policyholders were better off when the company was less ambitious. I am not urging a plea for laziness or want of energy. I am deprecating no one of the forms in which life proposals are nowadays angled for. By all means let assurance societies get as large as possible, and let every nerve be strained by their officials to make them so; but in thus acting, let not the cost of the operation be ignored, or even put into the background.

The question discussed above by Mr. Macfadyen is one of great practical importance, and the result he has arrived at is a remarkable one, well deserving the attention of the managers of life insurance companies. It will be noticed, however, that Mr. Macfadyen makes no allowance for the heavier ratio of expense that necessarily attaches to the new business as compared with the old in every company, whether large or small, whether long established or of recent origin. Without expressing any opinion on the present occasion as to whether Mr. Macfadyen's remarkable figures fully justify the conclusions he deduces from them, we have thought it would be interesting to many of our readers to see how the figures would come out, if allowance were made in the manner proposed by Mr. Deuchar (in the paper preceding Mr. Macfadyen's), for the greater expense attaching to the new business. Mr. Macfadyen having kindly furnished us with the names of the 55 offices whose accounts have been examined by him, we have recomputed the average percentages of expense, taking the figures-not from the bluebook, as he has done, but from White's Insurance Register; and the results are shown in column (2) of the following table. The figures, it will be seen, substantially agree with Mr. Macfadyen's; not only as regards their absolute magnitude, but what is of more importance, as regards their comparative magnitude. We have next computed the average percentages of the renewal premiums that are expended, on the suppositions, first, that one-half the new premiums, and secondly, the whole of the new premiums in each company, may be considered as a set-off against the expenses; and the results are shown in columns (3) and (4) of the table.

The results, it will be seen, support Mr. Macfadyen's statements

as to the greater expense attending the management of companies doing a very large new business; for they show that even when the fullest possible allowance is made on account of the expense attaching to a large new business, the average rate of expense attaching to the management of the old business is greater in the companies doing a very large new business than in those doing a more moderate amount.-ED. J. I. A.

On the Mortality of the Clergy. By HERR HEINRICH STÜSSI, of Zürich. Translated and Abridged by D. A. BUMSTED, Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries.

INTRODUCTION.

I HAVE somewhere read that the experience of life assurance

companies furnishes the only certain means of ascertaining the law of mortality, since by this means only is it possible to keep in view through a lengthened period and trace up to death, each of a selected number of persons. As far as the possibility is concerned, we may admit that the law of mortality of the members may be deduced in this manner by proper methods. It is important, however, to bear in mind that, in the case of assurances, we have to deal with selected lives; and the influence of this selection, though it may be disregarded in the later years of assurance, is of considerable importance in the earlier years, so that, unless special precautions be taken, the mortality of the general population cannot be correctly obtained. The mortality may be more nearly determined if an account be kept of the rejected proposals, as is done in England, and the deaths noted which happen among those cases. This, I certainly think, should be done universally, as it must be of practical use to the companies to know how far the rules by which they are guided in accepting or rejecting proposals are justified. No such account is kept, as far as I know, either in Germany or Austria. We may otherwise eliminate the influence of selection, by omitting from the calculation the earlier years of assurance, during which this influence is felt.

With regard to the mortality of children, correct results may be obtained from endowments; as there is scarcely any selection of lives, and the assurances are almost always effected on condition that the premiums shall be returned in the event of the early death of the child.

*The author is of course mistaken in supposing that any investigation of this kind is commonly made in England, altho' it was certainly done for a time by one company.-ED. J. I. A.

It is further to be borne in mind, that the general death rates of the country can never be obtained from the observations of a single company. One company does business principally in one district, another elsewhere. One may acquire more insurances from the upper, another more from the lower classes. One company may be appropriated to a particular section of the community, such as teachers, clergymen, railway officials, and be consequently not accessible to the others. It is only when the different companies bring together their observations and experience that a true representation of the general death rates of the country can be obtained. Unfortunately, only a small number of the continental companies publish any information as to their mortality; scarcely any state definitely and clearly the number of lives assured and the number of deaths at each age. The information usually given that there were so many deaths more or less than should have happened according to the tables of mortality—is entirely worthless, when we do not know by what mortality table the company calculates; and this is never stated. I am convinced that the great majority of companies are perfectly indifferent about such trifles as statistics. They conduct their business in a shopkeeping spirit. The chief point is to get plenty of new business, and so increase the income. What is the use of calculating whether few or many have died, unless indeed to fill up a gap in the Report? It will not bring the dead to life again, or increase the profits. To this indifference contributes also the childish mutual jealousy which is felt by all the companies without exception, as is clearly indicated by the suppression of facts in their reports. The English offices, by united action, constructed the Seventeen Offices' Table, which is generally adopted even on the continent; and to this they have recently added the HM Table: to such splendid results is the Institute of Actuaries already able to point! In Germany, on the other hand, the Life Assurance Collegium was wrecked upon those petty jealousies and trade mysteries, almost as soon as founded, and yet it consisted of managers and actuaries who still wish to be looked upon as white ravens. Truly, "Something is rotten in the State of Denmark!"

