margin required to meet the additional .expenses usually incurred under policies opened at a foreign branch, so that practically the average annual extra premium required to meet the additional mortality of European lives residing in a foreign climate should not be less than from 10s. to 20s. per-cent, reducible probably after the lives have been assured a certain term of years, and after they have become acclimatized, or have attained the age of 45 or 50 years of age.

But though these are the additional annual premiums derived from the facts, there is no evidence to show the amount required during the first years of foreign residence. The acclimatizing extra seems to me to be of the greatest importance. Apart altogether from climatic influences upon health and life,—the mere change from all the comforts of home to a life among strangers-the changes in food-the new anxieties to be feared the novelties in life to be endured-and the numberless little risks to be run before the person becomes naturalized to a new sphere, in which failure may endanger life, these all crowd upon the first years of the change. The offices can scarcely compound their acclimatizing extra for a uniform annual addition to the life premium, because they consider the risk during the first year's residence the greatest; and when that is the case, the two cannot be equalized without either requiring security for the continuance of the policy, or running up a debt against its value. After payment of the acclimatizing extra for some years, the offices generally, so far as my inquiries inform me, reduce the extra, and possibly they might, from the evidence I have furnished, with perfect safety still further reduce the continuous extra. But it must be borne in mind that continuous residence in India is the exception rather than the rule. Flying mercantile visits to India are far more frequent than those of settling down, so usual in the case of emigrants to Canada and Australia, and the additional premiums of the offices thus partake more of the nature of acclimatizing extras than of the continuous premiums usually charged for residence in the mother country or in many of her agricultural dependencies. But I have no doubt that when the more distant parts of the world are brought nearer to each other by the increased facilities of travel, when mankind shall, as at no distant date I believe they will, look upon their present differences as accidental rather than essential, when the world will be looked upon as a whole rather than composed of many dissimilar parts, the Assurance Offices generally will give permission to reside anywhere for the same continuous rate of annual premium.

Note on the Rate of Mortality among Europeans resident in India.

AT the present time the subject of the rate of mortality among

Europeans resident in India has attracted so much attention, that any well authenticated facts, although limited in extent, cannot fail to be of interest. For this reason it has been thought desirable to lay before the readers of the Journal the following figures, deduced from the experience of a large mutual insurance company during the last 18 years; and if the numbers under observation are thought too small to admit of the deduction of trustworthy conclusions, the results here shown may yet have some value, as suggesting the line that future investigations on the subject may take with advantage. Remarks having been made in various quarters to the effect that the conditions and habits of life in India have greatly altered for the better within about the last ten years, in consequence of the extension and completion of the railway system, and that the rate of mortality has consequently been much reduced, it was thought desirable to divide the 18 years into two periods of 9 years each, and investigate separately the mortality among the persons who became exposed to the extra risk for the first time during these two periods respectively. The total number of lives under observation was 90, of whom 42 went abroad during the first period of 9 years, and 48 during the second period. The greater number of these lives were civilians, charged the ordinary extra premium of 2 per-cent per annum. The following were the exact numbers of the civil and military risks:

The mortality results during residence in India are shown in the following table, in which the actual deaths are placed alongside of those that might have been expected according to the Institute HM Mortality Table.

At first sight these figures appear to indicate that the risk has been sensibly less in the second period as compared with the first, and that an average annual extra premium of 30s. per-cent charged in all the cases, would have fairly covered the extra risk. It is important, however, to bear in mind that the risk of an insurance company consequent upon the residence of a life assured in India, does not terminate with the return of the life to a temperate climate. There is reason to believe that many of the statements recently made as to the low rate of mortality prevailing in India, although they may to a certain extent be based upon actual observations, give a false impression as to the risk attaching to residence there, because the observers lose sight of the lives when the latter leave India, and it is forgotten that the climate is chargeable with many deaths which occur in England; in other words, that many persons, whose health has been injured by a residence in India, return home with a shattered constitution, to die within a comparatively short period.

Examining, then, the experience of the insurance company as regards those of the above mentioned 42 lives who returned to England and remained insured, it is found that they were 27 in number; that the aggregate time for which they were under observation after returning from India was 144 years, and that 5 of them died, the expected deaths being only 1494. Of the 5 deaths, at least 3 appear to be directly due to the effect of residence in India. These facts, few as they are, show that we get a very incomplete and misleading view of the risk attaching to residence in India, unless we trace the lives after their return to England. Combining the figures relating to residence in India and at home, the total experience as regards the 42 lives is as follows:

We thus see that when we take account of the deaths that occur after the return home, and suppose the extra premium, according to the general practice, to be payable only during residence in India, the extra that would have been required fully to protect the company, was 3.276 per-cent instead of 1.745 per-cent, or very nearly double the rate which the experience of the lives while actually resident in India would indicate as sufficient for the risk. Several years must elapse before the same test can be applied with any satisfactory result to the 48 lives who proceeded abroad for the first time during the second 9 years. In fact, very few of them have as yet returned home; these have after their return been under observation for only 30 years in all, and no death has occurred among them.

The rates of mortality during the two periods will be more accurately compared by terminating the observation of each of the 42 lives at the end of the first period of 9 years; in fact, by taking the figures as they would have been if ascertained at the close of that term. The comparison then stands as follows:

Adding the experience of both sets of lives after their return from India, but still terminating the observation of the 42 lives at the end of the first 9 years, the figures will be as shown in the following table:

On the whole, this experience, although not sufficiently large to give a trustworthy measure of the amount of the extra risk, appears clearly to support the view that it has been very much less during the second period than the first, and that a less extra premium can now be safely charged than was necessary ten to twenty years ago. T. B. S.

HOME AND FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE.

CITY OF GLASGOW LIFE ASSURANCE COMPANY.
Established 1838.

The Report by the Directors states that

The total number of Assurances, with the Amounts Assured and Reassured (both exclusive of Bonus additions), at the dates of the three last valuations [20 January 1864, 1869, and 1874] were as follows:—

Excluding Paid-up Capital and sums held to meet outstanding claims, the Funds accumulated to meet liabilities at the dates of the three last valuations, were—

1864...£387,995, or deducting value of reassurances (£102,067) £285,928.

(139,822) 460,794. (130,605) 679,801.

The Actuary reports the result of a valuation of the company's business, showing a present surplus of £71,613. 188., which the Directors recommend should be applied to provide a reversionary bonus of £1. 1s. per-cent on sums originally assured and existing bonus additions under all " With profits" assurances for each year of the five previous to 20th January 1874 in which they are entitled to participate; with a dividend for the year of nine per-cent to share