In connexion with a series of articles I have recently prepared for the Insurance Cyclopædia, bearing upon the history and practice of Fire Insurance, the subject of the Finance of Fire Insurance Offices has been very forcibly brought under my consideration. It is no part of the main design of that work, as I believe is very generally understood, to propound new theories in regard to the conduct of insurance companies. Its humbler purpose is to give a faithful record of the past history of insurance, to examine the foundations on which the different branches of the business are based, and to criticise, upon occasion, the data which has been relied on in their establishment; as also to supplement this data by reference to the new and ever increasing sources of information. In all this it has been my aim to present the views of others, rather than my own.