ronizing them, yet there are many other considerations that tend to
produce this state of things. To insure in them is attended with too
great expense. It is not possible for the average mechanic to save from
his earnings a sufficient sum to carry any considerable amount of
insurance in these companies. The principles upon which the system is
founded are such as to render it needlessly expensive. Experience has
shown that for various reasons a very large proportion of the insured do
not continue to pay until the maturity of their policy by death, or by
limitation of the contract, yet the system requires the payment of a sum
which, after amply providing for expenses, computed at a given rate of
interest, will amount to the face of the policy at the expiration of the
life limit, making no account of gains by lapses nor from a mortality
below the expectancy.

The premium includes three items, viz.:--

_First_, Cost of pure insurance.

_Second_, The amount to be placed in reserve.

_Third_, The expense charge.

The cost of pure insurance is about one third of the premium, or perhaps
a little less. Now, does any unprejudiced person believe that it is
necessary to charge three dollars for the purpose of disbursing to the
families of the insured one dollar? Is not any system of insurance
properly open to criticism that continues to assume and charge a cost
that experience has shown to be so excessively beyond the necessities of
the case? We do not overlook the fact that a part of this overcharge is
returned to the insured upon certain conditions, nor the other fact,
that the proper expense of conducting the business must be provided for;
but, after giving credit for both these items, a very large and needless
overcharge remains to discourage those desiring insurance from assuming
its obligations. This may be more clearly shown in the light of a few
facts.

By examining the Massachusetts Life-Insurance Report for 1884, it will
be seen that several companies report an income from investments largely
in excess of the amount required to pay death-losses. It will be borne
in mind that the premium charge _includes_ the amount required for the
payment of death-claims, and it is supposed to be, and undoubtedly is,
amply sufficient for all purposes in the _absence_ of large
accumulations from which to receive such a princely income.

In other words, the companies go on requiring the payment of the same
premium from the party pr