In the May number of the Bay State for 1884 is an article on the promontory Boar's Head, and the adjoining town of Hampton, New Hampshire, which contains a mention of Colonel Christopher Toppan, who employed in his time many men there in boat and ship building, and in other branches of industry. He was a man so strongly marked in mind and character, and so identified with the local prosperity of his day and generation, that some further facts about him may be noted.
Christopher Toppan was the son of Dr. Edmund Toppan, a physician of Hampton, and the grandson of Dr. Christopher Toppan, a Congregational minister of learning and ability, settled from 1696 until his death, 1747, over the first church in Newbury, Mass. Christopher Toppan married Sarah Parker, daughter of Hon. William Parker of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and sister of Bishop Samuel Parker of Boston, so many years rector of Trinity Church.
The children of Christopher and Sarah Toppan were Abigail, who died unmarried at the age of ninety-six years; Sarah, who married Dr. Nathaniel Thayer, who had a long and able pastorate, severed only by his death, over the Unitarian Church in Lancaster, Mass.; Edmund Toppan, a lawyer who lived and died in Hampton, N. H.; Mary Ann, who married Hon. Charles H. Atherton of Amherst, N. H.
Of the grandchildren of Christopher Toppan may be mentioned Hon. Christopher S., son of Edmund Toppan, who lived and died a prominent merchant of Portsmouth, N. H. He left his salary as mayor so funded as to furnish every year a Thanksgiving dinner to the poor of the city. As that anniversary comes round, his name may be seen on the walls of the almshouse, with appropriate mottoes of gratitude, and his memory is fragrant to a class of citizens whom, in his life-time, he delighted to aid.
Among the children of Charles H. and Mary Ann (Toppan) Atherton was Charles Gordon Atherton, a lawyer of Nashua, N. H., who represented New Hampshire in Congress, for successive terms in the House and in the Senate. Every year but one from the time he was twenty-one, he had held political office until his suddendeath at the beginning of Franklin Pierce's administration in which, had he lived, he would have had, doubtless, a prominent part. He was an ultra and zealous democrat, differing in this respect from the political faith of his fathers; and so strenuous was he in the advocacy of State rights that he introduced into Congress the twenty-first rule against the right of petition—a rule which the efforts of "The Old Man Eloquent," John Quincy Adams, caused to be rescinded. So obnoxious a measure fastened upon Atherton the nickname of Charles Gag Atherton; and many an anti-slavery writer in bitter philippic contrasted his course with that of his grandfather, Hon. Joshua Atherton, who, early in the history of New Hampshire, was an able and fearless advocate of the abolition of slavery.
Two of the sons of Dr. Nathaniel and Sarah (Toppan) Thayer were the well-known successful and liberal bankers,—John Eliot and Nathaniel Thayer of Boston,—whose wise and generous gifts to the cause of liberal education give their names an honored place among the benefactors of the Commonwealth. A younger son, Rev. Christopher Toppan Thayer, was, for many years, a faithful and beloved pastor of the Unitarian Church in Beverly, Mass.
Christopher Toppan was not only shrewd and enterprising in his private business, but a pioneer in every project which would benefit the community around him. He assumed responsibilities, invested money, and hired labor in building the turnpike and other public improvements. He was a leader in matters of religion and education as well as of secular interest. When the Congregational Church and Society of Hampton wished to build a meeting-house, the committee wrote him a letter stating the reasons why a certain valuable and centrally situated piece of land owned by him would be the most advantageous site for the proposed building. His reply was in the laconic style characteristic of his manner of doing good:—
Gentlemen,—If you want my land, you may have it.
Gentlemen,—If you want my land, you may have it.
Christopher Toppan.
He invited the clergyman to make it his home for a year at his house, thus removing some of the self-denials of an early settlement in a country parish. He did much toward the establishment of Hampton Academy, then a pioneer and very useful institution of the kind in that part of the State, and one at which Rufus Choateand other men of mark fitted for college. He offered to the preceptress also a home in his family, in order that a well-educated and refined woman might find it more pleasant and profitable to teach in the village. The hospitality of his house was proverbial. The old mansion still stands, a large, low, two-story yellow house, with long front and side yards, and a grassy lawn between them and the road, with massive, protecting elms, twice as high as the house in front and around it; spacious barns extend a little in the rear on one side, and a simple old garden of fruit, flowers, and vegetables on the other. This was originally one of the four garrison houses of the town in the old times of terror and defence from Indian incursions; and it would be difficult to find now a more pleasant old-fashioned country house of equal age, with its physiognomy of generous hospitality and unobtrusive refinement and good sense.
Christopher Toppan was an influence in character as well as a stimulus in business to those around him. He taught them to save part of their earnings, to secure as early as possible a piece of land and a home. In few but pointed words he reproved thriftless and idle ways, and his respect and approbation were sought and valued. What Colonel Toppan said upon any matter was quoted and remembered as if it decided the question, long after men left his employment, and had an independence of their own. Nor was the gratitude for his aid and influence always confined to the first generation. Within a few years, two solid men of business sought out Hampton, and inquired especially for the house which formerly belonged to Col. Christopher Toppan. They visited the spot, and looked with reverence at the situation, the trees, the old house, and everything that belonged to it. Their grandfather had come to this country a poor and friendless boy, and at the age of twelve had been taken into the kitchen here to wait on the family. The patience with which his blunders had been borne, and the kindness with which he had been treated, he had rehearsed to his children's children. He was sent to school, and told he must learn to read and write and cipher if he wanted to be a man, but being a dull pupil he was often discouraged, and the Colonel used to call him into the sitting-room, as it was called, and teach him himself in the evening. He gave him a little money for certain extra services on condition he set it down on paper, and saved a little every month. Thus commenced the habits of industry, economy, andexactness which made the subsequent prosperity of the man, who used to recount to his grandsons his early poverty and hardships, the kind home he found, and dwell with grateful pleasure on every trait and habit of the Colonel. "Now, boys," he said, "be sure, when you grow up and can afford it, that you go into New Hampshire and see where I used to live as a boy, and if the house of Colonel and Madam Toppan is still standing, with the beautiful elms and all."
