r more speculative business is done, called Tontine
insurance. This form may be fitly characterized as the gambling form,
inasmuch as the only hope of profit to a few is that the many will be
robbed of their savings. Tontine insurance is profitable to the few in
just the proportion that misfortune shall overtake those who participate
in it. No man would risk large payments with the certainty of losing all
if he should fail to make one such payment in a term of years, if he
were not tickled by the hope that others would be the unfortunate ones
compelled by circumstances to discontinue and lose all, while he would
be the exception and profit by their loss.

But he should consider that, even if he persists in paying through the
specified term, he is still at the mercy of the company in the division
of the spoils. They may use as large a part of the plunder as they
please in the expense of the business, and the experience of many will
attest that, while for the company it was "turkey," for them it was
"crow."

President Greene, of the Connecticut Mutual Life, in a series of able
articles, has exposed the injustice of this system, and shown, to the
satisfaction of unprejudiced minds, that it is no part of legitimate
life insurance. Still, some companies are making Tontine and
Semi-Tontine insurance their specialty.

There is one other form of insurance practised by level-premium
companies that demands brief notice here. It would seem that to mention
it would be to call down upon it public reprobation: we refer to what
is called prudential or industrial insurance. The peculiarity of this
form is that its patrons are found among the poorest and the lowest
classes of our population, and, in the judgment of others than the
writer, it appeals to the very worst instincts of those unfortunate
people. The insurance is effected upon the lives of helpless infants and
children to the amount of one hundred or two hundred dollars or more,
ostensibly to provide for suitable burial expenses in the event of the
child's death. While, doubtless, in some cases the motive is a worthy
one which prompts to such insurance, one's thought shrinks with horror
from a contemplation of the crimes which it must, in many cases, suggest
to the minds of the low and depraved. How many children are there in our
large cities whose lives are not worth even one hundred dollars! How
many are there whose death would be hailed as a deliverance from an
expensive