LIFE INSURANCE FOR FISHERMEN. 



IT would be a work of supererogation in the present state 

 of ethical knowledge to argue as to the national importance 

 or individual value of insurance. The colossal I might 

 say the cosmopolitan insurance offices which, on fair and 

 equitable terms, are willing to undertake the risks that 

 inevitably attend upon life and property, are amongst the 

 most important beneficent institutions of our land ; and the 

 magnificent Orders of Providence as they might be truly 

 called which watch over the working man in sickness and 

 in death, supplemented as they are by benefit clubs which 

 permeate the whole country, prove beyond all doubt that 

 the true principles of insurance are well understood and 

 widely appreciated by all classes of the community. The 

 ordinary Englishman and the cannie Scot are, as a rule, as 

 provident in this respect as their means will allow, and 

 scorn to shelter themselves from reproach by such a subter- 

 fuge as did the witty Irishman, who, when asked why he 

 had not provided against a " rainy day," naively replied : 

 " Please, your honour, and so I did, but there came two ! " 



There are, however, some few classes whose employments 

 and pursuits are so exceptionally dangerous in their nature, 

 that a consideration of how best their special and peculiar 

 risks can be met and provided against will be both interest- 

 ing and, it is to be hoped, profitable. Foremost amongst 



