In availing ourselves of the permission, which has been kindly accorded to us by Mr. Rucker, to publish the Statement which he has compiled with so much labour and skill, we cannot but draw the attention of our readers to a collection of facts on a subject on which very little authentic information has yet been made public. The author has brought together, for each of the years in the Statement, the facts under the different heads distinguished below; but as the object of this publication is rather to deal with the averages of results, and the number is scarcely sufficient in each year and under each head to form a fair standard of comparison, it has been deemed sufficient to reprint merely the general summary for the five years together, and to add the proportions per cent. so as to allow of some general means of comparing the totals together. With these and with Mr. Rucker's explanatory notes, this curious subject is left for the consideration of those whose pursuits may lead them to take an interest in similar enquiries, or whose experience may enable them to appreciate their value. It is hoped, indeed, that the publication may induce others to add to information on a topic so rarely touched upon, and yet so well worthy of the attention of the statist and the practical man of business.

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.

Until within a very recent period the doctrines of probability have been applied to scarcely any great public purpose except the Assurance of human life. In that particular department of knowledge, a number of labourers have been for many years busily occupied in gathering the facts, endeavouring to classify events, and trace some general laws. In later years, researches have been extended into the effects of different classes of diseases upon health and longevity. Still more recently, the calculations of fidelity risks, of railway and other accidents, of bankruptcy, and of other circumstances affecting the person of an individual, or his commercial dealings, have been made with a view of proving their capability of being estimated for Insurance.

It would be very difficult to select a more simple idea, couched in more simple terms, than that conveyed by the expression ‘Total Loss.” It would not be easy to find an idea which has wandered farther from its radical, and has by development undergone greater transformations than that of ‘Total Loss,’ according to the doctrine as now expounded.

The new Stamp Act does not, as perhaps might have been expected, set at rest the much disputed question, whether the assignment of a chose in action requires an ad valorem stamp. The clauses in the schedule to the new act, upon which the question will depend, and which immediately follow the words “conveyance and mortgage,” are word for word the same as those in the schedule to the 55 Geo. III., C. 184, and hence it will remain abstractedly in the same position as before. A strong opinion has been expressed that in every case of such an assignment, whether by way of mortgage or upon a sale, the ad valorem stamp is necessary, and assuming that the points depend upon the construction of the word property in the statute, it is argued that “whatever is dealt with as property, and is the subject of sale or mortgage, is property within the meaning of the act, and that the instrument by which the transfer is effected is chargeable with the ad valorem duty, unless expressly exempted.”—(Tilsley, Stamp Laws, 248).