only as actual experience has determined to be superfluous. Then, if the rate of interest should fall, or that of expense should rise, or if a pestilence should happen, the only evil will be, that the bonuses or dividends will be proportionally lessened. The cost of Life Insurance is divisible into two parts, a provision against ordinary hazards, and a provision against extraordinary risks. It is a suicidal policy to provide a guaranty against the former only. Yet this policy has been adopted by some of the feeble companies, which endeavor to attract business by offering to insure at low premiums. Those who are silly enough to accept this offer forget that the difference between the two rates, and even more than this difference, is returned by the larger institutions in the form of dividends. The occurrence of any circumstances which might cause these to suspend their dividends, would certainly cause their rivals to stop payment even of the sums insured.

There is another element of uncertainty, which cannot be guarded against for the present except by this higher rate of premium, although information will be obtained in a few years, chiefly through these very operations of Life Insurance, by which it will be eliminated altogether. It cannot be said that the law of mortality, or the average duration of human life, is yet determined for the people of this country, except within broad limits, or with a considerable allowance for possible error. We are still dependent in the main on the English tables, which have been made very precise and accurate for the duration of life in England, chiefly through the combined experience of the Life Insurance Companies, whose operations cover all ranks and employments, and extend in several cases over a period of more than half a century. It is very probable that the average duration of life here is less than it is in England, at least for what we have called "the insuring class"; -how much less cannot yet be determined. Professor Wigglesworth's tables relate to the people of this country; but the data on which they were founded are imperfect, and are now of so old date, the habits of the people, the practice of medicine, and sanitary measures having undergone great alteration during the intervening period, that they cannot be regarded as trustworthy for the present generation. Our State system

of registering births, deaths, and marriages, taken in connection with the United States decennial census, ought to afford the data for determining with great precision the law of mortality for all ages. But unfortunately both these operations have hitherto been conducted with so little care and method, that no reliance can be placed upon their results in cases where great accuracy is required. On the whole, we must depend on the materials which the operations of Life Insurance are gradually amassing, for the final solution of this interesting problem. As yet the companies are too young to have collected a sufficient quantity of them; but their amount is rapidly augmenting, and in the course of a dozen or twenty years more we may hope to obtain from their combined experience a great body of vital statistics, which will enable us to determine the laws of mortality for different ages, classes, localities, and employments with great precision.

The calculations in Mr. Neison's volume, which afford many curious and valuable results, are based chiefly upon data furnished by the English and Scotch Friendly Societies, which insure against sickness as well as death, by the Gotha Life Insurance Company upon the Continent, and by voluntary associations that have long existed among master mariners, medical men, and other classes of persons in England, for the benefit of their widows and orphans. Some of the conclusions deduced from these materials, as to the relative mortality of the different classes of the people, are very different from what we had been led to expect. The circumstances in which the poor and laboring population, especially in England, are placed, have generally been thought unfavorable to longevity. They are exposed to drudgery and toil, to impure air and undue heat and cold in their confined lodgings, are scantily clothed, and often insufficiently fed. Yet the more provident among them, who are thoughtful and frugal enough to pay a few pence every month to a Friendly Society, have a longer average duration of life than the wealthy and high-born. Especially is this the case in the rural districts, where, though the wages are less, the employments are healthier than in cities and towns. Yet even in the city districts, where the conditions seem most unfavorable to health, it is found that the expectation of life in

the poorer classes is considerably greater than in the highest. ranks of society, namely, the peerage and baronetage, and very much larger than in the middle and upper classes generally, with which Life Offices have had the most experience. At the age of 30, for instance, the expectation of life for the poorer but provident classes in the rural districts is a little over 38 years; in town districts, it is 34; in city districts, nearly 33; while among the peerage, it is less than 31. At the age of 50, these proportions are as 23, 20, 20, to 18. These differences are serious enough to affect very materially the rates of Life Insurance; and it is probably their unexpected character which has induced the English offices of late to make great efforts to extend the sphere of their operations in small sums among the laboring classes. It is evidently better for them to issue a thousand policies for one hundred pounds each to humble artisans, than to insure one hundred lives among the gentry and nobility for one thousand each. The prolonged duration of life among the frugal and industrious of the laboring classes must be regarded, of course, as a consequence of their simple and uniform habits, and the more regular and natural physical exercise to which they are accustomed. There is greater equality in the distribution of the goods of this life than is generally imagined. "It could be clearly shown," says Mr. Neison, "by tracing the various classes of society in which there exist sufficient means of subsistence, beginning with the most humble, and passing on to the middle and upper classes, that a gradual deterioration in the duration of life takes place; and just as life, with all its wealth, pomp, and magnificence, would seem to become more valuable and tempting, so are its opportunities and chances of enjoyment lessened."

