ood name and resources. As a corporation, Lloyd's has
no financial liability in the event of the failure of any of its
members or subscribers.

All that Lloyd's does, in its corporate capacity, is to permit the
admission only of men of stability and sound repute by means of
stringent tests, and to exact a money guarantee or deposit from its
members in the sum of L5000 or L6000, together with entrance fees of
L400, and annual fees of twenty guineas. These payments form what may
be called a reserve fund, and the individual underwriter writes his own
policies. If the risk is heavier than he wishes to assume he divides
it among his fellows.

There are few more interesting places in London than Lloyd's, encrusted
as it is with the barnacles of conservative tradition, and hedged about
with all the exclusiveness of a club. The entrance is guarded by a
burly porter gorgeously arrayed in the scarlet robes and gold-banded
hat of a by-gone century. Having run the gauntlet of this dragon, one
is likely to seek the underwriter's room where hundreds of members and
their clerks are quartered at rows of little desks or "boxes," every
man of them with his hat clapped on his head as decreed by ancient
custom.

There is always a crowd of them around the "Arrival Book" and the "Loss
Book" in which are posted the movements of vessels in every port of the
world, and the wrecks that number three thousand every year. The
famous "Captains' Room" where the mariners used to gather and swap
briny yarns is now used for the prosaic purposes of luncheon and for
the auction sales of ships.

In the two large and handsome rooms used by the secretary and by the
committee of Lloyd's are many interesting relics of the earlier history
of this body. Here is the oldest policy known to the annals of
maritime insurance, a faded document issued on January 20, 1680, for
L1200 on a ship, the _Golden Fleece_, and her cargo, on a voyage from
Lisbon to Venice, at L4 per cent. premium. Hanging on these walls are
also a policy written on the life of Napoleon, and an autograph letter
from the Duke of Wellington as Warden of the Cinque Ports.

The most conspicuous furnishings of the Committee Room are a huge
table, highly polished, of dark wood, a magnificently carved arm chair,
and a ship's bell. The table bears a silver plate inscribed as follows:

H.B.M. Ship _La Lutine_.

32 Gun Frigate

Commanded by Captain Lancelot Skynner, R.N.

Sailed from