Verily the good men do springs up, they themselves know not where, and blesses, they know not whom.
There is much value in knowing of the past social life of New England. By regarding the ways and manners which were, we are the better prepared for the duties which are. In entering into the labors of others, we should know what those labors were.
At the outset we must regard the singular oneness of purpose in the minds of our New England ancestors. To serve God unmolested was the ruling idea of those who led in the settlement of Boston, Dorchester, Salem, and Plymouth. The hardship of laws and social oppression stimulated many more to join those who came from a religious motive. But those who came, came with a deep purpose to make these parts their home. They brought their families with them. This made the settlers more contented in living amid the new scenes, with privations they had not known. The early settlers in many instances came in such numbers from a given section that they brought their minister with them. There was a great bond of sympathy between those who thus came together. The new communities became as one home. Add to this the fact of the settlers living within a mile of the meeting-house, often meeting with each other on Sunday and at the midweek meetings for town purposes, for the drill of the military companies, and having the same hopes and fears regarding the Indians, we find the common sentiment welded even stronger. The oneness of the New England communities is proverbial.There were rich, there were poor people, and in the meeting-house the people were seated and "dignified" according to title and station; but in spite of these, there was more in the name than in reality. The people were not hedged in by their differences. President John Adams was asked by a southern friend what made New England as it is. His reply is memorable: "The meeting-house, the school-house, the training-green, and the town-meeting." In these, the people were brought together, their common interests were discussed and acted upon. The youth grew up with each other in the schools. The young men stood shoulder to shoulder on the training-green, drilling themselves to defend their homes. In the councils of the town they debated and conducted the business which would accrue to their weal and benefit, and on the Lord's Day they would gather in families to hear the words of the town minister, and before the one altar of the community bow in filial reverence to their God. This frequent meeting with one another and mingling in the same social life made the distinctive type of character which grew up in every community.
The minister and his family were in the front rank of social life. To the people's adviser deference was paid. To the minister, even the smallest of the boys took off their hats. The people of the town may have disagreed with him, still his position in society was acknowledged. He was the educated man of the town. In the early days he was the physician also. The first medical work published in America was by the pastor in Weymouth. It treated of small-pox. Vaccination was met with the strongest of opposition. The clergy opposed what was thought to be a means of intervening the will and providence of God. This discussion had much to do in separating the profession of medicine from the ministerial office. The minister likewise did much of the legal business of the people. Lawyers were rare men until towards the war of the Revolution. There was a dislike towards them—a feeling that they would take advantage of the people's rights. But America owes a debt of gratitude to the young barristers of the Revolution. They were true to the people and their best interests. When John Adams wished the hand of Abigail Smith, the people were anxious lest the dignity of Parson Smith's family would suffer. The next Lord's Day after the marriage he preached from the text, "And John came neither eating nor drinking, and ye say he hath a devil."
The grade in social life, which was largely a name, was shown most in the meeting-house. The seating of families and the assigning of pews was one of the difficult things. The minister and deacons were nearest the pulpit. The boys and colored people were assigned the back pews or those in the gallery. This idea of "social dignity" was brought from the old country, but gave way in the growing oneness of life in America.
The days of the early New Englander were not all dark. There was much of the austere in them, but there was also a grain of mirth and cheerfulness. We must bear in mind that the clergymen were the early historians of the country; and they put much gloom in their writings. The mirthful side of social life was expressed at the parties and meetings for hilarity; for such they often had. The young delighted themselves in each other's company, the same as to-day. The young gent and his lady either walked to the party, or rode on one horse. Parties began in better season than now. The assembly met in the latter part of the afternoon, and the dancing, where dancing was the order, began at about four o'clock. This was truly in good season, but, if our information is correct, they kept even later hours than the parties of to-day.
In Froude's recent "Life of Thomas Carlyle" is a conversation alluding to Thurtill's trial: "I have always thought him a respectable man." "And what do you mean by respectable?" "He kept a gig." A century ago it evidenced pre-eminent respectability to support such a vehicle. It was a wonderful conveyance in the eyes of the ordinary folk. With the coming-in of gigs and carts, where the element of pleasure was sought as well as service, came not alone improvement in vehicles, but the widening and general improvement of the highways. The New England inn was a place of great resort. In the poverty of newspapers, people came here to gain what news there might be. The innholder was a leading man in the community. He got the news from the driver and passengers of the stage-coach, and of the travellers who chanced to be passing through the town. The innholder knew the public men of the country, for they had partaken of his sumptuous dinners, and had lodged at his inn. If the walls of these ancient New England taverns could talk, what stories would they tell; not of debauches alone, but, in the dark and stirring days, of patriotic and loyal sentiments and deeds, whose influence went out for the foundingof the nation, and the perpetuity of the blessings of freedom. He who strives to know of early New England, must not look alone to the learning, character and influence of its ministers, but to the manners, life, and influence of the innholders.
The town meeting was the day of days. The citizens of the town met to consult and devise plans for their common welfare. "Citizen" in the very early time meant "freeman," and a freeman was a member of the church; but this interpretation was too confined for the growing diversity in colonial and provincial life. It served well for the time, but new conditions demanded that it be superseded. The property qualification has likewise virtue in it, and the educational test of Massachusetts has much strength. This test is quite limited in the nation; nevertheless, if general, it would be for the saving of many of our political troubles. Election or town-meeting day had its treat. Its cake has left a precious memory behind, and many an old-timed family observes the custom until now. The town meeting was opened by prayer by the town minister, and much decorum and orderliness was observed by the citizens. The day was jovial, however, despite the solemnity attending it.