Hitherto we have compared the effect of different localities, and of different stations of rank and wealth, on the average duration of life. If we extend the comparison to different employments, the results are still more curious. It is now demonstrated that occupation has a much greater influence than locality on the chances of life. The rural districts are principally indebted for their supposed superior healthiness to the larger amount of healthy occupations which are pursued in

them; and in cities and towns, impure air, defective sewerage, confined lodgings, and local epidemics have not so much effect as employment in unhealthy trades in shortening life. "The peculiar sanitary condition of large towns has not the remarkable effect which many have supposed in shortening the duration of life." Among various occupations, we are sorry to find that of clerks in counting-houses, a numerous and respectable class of the population of cities, peculiarly unfavorable to longevity; and we fear that their employers, the merchants, who in the main are occupied in a similar manner, but have greater anxieties and less simple and regular habits, have a still inferior chance of long life. This is a matter which deserves attention from the Life Offices; for a larger proportion of this class than of any other appear inclined to insure their lives, evidently as a precaution against the distressing vicissitudes of trade to which they are liable. The occupations of plumbers, painters, and bakers are thought to be peculiarly unhealthy; and they are so. But as compared with the business of clerks, they appear decidedly favorable to long life. Thus, at the age of 40, a country laborer's expectation of life is 323 years; for the inhabitants of the rural districts, after abstracting the laborers, this expectation is but 30 years; for bakers, it is 24; for plumbers and glaziers, 24; but for clerks, it is less than 22 years.

We have said enough to show that through the operations of Life Insurance a great amount of curious and valuable information is gradually obtained, which throws full light on some of the most difficult questions in social science. Here in America information of this sort is peculiarly desirable; and for this reason, as well as for many others which we have noticed, we hope that the business may be firmly established and widely extended among all classes of our population.

ART. II. 1. Théatre de EUGÈNE SCRIBE, de l'Académie Française. Paris: Michel Levy, Frères. 1859. 20 vols. 16mo.

2. Les Contemporains. Scribe. Par EUGÈNE DE MIRECOURT. Avec un Portrait et un Autographe. Quatrième Edition. Paris: Gustave Havard, Éditeur. 1856.

3. Le Constitutionnel. Samedi, 23 Février, 1861.

ON the morning of the 22d of February, 1861, the writer of this article was returning from the Palais Royal to his lodgings in Paris, through the Rue St. Honoré, when his progress was arrested by a dense crowd gathered in front of the church of Saint-Roch. The centre of the street was filled by a long procession, stretching from the Place Vendôme to the portals of the church, which was draped in funereal black. This ancient edifice, beneath which repose the ashes of Voltaire, and which witnessed during the last century some of the most frightful atrocities of the French Revolution, was this day the scene of a striking, and for many reasons a remarkable ceremony. The most eminent men in France were assembled within its walls, to pay a last tribute of respect and affection to one who, for nearly half a century, had held possession of the French stage, achieving in that period a long list of brilliant successes, hardly interrupted by a failure. The pall-bearers were M. Dumas, President of the Municipal Board of Paris, Vitet, Director of the French Academy, Thierry, Director of the Théatre Français, and Auguste Maquet, President of the Club of Authors and Dramatic Composers. The French Academy was represented by some of the most distinguished members, among them Cousin, a striking figure, with venerable white hair, Thiers, the author of "The Consulate and the Empire," the Duc de Broglie, and others. The Prefect of the Seine and a deputation of the municipal authorities, with whom Scribe had been associated in office, attested by their presence the respect in which the deceased had been held as a citizen. The actors attached to the four leading theatres of Paris, the Théatre Français, the Opéra, the Opéra Comique, and the Gymnase (all which were closed through the evening), appro