contribution to actuarial statistics was made 
a few years ago by Mr. Sanderson, of the Canada Life, who prepared tables _ 