Prudence and economy had to be exercised, even in the more prosperous days. Little was wasted. There was not much money in the market. To trade, barter, and dicker was the custom. For amusements, the game of "fox and geese," and "three" or "twelve men morris," served well. The mingling of work and pleasure was common. The husking-bee and the quilting-bee afforded sources of much enjoyment. Prudence and economy hurt no one, but the mingling of these in the life of childhood and manhood aids in developing character which makes men and women hardy for the race of life.
The ever-famous New England Primer, small though it has been, was one of the most influential of publications. It was in every home. From it the children learned their A, B, C's. In it were pert rhymes expressing the theology of the people, such as "In Adam's fall, We sinned all"; and the set of biblical questions beginning with "Who was the first man?" The prayer of childhood, "Now I lay me down to sleep," is in its pages. Of songs, most familiar is the
"Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber.Holy angels guard thy bed."
"Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber.Holy angels guard thy bed."
The picture and story of John Rogers' burning at the stake, with wife and nine small children and one at the breast looking on, beholding the martyrdom of this advocate of the early Protestant church, did much to keep alive the bitterness between the Protestant and Catholic churches. The Catechism, known by all, began with: "What is the chief end of man?" Then followed the words of this conclave of divines, the teachings of Rev. John Cotton, which he named "Spiritual milk for American babes, Drawn out of the Breasts of both Testaments for their Soul's Nourishment." We call New England character hardy, stern, and stalwart. Well it might be, by having the teachings of this Primer enforced in men's lives and labors. We may not admire some of the doctrines, but for the times they made the noblest and strongest of men. A trite statement of the late Dr. Leonard Bacon was: "In determining what kind of men our fathers were, we are to compare their laws not with ours, but with the laws which they renounced." So with their theological opinions. Compared with the doctrines they renounced, and not with those of our own era, we recognize in them a strength and vigor of thought and character which will stand the severest test and scrutiny. Steel well heated and hammered is most valuable. But steel can be overheated and overhammered; then it becomes almost useless. The strong doctrines of the earlier New England were too closely enforced, and there came a day—a part of which we live in—which repelled them. The old-time teaching has passed, and a fresher and more potent teaching is supplanting it.
There is something grand in the social life of the good old days. In knowing of it, we better appreciate the blessings of to-day. The ordinary life of the people has in it a fascination which a general knowledge fails to impart. The greatness of New England, however, is not all in the past. New England has given excellent life to the great West, and the far-reaching isles. Its line has gone out through all the earth. The descendants of New England are drawing riches from the prairies, the mines of the mountains, and are creating business thrift in all the rising towns. In all the world, in every commercial centre, in the vessels upon the sea, in every mechanical industry at home and abroad, are those whose keenness and brightness of mind, whose sharpness of ingenuity, and whose warmth of heart are to be traced to the natural blood and descent from those we ever delight to honor.
The social life of to-day is not as it has been. The oneness of the early times is disintegrating. The people seem almost mad in their rush after clubs and societies. The ninety per cent of English descent at the beginning of the Revolution is giving way before the incoming of emigrants from every other nation. The rapid reading, thinking, and living has long since passed the life of former generations. But in this new social order is there nothing rich and abiding? Most truly there is. The millennium may be distant, but a brighter day is dawning, when intellectual activity, stimulated by the studies of the sciences and material things, coupled with the fresher faith quickened by the larger conceptions of the mission of the world's Master, will result in causing the knowledge of the truth and heavenly affection to go to the farthest parts of the earth, and the turning of men to the character which attracteth all.
In considering the objections to level-premium life insurance, as at present administered, it will not be assumed that there is not much in the system to commend. It has subserved, and is now subserving, a great and beneficent end.
It is the channel through which millions of dollars have been disbursed to families in the time of their sorest need.
It has encouraged habits of economy, and stimulated the noble resolve to lay by a part of earnings, scarcely adequate to meet present necessity, for a time of greater necessity still.
Thousands of families have experienced exemption from actual want, and thousands more have enjoyed comforts, not to say luxuries, that they would never have known but for the forethought of husbands and fathers who availed themselves of the provisions of life insurance when in health, and with a long life in prospect.
We have no disposition to detract from the excellent results accomplished, and perhaps the severest criticism that can be made upon a system embracing such beneficent possibilities is that it hasfailed so disastrously to realize them in such numerous instances. While it has carried relief and comfort to many families whose wage-producers have been taken from them by death, it has bitterly disappointed many more who had made it their dependence for such a time of need.
While it has encouraged many a poor man to heroic self-sacrifice in the effort to save the premium required from his scanty wages, it has too often absorbed the products of his toil, and left his children to cry for bread. Such results have been reached sometimes by extravagant and incompetent management, and again by dishonesty and gross betrayal of important trusts. The preposterous claim is frequently made by the advocates of level-premium insurance, when contrasting it with assessment insurance, that patrons of the former system may pay their money with the absolute certainty of securing the benefits for which they pay, while patrons of the latter are placing their hopes upon a rope of sand. We do not hesitate to assert that more money has been actually lost to the people by the collapse of a single level-premium life company that we might name than by all the failures combined that have ever occurred in assessment companies in this country; because, in assessment companies, for the most part, a fair equivalent is rendered from year to year, while in the former large over-payments are required upon the promise of future returns. There have been in the United States some eight hundred level-premium life companies, only about fifty of which are now in existence. It is unnecessary to recall the disastrous ending of such companies as the "Continental" and the "Knickerbocker." It is well known that the former was at one time receiving not far from half a million of dollars annually in premiums through its Boston agency alone, and that the latter, in the midst of seeming prosperity, collapsed so suddenly that millions of dollars of supposed assets disappeared beyond recovery.
