198 RESULTS OF AN ENQUIRY RESPECTING THE 



It might be supposed that the experience of the late Life Assurance 

 Institutions would have afforded some data for guidance, and have exhibited 

 a fair estimate of the ratio of decrement, among the insuring classes at least ; 

 but a little consideration and advertence to the facts before us would 

 explain the difficulty and danger of relying upon the results of the 

 different offices. The insured were chieliy, or a large portion of them, 

 debtors in the services ; men, it may be supposed, improvident in their life 

 and habits ; a few were adventurers, or others embarked in speculations, 

 either necessitated unwillingly to incur the expence of a Life Assurance, 

 or, as the figured Tables would sometimes lead to the suspicion, urged into 

 the Society by the apprehension of approaching death. Thus, in the 

 Fifth Laudable Society existing from 1822 to 1827,* there were one 

 hundred and eighty-seven lapses out of one thousand three hundred and 

 ninety lives ; no very considerable mortality it would appear at first sight, 

 as it ranges under 3 per cent, per annum, — but on a closer inspection of 

 the Table it will 'be seen that seventy-five of the one hundred and eighty- 

 seven deaths occurred in the two years immediately succeeding the Assur- 

 ance, while the remainder of the lapses, one hundred and twelve in number, 

 are traced to have lingered through ten years from the period of entrance 

 into the Laudables. Such a misproportion of early lapses must have arisen 

 from other cause than mere accident. 



The Sixth Laudable Tablef in the possession of the Committee, gives 

 only the total number of lives and lapses without classing them by years 

 of entrance or decrement ; the former were nine hundred and ninety-six in 

 number, and the deaths one hundred and eighty, or 3.6 per cent, per 

 annum — the common average ; but by apportioning the presumed periods 

 of lapses among the five years of the Laudable, the more correct yearly 

 per centage would be exhibited at 3.89. 



* Vide Table No. 7. 



t Vide Table No. 8. 



