small pamphlet in which the leading features of the
accounts are presented in an intelligible form.[5] Here it appears
that a life-assurance company will launch into business with an
imposing name, a flourishing prospectus, and--L.3000! After three
years, it will have received L.4000 of premiums. In that time, L.1300
will have been spent in salaries, L.600 in establishing agencies,
L.700 in rent; in all, in expenses of management, upwards of L.5000,
leaving little more than half the premium receipts to stand against
the obligations towards the assured. There is one which has been in
business upwards of four years, and which only possesses L.2869 of
funds, out of which to pay policies represented by L.3094 of premiums,
L.2379 of moneys received for investment, and L.1895 of deposits on
shares. Another, which makes no small bustle in the world, received in
two years and a half L.13,219 of premiums, spent in the same time
L.6993, whereof L.1213 was for advertising, and L.539 for directors
and auditors, and at the end of the period possessed, to make good its
obligations, only L.7045, nearly one-half of which was composed of the
original guarantee fund.

It is very likely that few or none of these establishments were
commenced with a fraudulent design; but they were not required by the
public, and their expenses have eaten them up. By most, if not all of
them, loss and disappointment will be incurred. It is therefore highly
desirable that the public should be warned against new offices
generally. While there are so many old ones of perfectly established
character both in England and Scotland--and we have some pride in
remarking, that there is not one dangerous office known to us in the
latter country--it is quite unnecessary to resort to any other.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] _Letter to the Right Hon. Joseph W. Henley, M.P., President of the
Board of Trade, regarding Life-Assurance Institutions._ By Robert
Christie, Esq. Edinburgh: Constable & Co.

ANECDOTE OF BURNS IN THE '93.

A public library had been established by subscription among the
citizens of Dumfries in September 1792, and Burns, ever eager about
books, had been from the first one of its supporters. Before it was a
week old, he had presented to it a copy of his poems. He does not seem
to have been a regularly admitted member till 5th March 1793, when
'the committee, by a great majority, resolved to offer to Mr Robert
Burns a share in the library, free of an