The history of the "Charter Oak," with its more than ten millions of assets at one time, its subsequent compromise with its policy-holders at sixty-five cents on the dollar, and its now possible passage into the hands of a receiver,—that functionary at the tail end of a life-insurance company that has so often been the "bourne" whence few dollars have ever returned to the pockets of the unfortunate policy-holder,—is too well known to require rehearsing here. Yet the assertion is brazenly made that level-premiumcompanies alone give insurance that insures; that there is no safety in any other form of insurance, and that assessment insurance, disbursing its millions to the families of our land, is but a temporary craze that will soon pass away.
It is a question that may well be asked: What is the explanation of results so deplorable in level-premium insurance?
That they occur is too well known to admit of question.
That a very large proportion of those who patronize these companies become dissatisfied, not to say disgusted, with their practical workings, there is abundant evidence to prove.
That level-premium insurance does not meet the requirements of the people is shown by the fact that there are only about 600,000 policy-holders in these institutions in a population of about 60,000,000. While lack of confidence undoubtedly deters some from patronizing them, yet there are many other considerations that tend to produce this state of things. To insure in them is attended with too great expense. It is not possible for the average mechanic to save from his earnings a sufficient sum to carry any considerable amount of insurance in these companies. The principles upon which the system is founded are such as to render it needlessly expensive. Experience has shown that for various reasons a very large proportion of the insured do not continue to pay until the maturity of their policy by death, or by limitation of the contract, yet the system requires the payment of a sum which, after amply providing for expenses, computed at a given rate of interest, will amount to the face of the policy at the expiration of the life limit, making no account of gains by lapses nor from a mortality below the expectancy.
The premium includes three items, viz.:—
First, Cost of pure insurance.
Second, The amount to be placed in reserve.
Third, The expense charge.
The cost of pure insurance is about one third of the premium, or perhaps a little less. Now, does any unprejudiced person believe that it is necessary to charge three dollars for the purpose of disbursing to the families of the insured one dollar? Is not any system of insurance properly open to criticism that continues to assume and charge a cost that experience has shown to be so excessively beyond the necessities of the case? We do not overlook the fact that a part of this overcharge is returned to the insuredupon certain conditions, nor the other fact, that the proper expense of conducting the business must be provided for; but, after giving credit for both these items, a very large and needless overcharge remains to discourage those desiring insurance from assuming its obligations. This may be more clearly shown in the light of a few facts.
By examining the Massachusetts Life-Insurance Report for 1884, it will be seen that several companies report an income from investments largely in excess of the amount required to pay death-losses. It will be borne in mind that the premium chargeincludesthe amount required for the payment of death-claims, and it is supposed to be, and undoubtedly is, amply sufficient for all purposes in theabsenceof large accumulations from which to receive such a princely income.
In other words, the companies go on requiring the payment of the same premium from the party proposing to insure, one third of which is for claims by death, when income from investments more than pays this important item.
But it may be said that the surplus returns to policy-holders are proportionately larger, when claims by death are more than met by income from investments. This surely is the result that would naturally be looked for, and which should be realized; but unhappily it is not always the case. The writer holds a policy in one of the companies referred to above, and has paid premiums on the same for some twenty-five years. Judge of his surprise when, three or four years ago, he was called upon to pay 20 per cent in excess of the premium he had been paying for years; and when an explanation was asked, the reason given was that the per cent realized from investments was much less than formerly. Yet this same company more than pays its death-losses by income from investments. This is not an isolated instance.
Many readers of this article have, no doubt,enjoyed(?) a like experience. Is not such a system of insurance fairly open to criticism in its practical workings?
But perhaps the most astonishing feature of level-premium insurance is found in the fact that there is absolutely no obligation assumed on the part of the company, and no power anywhere to enforce an accounting for the vast sums entrusted to it, so long as it can be made to appear that it holds securities in the aggregate to meet the legal requirements of a reserve.
These vast sums of money are paid in by policy-holders without any knowledge of, or means of knowing, the uses to which they will be applied. They know, in a general way, that a part of the premium will be used for reserve, a part for expenses, and a part for losses, but how much will go for each purpose they have no means of ascertaining. The company places it all in a common pot, and can put in the hand of extravagance, of avarice, or of dishonesty, and take out any amount for personal aggrandizement, or for expense of management, so long as it can be made to appear that the legal standard of reserve is maintained. There is absolutely no limit put upon the extravagant conduct of the business. There is no separation of trust funds from expense account. No man who insures in a level-premium life company knows whether such company will use for expenses $5 or $25 for each $1,000 of insurance which he carries. He has the vague promise of a dividend,—falsely so called, for it is really nothing but a return of a part only of his own money which he has paid in excess of what he should have paid,—and this vague shadowing of some possible relief of the excessive pecuniary burden he is compelled to assume if he insures, is all that is given him. There is exhibited here the most astonishing credulity, and, too often, as thousands can testify from sad experience, a misplaced confidence on the part of the insuring public, that seems childlike and puerile in the extreme.
The official reports of Level-Premium Life Companies to the Insurance Departments of the several states show that these companies actually use, for expense of conducting the business, from $6 to $25 for each $1,000 of insurance outstanding. A man carrying $10,000 insurance for his family in these companies must pay on the average, for theexpenseof the business, about $80 per annum, and if it should be twice or three times that amount he has no redress. Should not these companies stipulate, in every policy, a sum for expenses which could not be exceeded? Should they not separate the mortuary and expense account, and contract with every policy-holder to use, not exceeding a specified per cent of the premium paid, for expenses, and to hold the balance a sacred trust for the payment of claims, the surplus above such requirement to be returned to the insured? To what other branch of business would men apply such unbusinesslike methods as to pay two or three times the value of the article purchased,upon the implied or real obligation of the seller to return, at some time in the future, some part of the overpayment, but with no definite agreement as to how much, or at what time it should be returned? What merchant could maintain his credit for any considerable time if he made his other purchases as he does his life insurance? Life insurance is a commodity to be bought and paid for at a fair market price.
