a person whose ambition it is to walk in the brightest 

 boots to the cheapest insurance office, he has my pity: 

 for, grant that he is ever able to settle where to send his 

 servant, and it remains as difficult a question to what 

 quarter he shall turn his own steps. The matter would 

 be of no great consequence if persons desiring to insure 

 could be told at once to throw aside every prospectus 

 which contains a puff: unfortunately this cannot be done, 

 as there are offices which may be in many circumstances 

 the most eligible, and which adopt this method of ad- 

 vertising their claims. If these pompous announce- 

 ments be intended to profess that every subscriber shall 

 receive more than he pays, their falsehood is as obvious 

 as their meaning; if not, their meaning is altogether 

 concealed. 



Public ignorance of the principles of insurance is the 

 thing to which these advertisements appeal: when it 

 shall come to be clearly understood that in every office 

 some must pay more than they receive, in order that 

 others may receive more than they pay, such attempts 

 to persuade the public of a certainty of universal profit 

 will entirely cease. To forward this result, I have en- 

 deavoured, as much as possible, to free the chapters of 

 this work which relate to insurance offices from mathe- 

 matical details, and to make them accessible to all edu- 

 cated persons. Whether they act by producing convic- 

 tion, or opposition, a step is equally gained : nothing 

 but indifference can prevent the public from becoming 

 well acquainted with all that is essential for it to know on 

 a subject, of which, though some of the details may be 

 complicated, the first principles are singularly plain. 



August 3. 1838. 



