BUBBLE ANNUITY COMPANIES—THEIR PROMISES—EFFECT ON THE PEOPLE.—DR. PRICE—HIS LIFE.—SIR JOHN ST. AUBYN.—THE YORKSHIRE SQUIRE—ASSURANCES ON HIS LIFE—HIS SUICIDE.

The bubbles which sprang up in the shape of annuity institutions were numerous. They were becoming objects of serious concern. They attracted the class which understood the least. They appealed to the finest sympathies of nature, and traded in the feelings they sought to excite. Projectors and promoters arose, and with them came societies which could do nothing but empty the pocket of the subscriber to fill that of the manager. There were annuity clubs for naval and for military men, for clergymen and clerks, for schoolmasters and for tradesmen; but as there was no special information by which to govern the rates, or as those rates were more tempting than trustworthy, the subscribers were fleeced, partly in proportion to their own ignorance, and partly in proportion to the consciences of the directors. This was the era of annuity societies, as the present is the era of life assurance. A prodigious traffic was carried on in such schemes, and a perfect rage for forming them spread through the kingdom.

The most tempting names which could be chosen allured the world. Prospectuses of a vaunting character were passed from hand to hand. The promises of Mr. Montague Tidd, of the Anglo-Bengalee, were nothing to these. Widows were to be provided with all they required, for a nominal amount. Children were to be endowed with fortunes, for comparatively nothing. The London Annuity and Laudable Society out-heroded Herod. The coffee-houses were haunted by agents to spread the praises of a royal Lancaster. Touters—this modern title is expressive—who brought a certain number of subscribers, were allowed the privileges of most of the societies for nothing. A commission of the first year’s premium was no uncommon reward to those who attracted a new victim, and very heartless and infamous was the result. In one case a son brought the savings of a parent to a company which was sure to break. Friends insidiously recommended societies, under the guise of kindness, to their intimate acquaintance, and so long as they pocketed the heavy reward, were regardless of consequences. These associations spread from London to the Continent. Amsterdam, Bremen, Denmark, and Hanover were filled with wretched bubbles of this character, which carried misery to hundreds of homes.

The people were utterly guiltless of all knowledge on the subject. The information which had been brought forward from time to time, had produced its effect on the scientific portion of the world, but those who were practically interested, knew nothing. The young and unthinking were so ignorant or so indifferent to results, that they were content to pay only a fourth or fifth of the fair amount of premiums for their deferred annuities. The elder and more cunning—and by these the societies were principally supported—thought that the bubbles would last their time, and with the selfishness of age, were content. But in the midst of their contentment a shell exploded in their citadel. Dr. Price, an unsuccessful Unitarian preacher, and the contributor of many rare papers to the “Philosophical Transactions,” published the work which has brought his name down to the nineteenth century as a deep thinker. There had been hitherto little or no advance in the science which regulated assurance or annuities on lives. The reputation of the doctor drew attention to his work. It was there found that, not content with the tables of mortality from Breslau, he had obtained correct tables from Northampton, Norwich, Chester, and other places. He entered minutely and by name into the prospects of the various societies, he proved it to be utterly impossible for them to perform their contracts, and averred that, if some fresh arrangements were not entered into, to strengthen the existing companies, they must inevitably fail, for they were founded on principles which could not last; which must deceive the public; and which could only pay the contrivers.

It was seen that no ordinary care and research had been bestowed on his calculations. Chester, Warrington, and Shrewsbury had contributed the English portion of the statistics. From abroad, Sweden and Finland had sent the mean numbers of the living with the annual deaths for twenty-one successive years, together with a complete set of tables of the values of the annuities on single lives, both with and without the distinction of sexes, which completed the interest of a book that is yet quoted with respect. If the book itself were thus important, the character of the writer was sufficiently established to secure a favourable reception to his doctrines. He had already written on the subject, and nothing more completely evinces the general ignorance than that his two previous papers should have been devoted to topics which are now self-evident; one of them being to demonstrate that marshy ground was insalubrious; and another, to prove that the value of life in large close towns, was less than in the wide, invigorating country.

From Dr. Price the world first heard that half of the children who were born in London, died under three years of age; that in Vienna and Stockholm, half died under two; in Manchester, under five; and in Northampton, under ten. “London,” said the worthy Unitarian, “is a gulf which swallows up an increase equal to near three-fourths of that of Sweden.” The results of the work were as good as the work itself. The papers of the day quoted its opinions; the subscribers to the annuity societies took the alarm, discontinued their subscriptions, or demanded an inquiry. The rage for establishing new annuity companies was as suddenly stopped by Dr. Price, as in 1720 the old companies were stopped by the arm of the law. A partial reformation was attempted in some, the managers of others suddenly disappeared, while a still greater number finding it impossible to continue, dissolved their society and left the unhappy annuitants to regret their carelessness and digest their loss. Of course, the author did not escape abuse, and many an anathema was launched at the head of the doctor, and many an epigram pointed at him by those “who live by others’ losses.”

In 1779, he made a further attempt to contribute to the information of the public in an “Essay on the Population of England;” but the data on which he founded his opinion, was scarcely certain enough to render his conclusions of much value to the statistician. In the fourth edition of his work on annuities, he gave several valuable tables on single and joint lives, at various rates of interest, not only from the probabilities of life at Northampton, but also from the same probabilities at Sweden. His after career is well known. He was employed to form a plan by which the poor might support themselves in sickness and in old age; but which, when introduced to the senate, was rejected. He lived to see the French Revolution, and to be a prophet of good concerning it. Horace Walpole writes in 1790:—“Mr. Burke’s pamphlet has quite turned Dr. Price’s head. He got on a table at their club, and toasted to our parliament being made a national convention.... Two more members got on the table—their pulpit,—and it broke down with them.” In another letter he says:—“Dr. Price, who had whetted his ancient talons last year to no purpose, has had them all drawn by Burke; and the revolutionary club is as much exploded as the Cock Lane Ghost.” In 1791, he died, and his name has survived Horace Walpole’s sarcasms with his own revolutionary principles. The information which he presented, was various and important. Gossip it would be called by some; but it was that gossip to which the historian appeals as a confirmation of his views. The poor’s rates were estimated by him at 1,556,804l. in 1777. He calculated that 651,580 was rather over than under the population of London in 1769. He explained that the most obvious sense of the expectation of life, was that particular number of years which a life of a given age had an equal chance of enjoying; and he gave it as his opinion, founded on extensive information, “that the custom of committing infants as soon as born to the care of foster-mothers, destroys more lives than sword, famine, and pestilence united.”

By his calculations he showed, that—

InStockholm on an average of 6 years1 in 19died.
London””1 in 20 3/4”
Rome””1 in 21 1/2”
Northampton””1 in 26 1/2”
Madeira””1 in 50”
Liverpool””1 in 27”
Berlin””1 in 26 1/2”
Sweden (Stockholm excepted)”1 in 35”
Vaud, Switzerland””1 in 45”
Ackworth, Yorkshire”1 in 47”