In the earlier history of the business, there were no data at hand to fix its value. Experience of fifty years and more has furnished such data, and its value can now be determined with very considerable closeness, and very far within the charges of level-premium companies. There should be some margin charged above probable cost, as shown by the experience of companies; but such charges should not contemplate nor admit of such extravagant expenses as have, and do now, obtain in level-premium companies. The experience of assessment companies has shown that the business can be done for from $2 or $3 at most, for each $1,000 at risk.
Is there any reason why level-premium companies should not be limited totwicethat amount? The recent law governing assessment insurance in Massachusetts requires that in every call for an assessment it shall be distinctly stated what the money is to be used for, and no part of the mortuary fund can be used for expenses. Will any man say that assessment insurance is not in advance of other forms of insurance, in these respects at least?
Another important objection to level-premium insurance is found in the fact that it has drifted away from its primal purpose. Originally it contemplated simple life insurance.
Its intent was to offset, to some extent, the loss incurred by the family in the death of its wage-earner. The death of the father involves the family in a pecuniary loss represented by the amount of his yearly earnings, and if this occur before he has had time to accumulate a surplus above yearly expenses, the hardships of poverty are added to the pain of separation from so valued a friend. Life insurance was intended to come in with its benefits at such a time, as the result of forethought on the part of the father in depositing a part of his savings with the life company. If this simple form of insurance had been adhered to, the temptations to unwarranted and hurtful competition would, in a large measure, have been avoided; but with most level-premium life companiesthis form of insurance is now largely neglected, and their energies are given to other forms, some of them highly speculative in their character. Contrary to the original purpose of life insurance, banking has been combined with insurance, and people have been taught to believe that they can secure better investments through life-insurance companies than elsewhere. It has never been clear to the writer how such results can be reached, in view of the excessive cost of conducting the business. Any suggestion of this kind, however, is at once met by the reply that the company has an immense amount of money invested, from which it derives a large income.
But whose money is it? Who paid it to the company, if not the policy-holders? Still, if the business were confined to simple endowment insurance in connection with pure life insurance there would be less objection, although banking is properly no part of insurance; but the fact is, a far more speculative business is done, called Tontine insurance. This form may be fitly characterized as the gambling form, inasmuch as the only hope of profit to a few is that the many will be robbed of their savings. Tontine insurance is profitable to the few in just the proportion that misfortune shall overtake those who participate in it. No man would risk large payments with the certainty of losing all if he should fail to make one such payment in a term of years, if he were not tickled by the hope that others would be the unfortunate ones compelled by circumstances to discontinue and lose all, while he would be the exception and profit by their loss.
But he should consider that, even if he persists in paying through the specified term, he is still at the mercy of the company in the division of the spoils. They may use as large a part of the plunder as they please in the expense of the business, and the experience of many will attest that, while for the company it was "turkey," for them it was "crow."
President Greene, of the Connecticut Mutual Life, in a series of able articles, has exposed the injustice of this system, and shown, to the satisfaction of unprejudiced minds, that it is no part of legitimate life insurance. Still, some companies are making Tontine and Semi-Tontine insurance their specialty.
There is one other form of insurance practised by level-premium companies that demands brief notice here. It would seem that to mention it would be to call down upon it public reprobation: werefer to what is called prudential or industrial insurance. The peculiarity of this form is that its patrons are found among the poorest and the lowest classes of our population, and, in the judgment of others than the writer, it appeals to the very worst instincts of those unfortunate people. The insurance is effected upon the lives of helpless infants and children to the amount of one hundred or two hundred dollars or more, ostensibly to provide for suitable burial expenses in the event of the child's death. While, doubtless, in some cases the motive is a worthy one which prompts to such insurance, one's thought shrinks with horror from a contemplation of the crimes which it must, in many cases, suggest to the minds of the low and depraved. How many children are there in our large cities whose lives are not worth even one hundred dollars! How many are there whose death would be hailed as a deliverance from an expensive and unwelcome burden! The simple suggestion is enough to carry with it a sense of obligation to lovers of humanity to see that a premium is not placed upon infanticide and kindred crimes. If such insurance is to be effected at all, which is extremely questionable, it should be under the strictest restraints of law.
Another serious objection to the system is that it necessitates nearly double the cost of even regular level-premium rates, from the fact that weekly collections of five and ten cents must be made by agents employed for the purpose.
Of course a large part of these collections, wrung from the poor, are absorbed in agents' fees, the balance going to the company. The lapses also must be very numerous, and but little benefit is ever realized by those who part with these pittances from their scanty earnings. It is a well-known fact that companies realize very large profits from this business, and in some instances the writer has been credibly informed the expenses of the general business are met by the profits of this branch. This article is written in no spirit of hostility to level-premium insurance; it is simply a criticism upon its defects and its abuses. Properly administered, there is an ample field for the prosecution of its business. There will always be those who will prefer to pay the larger price, for what to them may seem the better form of insurance; but there will be large numbers, as now, who will prefer assessment insurance in reliable companies.
There is an ample field for both assessment and level-premiumcompanies to prosecute their work. There need not and should not be antagonism between the two systems. Each will and should be criticised, but always in a spirit of fairness. To some extent modifications in both systems may be desirable, and doubtless a healthy competition will bring such changes to pass. Perfection is a quality of slow growth, but itshouldbe the aim of those who administer the far-reaching and sacred trusts of either system of life insurance.
