A good deal of misconception prevails, on the part of many interested in the science of life contingencies, in regard to the expressions usually assigned as the measures of the probabilities of the different orders of survivorship among two or more lives. It seems to be supposed that these expressions are little better than rude approximations, adopted from convenience or necessity, depending on no definite principles, and consequently giving results but little entitled to confidence.

Since the loss occasioned by the reassurance varies with the mode of operation, it becomes interesting to inquire in which way the loss may be made the least possible. B is in the situation of a merchant who possesses a commodity not quite in a marketable state, and who seeks to bring it into a condition for sale at the least expense. A little reflection will show that the longer the borrowing is deferred, the less loss will B sustain, on account of the difference at interest; hence we must seek to diminish as much as possible the early payments, and to throw the weight of the premiums to a distant time—a scale of ascending premiums is thus the more advantageous for B.

Having, in our preceding Number, endeavoured to lay down what appears to us to be a correct method of procedure with reference to the determination and division of surplus, we now proceed to consider the modes usually adopted for the return of it to the contributors.

That the mean duration of life amongst the indigenous inhabitants of one part of the globe differs more or less from that which obtains amongst those of other parts, there is every reason to believe. It is probable that a difference exists even when comparing the most civilized nations of Europe one with another; and still more may we look for discrepancies when we carry our investigations amongst the natives of more remote and less civilized lands.

During the last session of the Institute of Actuaries, I had the honour to read a paper on the Value of the Principle of Selection as exercised by the Offices in granting Assurances upon Lives, and to submit some calculations which I had made with reference to that subject, in which calculations the lives admitted at particular ages were kept apart from others during their subsequent existence. I have now to offer to the Institute an extended set of Tables of a similar character; and, after stating the course which I have followed in constructing them, I shall make a few observations on the value of selection as exercised by the policy-holder against the Company.

In our last Number we gave some details of the fires in London for seventeen years, classified under the different trades and occupations in which they occurred. In elucidation of the same subject, the following paper, containing the actual rates of premium charged by a French Fire Insurance Company, according to the greater or less danger attributed to the nature of the trade or manufacture, may be worthy of notice.

As it is one of the main objects of the ‘Assurance Magazine’ to collect and preserve such facts as may hereafter, when further information is obtained, prove useful in drawing general conclusions as to the value of risks of various kinds, either affecting life or property, we gladly avail ourselves of the kind permission of Mr. John Young, a member of the Underwriters' Room, Lloyd's, London, to make use of a list prepared by him of the casualties and wrecks which have been officially reported to have occurred between London and Dungeness.