00. There is also in
these tables a method of payment by which, should the father die and
the premiums be therefore discontinued, the money will be paid just
the same. No doubt, if the practice were to spread, every insurance
company would take up this kind of business.

It is not every young married man who could afford to pay so large a
sum of money as L426 in one lump; on the contrary, very few indeed
could do so. But suppose, which is quite possible, that he were to
purchase, with the first L12 he could save, a deferred annuity of L1
for his child, and so with the next L12, and so with the next, until
he had placed her beyond the reach of actual destitution; and suppose,
again, that his conscience was so much awakened to the duty of thus
providing for her that amusement and pleasure would be postponed or
curtailed until this duty was performed, just as amusement is not
thought of until the rent and taxes and housekeeping are first
defrayed: in that case there would be few young married people indeed
who would not speedily be able to purchase this small annuity of L35 a
year. And with every successive payment the sense of the value of the
thing, its importance, its necessity, would grow more and more in the
mind; and with every payment would increase the satisfaction of
feeling that the child was removed from destitution by one pound a
year more. It took a very long time to create in men's minds the duty
of life insurance. That has now taken so firm a hold on people that,
although the English bride brings no dot, the bridegroom is not
permitted to marry her until he settles a life insurance upon her.
When once the mother thoroughly understands that by the exercise of a
little more self-denial her daughter can be rendered independent for
life, that self-denial will certainly not be wanting. Think of the
vast sums of money which are squandered by the middle classes of this
country, even though they are more provident than the working classes.
The money is not spent in any kind of riot: not at all; the middle
classes are, on the whole, most decorous and sober: it is spent in
living just a little more luxuriously than the many changes and
chances of mortal life should permit. It is by lowering the standard
of living that the money must be saved for the endowment of the
daughters; and since the children cost less in infancy than when they
grow older, it is then that the saving must be made. Everyone knows
that there are