Such companies can undoubtedly be made permanent by providing for the entrance of new members at any time in the history of the company at a cost for mortuary assessments substantially as low as in the earlier history of the company. This may be accomplished in either of two ways:—
1. By advancing the rate of assessment with advancing age, by what is called the step rate process, or,—
2. By the accumulation of funds to meet the increased assessments beyond a fair or normal rate.
To say that a company which does not adopt the first of these systems is necessarily "doomed," as was asserted by a recent writer in your columns, is to make a very extravagant claim at least, and one to which the writer of this article would beg to demur. The objection to the plan of step rates is that it is not popular with the people who are the purchasers of insurance.
The company adopting the plan says, "We shall get rid of our undesirable risks, those who are getting old,because the rate of assessmentwill be so high theycannot afford to pay it." The individual says, "I don't like a plan by which I am to be increasingly burdened as I grow older, and by which it is altogether probable I shall be compelled to sacrifice the savings of years, and lose my insurance at the last."
This practicalfreezing-out processhas never yet been made popular; perhaps it may be in the future.
It is objected to the second method that some will pay more for the same value received than others, and it is therefore inequitable. But there is some inequity in any plan of insurance, and this last has not the element of injustice that would compel the aged and unfortunate to lose the entire savings of years because of unavoidable increasing cost.
Assessments in most companies are graduated so that 800 or 1,000 policy-holders responding to a mortuary call would make a$5,000 policy good for its face, and the income from $2,000,000 at five per cent would pay twenty losses of $5,000 each.
Is it then an absurd statement that an assessment company properly and honestly administered, with that amount invested, can be perpetuated for all time?
Long before the reduction of membership to a number insufficient to pay the face of the policy from direct assessments, the income from the reserve would so lessen the cost that members could not afford to lapse their policies, and new blood could always be secured.
It was nearly two weeks from the unsuccessful attack upon Island Battery, the fifth and most disastrous that had been made. The morning after it the soldiers, sore over their defeat, had listened sullenly to the shouts of victory from within the French lines. Since then the combined attack by land and sea, planned and eagerly wished for by the two commanders, had been deferred from day to day. But Pepperell was not idle, and he was unable to understand despair. To him a repulse was the starting point of a new attempt. But now, with half his camp in hospital, with French and Indians threatening him in the rear, and the great battlements of Louisburg still formidable, he dared not risk an assault that, if unsuccessful, would further dispirit the army, and might be fatal. He had sent to Governor Shirley for ammunition and re-inforcements, and he had still the resource of sounding away with all his guns, for which, by borrowing, he could find powder and balls. He availed himself of this privilege with a persistence that after the city had surrendered he was able to see had not been useless.
The West gate had long since been demolished, the citadel more than once injured by shot, and as to the city itself, streets of it were in ruin. But Island Battery still held its own and kept the fleet away from the city, the soldiers sickened, and the French governor held out. The incessant cannonade went on until sometimes the men wondered how it would seem not to hear bursting shells. There had been sorties and repulses, and though not much fighting, enough to prove the temper of the men. One day Elizabeth, looking across at a fascine battery where the enemy's fire was hottest in return, discovered Archdale standing in the most exposed position, watching and giving orders with an imperturbable face.
So the siege went on, with brave resistance on one side, and on the other with that invincible determination that makes its way through greater obstacles than stone walls. The weather was magnificent in spite of the fogs at sea that sometimes made it impossible to go from shore to ship. Edmonson lay tossing on his bed in the hospital. He had been badly wounded in the attack, and his feverish mind retarded his recovery. As had been said, he had learned of Katie Archdale's engagement, not through Lord Bulchester, for that was the last thing that the nobleman would have told him, but through a correspondent in Boston to whom he had made it worth while to keep him informed of his lordship's movements.
Edmonson's wound was painful, and his compensation did not come. Nancy, not Elizabeth, was his nurse. Occasionally the latter spent half an hour beside him when her maid was resting or was busy with others, but then, although she ministered to his physical comfort, her mind seemed always elsewhere, often where her eyes wandered, to some private whose suffering was greater than his.
"I wish I had been the worst wounded man here," he said to her one day.
"Why?" she asked bringing her eyes back to him. And then before he could answer, she added: "Your wound is bad enough; you will not get well until you are more quiet. Be a little more patient."
"Patient!" he cried, half raising himself and falling back with a groan. "You are cruel. Patient! with the vision of delight always floating before me, never turning back to look at me orsmile upon me. Patient! in torment. Perhaps you would be. Submission is not a constitutional virtue of mine."
"It's being a virtue at all," returned Elizabeth, "depends upon whether we submit to men or to God." If any other lips had spoken the Divine name, Edmonson would have sneered openly. As it was, he lay silent, looking out at the speaker through half-veiled eyes. This tantalizing woman always turned his words into impersonalities. Her power had roused his will to its utmost to make her feel his own. How far had he succeeded, that she would condescend to stay with him when there was no one else to do it and he needed attention? It was because the surgeon would soon be here to look after his wounds and would need help, that she was sitting now, fanning him gently and glancing toward the door of the tent.
"You are very impatient to have Waters come," he said.
"Yes, a great many others need me."
"Not half so much as I do," he began. "Your presence soothes me," he added hastily.
"It is the sort of effect that a nurse ought to have," she answered.
He was silent again. He would have given half the expected years of his life to know if ever so little of her indifference were feigned. He gave himself an impatient toss. Why had he come to this siege at all? He was not sure now that if he had accomplished his object, or should yet do it, the reward would come. He had known women that in Elizabeth's place would like to show their power of torture; but she scarcely deigned to glance at him, and tortured him a thousand times more. Why had Archdale thrown his arm about so clumsily and saved his life? So good an appointment was not likely to make itself again; he must have a hand in framing the next. And if worst came to worst as to absence of chance, he could still pick a quarrel over the clumsiness by challenging it as intention. Yet he was afraid that Archdale was too much of a Puritan to think of duelling.