It seems to me that we should be more likely to obtain good materials for the construction of a general table of mortality from those who, living in the midst of the population, have been

The Collegium seems to be still in existence, but instead of comprising all Germany and Switzerland, it has dwindled down to a mere Berlin Club. Its Journal has long since disappeared.

appointed to watch over particular sections of it. Among such may be mentioned the overseers of the poor, who are compelled to keep in sight every citizen, however far he may wander, so that they may not lose his contribution to the rates: also the superintendent-registrars of births, marriages, and deaths, under whose observation, notwithstanding the many changes of residence which now take place, the bulk of the population of their districts still pass from birth to death. Again, observations by schoolmasters would afford valuable statistics as to the rate of sickness as well as death of children. It would be a task well worthy of the Statistical Society to organize a system of statistical observations. I am convinced that, as in meteorology a great number of men willingly undertook the laborious work of collecting observations, so on a proper representation of the importance of statistics, men would be found who would devote themselves to this work; and my countrymen would show that, in this respect, they are able by self-sacrifice to do as much good as other States with an army of paid agents.

Similar difficulties to those above described have prevented me from deducing complete tables of observations from the materials of an assurance company at my disposal, and I had therefore to content myself with a few fragments, of which the following is one: this fragment is, however, defective in some points; for instance, in a case where a clergyman was assured jointly with his child, it was impossible to discover from the materials furnished me whether, in the case of a claim, it was the father or the child who died. Again, no mention was made in any case of the cause of death.

GERMAN OBSERVATIONS.

The German observations hitherto published upon the mortality of different classes of society are very scanty, and, partly from the small number of facts observed, partly from the mode of treating them, untrustworthy.

The first and best arrangement of the kind is given by Casper, in his well known work on The probable Duration of Human Life, published in Berlin in 1835. In his classification, according to occupation, of the individuals observed, he describes clergymen as "men who lead a very regular and temperate life, exempt from pressing anxieties; and as the great majority have country cures, their life is almost equally divided between home-study and exercise in the open air."

The average duration of the life of clergymen, is, according to Casper, 65.1 years, and consequently far exceeds that of all other classes. Of 100 clergymen, 42 reach an age over 70, 27 over 75, 14 over 80, 5 over 85, and 1 over 90 years; so that, in respect of reaching the highest ages, the clergy stand above all others. According to Casper, the nature of a clergyman's life, as given above, fully explains this remarkable longevity. He adds a clergy mortality table from observations giving 657 deaths between the ages 24 and 93; from which it appears that the average yearly mortality per-cent is 58 for the ages 25 to 45, 2·00 for the ages 45 to 65, and 1·18 for the ages 25 to 65.

In Kolb's Statistics it is stated that, according to observations of De Neufville, at Frankfort, from 1820 to 1852, the average age at death of the clergy was 65 years and 4 months, which is certainly higher than that of all other classes.

Escherich states, that among the protestant clergy are found the greatest number of old men, but the mortality is higher than the average at the ages between 50 and 60. With the Romish clergy it is higher at the ages 45 to 65.

In Haushofer's Statistics, according to observations of Lombard, in 1835, the average duration of life of the protestant clergy is given as 63.8 years.

ENGLISH OBSERVATIONS.

The influence of occupation upon the rate of mortality was treated very fully by Mr. Francis G. P. Neison, in the Journal of the Institute of Actuaries for July 1872.

was

According to him the annual mortality per-cent of the clergy

He thinks that the higher mortality of the Roman catholic clergy is to be explained principally by the risk to which they are exposed in visiting and attending upon the members of their flocks.