735 
of Edinburgh, Session 1881-82. 
ment of life assurance companies. He threw himself with charac- 
teristic energy into this new sphere of labour, and, under his guid- 
ance, the company, which had always held a high place among 
similar institutions, rose with rapid strides to a position of pre- 
eminence. 
The labours of a crowded business life of half a century at last 
began to tell upon his health; and in the year 1880 he resigned his 
office, and retired from active business, receiving from a very wide 
circle in our city expressions of sympathy, respect, and gratitude. 
While immersed, as might have been supposed, in purely profes- 
sional work, Mr. Smith took an active and effective part in connec- 
tion with a vast variety of matters affecting, in different relations, 
the interests of Edinburgh, and indeed of Scotland. 
As a Justice of Peace and Deputy-Lieutenant of the city of 
Edinburgh, he identified himself with every movement fitted to 
further its prosperity and good government. 
Educational questions had always a special place in his regard ; 
and any movement designed to promote the advancement of the 
University, in the way of enlarged endowments or of extension of 
its range of teaching, received his steady support. 
Philanthropic and benevolent institutions — notably the Royal 
Infirmary — secured much valuable service at his hands, while at 
the same time he was busy with ecclesiastical affairs in connection 
with the Established Church of Scotland, of which he was an office- 
bearer, and in the interests of which he was a ' much valued coun- 
sellor and an unwearied worker. 
Our own Royal Society derived no small advantage from his 
tenure of the office of Treasurer during a long series of years. 
In a variety of qualities, not always, and indeed not often found 
in combination, we have the secret of his power of discharging, with 
a large measure of effective success, the many and diversified duties 
which seemed to fall to him with a certain naturalness and pro- 
priety. 
It was impossible not to be struck by the keen insight and 
rapidity of decision which characterised his examination of any 
subject brought before him. The matter being disposed of, it was 
dismissed and forgotten, and some new and quite different question 
or interest followed a like course with equal despatch and deter- 