"Don't tire yourself fanning me," he said. "Talk to me a little."
"I have nothing to say," answered Elizabeth. For it happened that she also was remembering that night in the boat as she had heard of it, and it seemed hard to her that she should be obliged to render Edmonson the smallest service, yet he had been brave in theattack, and had been wounded in fair fight against the enemy. Her first thought that night of the attack, on seeing him borne in, had been that Archdale had given the wound in self-defence. She was humiliated by feeling that her wealth had been played for like a stake by Edmonson. For she had not yet come to confessing to herself what flashed across her mind sometimes. Two years ago Edmonson's approval had seemed to her a desert beyond her talents; now his admiration displeased her,—there was an element of appropriation in it. Where Elizabeth prized regard she could not condescend to woo it; where she did not prize it, it seemed to her, if openly given, almost an impertinence. Stephen had been right when in the midst of his anger at her pride he had felt that love would awake new powers in her, that she could be magnificent in action and in devotion. He had been very human, too, in the breath of wild desire to see her at her best that had swept through him. But the desire slept again as suddenly as it had waked, and the mists of indifference settled about him once more.
Edmonson dared not speak. If he offended Elizabeth he should not see her again, except at a distance as real as the intangible space always between them now. And if he were silent, he might yet win, some day.
"At last!" she smiled, and rose to meet the doctor with an alacrity that made Edmonson bite his under lip hard. She thought that dressing the wound took a long time that evening, that the physician had never been so slow before, nor the patient so fractious. But to Edmonson it seemed as if she vanished like a vision.
At last she was in the open air, under the stars, and refreshed by the breeze. She stood looking out to sea, but there was an expression of trouble on her face, that the air could not blow away.
A voice said, "Good evening," and, turning, she saw Archdale beside her. She asked him if he were on guard that evening.
"Yes," he answered. "You must be very tired, cooped up in that hot place for so many hours," he went on. "Shall we walk down to the shore and back, for a change. I'm sorry that I can't suggest any variations in the route. But we will stop at the brook and I will get you some fresh water."
She took a step, then hesitated.
"But I thought you were on guard," she said.
"So I am, especially detailed by our commander-in-chief to look after the comfort and welfare of a certain gentleman, a civilian inname, but so active an inspector of military operations that I cannot often keep track of him unless I'm under fire myself, and also the welfare of two volunteer nurses who are in great danger of letting their zeal outrun their strength. No, I am wrong; I am in charge of only one nurse; she takes care of the other. It is you whom the General has in mind." Never was Archdale's tact finer and more opportune. After the smouldering passion of Edmonson, felt if not yet confessed to herself, the ease and safety of this companionship seemed to her like the difference between the air of the tents hot and heavy with unhealthy breaths, and the salt wind that came to her softly now, but with invigorating freshness.
"I haven't the least idea where my father is," she said. "I suppose he is so used to business that he must have always something on hand."
"He is with the General now," he said.
"There is one walk I wish you would invite me to take," said Elizabeth, as they sauntered away. "Into the city, I mean." And for a moment she forgot the cost of victory in its exultation.
"I will," he answered. "Will you come, then?"
"Certainly."
They reached the brook and followed it up a little distance above the camp. Elizabeth sat down upon the bank, and Archdale filled his cup and brought it to her. She examined it by the dim light.
"I see that it is silver, and chased," she said. "But I can't make out the figures upon it."
"The Archdale arms," he answered. "I brought the cup with me. It's my canteen." She drank and gave it back to him.
"Thank you," she said. As she spoke, a shot rose high in air and ended its parabola in the heart of the doomed city. It seemed as if a cry uprose. Elizabeth shuddered. "How dreadful it is!"
"You will never forget it," he answered.
"No; no one who has been here ever can." She had risen, and they were walking down toward the shore. Her fatigue, or her mood, gave her an unusual gentleness of manner. As Stephen Archdale walked beside her he tried to imagine Katie as Elizabeth was now, with a background of suffering, with trial and daring, perhaps death before, and failed. He looked at Elizabeth, dimly seen under the starlight, now suddenly brought sharply intoview by the flare of cannon, weary, glad of the General's thoughtfulness, without a suspicion that her present companion had suggested it, taking the rest that came to her and enjoying it as simply as a child would do, yet radiant at moments in the presage of national success, or pale with a glow of sublime faith at the efficacy of the sacrifice that was being offered up for her country. She seemed in harmony with the nature about her and the earnestness, perhaps tragedy, of her surroundings. Katie could not have been at home here; it was not because she had been brought up in luxury and laughter, for so had Elizabeth. It was because there was in the latter something responsive to the great realities of life. Did Katie lack this? He drew a quick breath at the thought. Elizabeth turned to him suddenly.
"Is your arm quite well yet?" she asked.
"Quite well, thank you."
"Not even a twinge left?"
"Not one."
"I thought there was then," she said.
"Oh, no, that was my conscience. Are you a good doctor for that? Shall I try you?"
"No; thank you; my own is not clear enough."
"Isn't it?" he said. "Then I think the rest of us had better give up in despair."
She made an impatient movement, and said, "Was that Captain Edmonson's ball? You did not tell me, but I guessed it."
"Yes. At first I thought it had only grazed my sleeve. But it was really very little." Archdale, bringing up the wounded on that night of the repulse, had said nothing of being wounded himself, and Elizabeth, meeting him three days afterward with his arm in a sling, had been assured that he was ashamed to speak of such a scratch.
They sat down upon the rocks and talked for a time about the siege and the soldiers, and even about things at home, away from this strange life, but never about what had happened to themselves, and never one word of Katie. Elizabeth seemed to be resting. Archdale thought that she found it pleasant enough, too. But more than once she turned her face in the direction of the hospital, and he knew that she was thinking of her duties there. He must find some way to keep her a little longer. This hour must not be gone yet. What story could he tell her? If he did notbegin, in a moment she would get up from that comfortable niche in the rock, and say that it was time to go back to her patients, and then it would be too late.
