CHAP. XV.
EXTENSION OF ASSURANCE.—SOCIETY FOR ASSURANCE AGAINST PURGATORY.—COMMERCIAL CREDIT COMPANY.—GUARANTEE SOCIETY.—MEDICAL, INVALID, AND GENERAL.—AGRICULTURAL COMPANY.—RENT GUARANTEE.—RAILWAY PASSENGERS.—LAW PROPERTY, AND INDISPUTABLE SOCIETIES.—DISPUTED POLICY.
It has been found that there are unchanging principles which regulate commercial losses; that the lives which are sacrificed by railway accident have similar conditions; that the storm which levels the wheat has its defined courses; that the murrain which devastates the cattle is as fixed in its movements as the disease which destroys humanity. To meet these casualties, societies have been started, founded on laws originating in the doctrine of probabilities, and regulated by tables to show the chance of their occurrence. Nor is there any reason against—nay, there is every reason to believe in—their success, provided only their promoters apply themselves with diligence to collect sufficient data whereby to rule their operations. Of one society only may a doubt be evinced and a smile raised at its presumption, and this is the