------------
Waste by lapse, surrender, etc. $135,558,241
And when we add the lapsed policies which
continued in force, under the "extended-insurance"
provision 89,938,500
------------
We have the total waste of $225,496,741

and this, reduced to its actual significance, means that of the total
actual terminations, 83.6 per cent. was _actual waste_ and only 16.4 per
cent. legitimate terminations, while the great bulk of the last item of
$89,938,500, upon which premium payments have ceased, must run off the
books in the near future; and this is what goes on from year to year,
more than keeping pace with the boasted increase in volume of new
business. The public never sees this side of the question.

When I got to this point in my deductions, I was brought face to face
with the tremendous expense of acquiring new business. Then I saw the
light--why it was necessary to wipe off the books nearly two millions of
what were considered good assets, that is, pledges from agents of their
renewal commissions against which advances had been made, and where the
new business came from, and how it was possible to make rebates when the
law says they shall not be made. An agent induces a friend to have a
policy written, for which the agent practically pays the premium out of
his commission, and thereupon has advanced to him large sums against the
future premiums which are to be paid by the policy-holder, who has no
intention of paying them, and allows his policy to lapse. Heavens! What
a vista of plundering opportunities the bare thought opens up! Somebody
has to pay.

THE MILLION-DOLLAR POLICY

In the May number I inserted the following letter:

FORT WORTH, TEXAS, February 16, 1905.

THOMAS W. LAWSON, ESQ., Boston, Mass.

_Dear Sir_: I have read and will continue to read your
articles on "Frenzied Finance," published in _Everybody's
Magazine_, with a great deal of interest. I have noted
especially your statements in reference to the big
life-insurance companies, as I am a policy-holder in both
the New York Life and the Equitable.

Under the heading of "Lawson and His Critics," in
_Everybody's_ for January, you give your side as to the
assertion on the part of the insurance companies that you
have been refused life insur