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The  Importance  of  Insurance. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm 
May,  1905. 
fire,  I  am  led  to  believe  that  the  insurance  companies  treated  them 
generously.  In  fact,  their  success  and  popularity,  even  their  very 
existence,  depend  upon  their  justice  and  fair  dealing  toward  the 
insured.    But  we  are  all  apt  to  think  we  don't  get  enough. 
Thus  it  will  be  readily  seen  by  any  intelligent  and  reasonable  per- 
son of  what  momentous  importance  fire  insurance  is  to  us  all.  And 
it  is  not  so  much  to  the  rich  property  holders  that  fire  insurance  ap- 
peals with  the  greatest  force,  but  to  the  man  of  limited  means  who 
has  only  his  stock  and  fixtures,  with  perhaps  the  property  he  occu- 
pies. If  he  should  lose  it  by  fire  it  would  deprive  him  of  the  means 
of  making  a  livelihood  and  leave  him  in  dire  distress.  Yet  it  is  un- 
fortunately just  this  class  of  our  citizens  who,  on  account  of  their 
scarcity  of  means  and  consequent  inability  to  pay  the  premium  on 
an  insurance  policy,  are  the  most  likely  to  neglect  to  protect  them- 
selves by  fire  insurance. 
Whereas,  if  a  man  of  wealth  should  lose  a  whole  block  of  houses 
by  a  disastrous  conflagration,  and  not  be  insured,  and  he  still  has 
another  block  in  his  possession,  he  of  course  will  feel  the  loss  very 
seriously  and  it  will  be  the  source  of  much  grief  and  regret  to  him, 
which,  however,  he  will  soon  forget  and  he  may  find  much  consola- 
tion in  the  thought  that  it  might  have  been  still  more  serious. 
The  best  and  wisest  business  man  will  sometimes  neglect  and 
postpone  the  performance  of  an  important  act  which  may  be  fol- 
lowed by  the  most  disastrous  consequences,  but  he  takes  chances, 
hoping  for  the  best.  Many  of  us  are  afflicted  with  this  weakness  of 
procrastination,  unmindful  of  the  old  adage — "  What  is  to  be  done 
to-morrow  should  be  done  to  day."  When,  under  such  circum- 
stances, misfortune  befalls  us,  we  have  no  sympathizers.  Everybody 
is  ready  to  say  "  it  served  him  right,"  not  having  charity  enough  to 
think  that  under  similar  circumstances  they  might  have  been  guilty 
of  the  same  omission. 
Fire  insurance  should  never  be  deferred  or  neglected. 
LIFE  INSURANCE. 
I  will  now  offer  a  few  hints  in  regard  to  the  importance  of  life  in- 
surance. Although  the  latter  is  not  of  such  imperative  necessity  at 
the  incipiency  of  his  business  career  as  the  former,  yet  if  he  has  a 
wife  and  children  it  should  receive  his  attention  at  the  earliest  pos- 
sible time  that  he  is  able  to  take  out  a  policy,  which,  if  small,  he 
