oney. The
contract is not one of indemnity merely. It is a contract to pay at
death a fixed sum, in consideration of the payment during life of
certain sums known as premiums. It is an arrangement by means of which
the pecuniary hardships incident to premature death are borne by a great
number of persons instead of the family of the person who dies before
his expectation of life has been reached. It is apparent from this
contract that the company which issues it must in the nature of things
have the custody and management of large sums of money. It is
contemplated by the parties that accumulations in the hands of the
company must exist, and it is an incident of the contract that the
officers of the company shall have the management of that fund. Is the
fund a trust to be held by the company for the benefit of the
policy-holders? If it be, then the courts of equity have complete and
entire jurisdiction, and to them it should be left. They are competent
to enforce the proper execution of other trusts, and presumably of this.
Give perfect freedom of individual action to each policy-holder, take
off the leading-strings of State supervision, and leave the parties to a
life insurance contract where the parties to other contracts are left,
to themselves and the courts.

THE GREAT SEAL OF THE UNITED STATES.

CONCERNING SOME IRREGULARITIES IN IT.

It is a somewhat singular fact that although the United States assumed
all the rights, powers, and dignities of a nation on the Fourth of
July, 1776, no great seal was adopted until about five months before
the signing of the preliminary treaty of peace with Great Britain in
1782. This is the more remarkable when we consider that our forefathers
were brought up under the shadow of the English law, which prescribed
that no grant nor charter was _factum_ until it was sealed, and of
English custom, which taught that even the sign manual of the sovereign
must be authenticated by an impression from the privy seal.

But the inception of our government was attended with other
informalities than the neglect to provide a seal. Silas Deane, our first
political agent to France, wrote from Paris to the secret committee of
Congress, under date of November 28, 1776, acknowledging the receipt of
the committee's letter of August 7, enclosing a copy of another letter
of July 8, the original of which never came to hand, and also a copy of
the Declaration of Independence, which, he complains,