"I think I never told you," he began, "how Mr. Edmonson's portrait, my great-grandfather's, came into that hiding-place? Would you care to hear?"
"Very much, if it is not too much family history for you to tell me."
He smiled. "I must begin a good way back, as far as with my grandfather's youth," he said. "I am afraid it was a wild one. He was handsome, and gay, and rich, well-born, too, though not of the Sunderland Archdales, as I had always supposed. He must have said this when he took his own name again after his year of hiding as a criminal from justice. But I don't think that he ever meant crime; it was an irregular duel. I think his adversary's first shot hit him in the shoulder, and at the second, for they were to fire twice, he rushed up to his opponent in a fury of pain, perhaps, and fired at close range. The man fell dead. I don't know how they tell the story in Portsmouth, but it's not worse than that, I suppose."
"It's something like that, I think," she said.
"Pleasant to go back where we've always been so,—well, so esteemed; I mean that the name has been. But I may not go back," he added.
She made no answer for a moment; then she said, "Captain Edmonson is like that."
"But worse," he answered.
"Yes, worse."
"Is his wound doing well?" questioned Archdale.
"It is healing, but very slowly."
"Next time he will not fail of his mark," said the young man.
"Perhaps the next time his mark will be the enemy," she answered. "He has had time to think." Her companion gave an eager glance. "Is she teaching him something?" he wondered. "What?" How could she teach him not to care for her? His pulses quickened. He altered his position a little, which brought him by so much nearer. "But tell me about the portrait," said Elizabeth.
Archdale told the story, the outlines of which Elizabeth had given to Mrs. Eveleigh. But he told it with so many details thatit seemed new to her. "Edmonson insists that the nobleman killed in this duel was a distant relative of Sir Temple Dacre," he said, as he finished the account of the flight and the taking of the portrait.
He told of its careful concealment afterwards lest it should identify them, and how, when the daughter's eyes rested upon it, she had a dread of discovery, that amounted almost to a sense of guilt.
"Poor woman!" said Elizabeth, "with the loss of her father and her child, she could not have been very happy."
Her listener recalled that the speaker at one time in her life had not considered the loss of a husband in any other light than a great satisfaction. But he went on to explain that after his grandmother's death, the portrait had been concealed where Elizabeth had discovered it. "My mother knew nothing of it," he said, "but my father had seen it before. He told me so after that day," he added, remembering that Elizabeth had heard Colonel's denial of any knowledge of the portrait. "He knew whom it was a picture of, I mean, and that we were not the Sunderland Archdales, but nothing of Edmonson's rights; and he had looked at the portrait so little that he never perceived the likeness to Edmonson until we all did. Edmonson, you know, was in search of this portrait. He had heard of it from his father, who passed as the child of the old man's only son, who died in India at about the same time that the baby and nurse came to the grandfather's. My grandmother Archdale besought her father to take care of the child until she could send for it, and he was better than her request. I suppose that he could not bear to give up both his children and he hated his son-in-law. Edmonson's father did not know his real name until after the elder Edmonson's death. Then the nurse told him the story. But at that time he was twenty-five; married, and established in his home, with no desire to change, or to share his possessions. Gerald learned the truth only when he came of age, and his capacity for getting through with money made him think that something ought to be made out of his colonial relatives. He had spent his own moderate fortune before he came here. He showed his character in his way of going to work," finished Archdale, contemptuously. "He could not believe that anybody would have honesty enough not to defeat his claim unless he could clinch his proofs instantly."
"It was a cowardly way of doing it," said Elizabeth slowly.
"Yes," he answered, and looked at her, wondering if he should learn what she was thinking about, for it seemed as if she had only half finished her sentence.
"Nothing seems to me stranger than the difference between people in the same family," she said at last, almost more to herself than to him. There was something so utterly impersonal in her tone that she seemed to be setting forth a general trite observation rather than comparing Edmonson with any of his relatives. And it was evident that, if she thought of her listener at all, this was the way in which the remark was meant for him. And yet—Then he heard Elizabeth saying that she must go back.
"Poor Melvin is dying," she said. "He probably will not live through the night. I promised to take down some messages for him. He began to give them to me, but was so exhausted that I had to leave him to rest. But I must not leave him too long, and then there are the others." Stephen helped her down from the rock as she spoke, and they went together along the beach and up the path from the shore, talking as they went. She told him some of the things that the men needed most, and asked his advice and his help toward getting for them what was possible. "I cannot go to the General for these; I cannot put any more burdens upon him," she said. Archdale told her all that he could, and then for a few minutes they walked on in silence. At the hospital she stopped and turned to him.
"Thank you," she said. Then, as he was about to answer, she added hastily, "I think that experience like this is good for us, for every one I mean; it opens up the world a little and shows so much suffering besides one's own. It's a help to get at the proportions of things. Don't you think so?" The appeal in her voice was an exquisite note of sympathy.
Stephen knew that all his life long it had been his way, as it had been that of the other Archdales, to consider his own joys and sorrows not only of more relative but of more actual importance than those of the people about him. He looked at Elizabeth, royal as she stood, full of compassion for him, but with her hand already stretched out to draw back the canvas which separated her from that presence of death in which live and grow, watered by tears, all human sympathies. It seemed as if she always touched some chord in him untouched by others. Was itthe truth that she spoke that thrilled him so? He perceived nothing clearly except the one thing that he uttered.
"Yes," he said, "I am glad I came,—glad for my own sake, I mean. Be it for joy or sorrow, for life or death, I am glad that I came."
She drew back the curtain of the tent. He bowed and turned away.