The increased number of offices had the tendency to extend public information, and to draw the attention of many who had hitherto thought nothing on the subject. The original object of life assurance was simply to enable a person to secure to his family the receipt of a certain sum at his death. But by 1825 it was applied to a variety of purposes; assurances were effected by creditors on the lives of their debtors. If money were borrowed for a year the life of the borrower was assured. In marriage settlements, where the capital would pass from the husband at the death of the wife, an assurance was effected on the life of the latter. “In every form,” says Mr. Gilbart, “the system seems to produce unmingled good. It promotes habits of forethought and economy on the part of the assured; it tends, by the accumulation of saving, to increase the amount of the national capital.”
The knowledge connected with the population was constantly increasing; and, though it was imperfect enough, still it was in advance of our previous information. In 1801 an approximation was made to that of London, which was supposed to be 864,845; and when it is remembered that Captain Graunt, so early as 1664, calculated it at 384,000, the numbering of the people in 1801 was no small benefit. In 1811, when a second census was taken, the population was stated to be 1,009,546; and a further increase was declared in 1821, when the population showed itself as 1,225,694. These calculations were not effected without difficulty, and many objections were made by good but narrow-minded men, who, from press and from pulpit, did not fail to remind our rulers that David was rebuked by the prophet, and punished by God, for attempting to do that which they had done.
The health of London was also improved. It was estimated that the introduction of vaccination had increased the mean duration of human life about 3 1/2 years. There had been a great advance in medical skill. Discoveries in chemistry had been brought to bear upon disease. The arrangements of our hospitals had enabled students to graduate under men of distinguished attainments; the discipline of the medical school had been increased; and, though ignorance was often in the ascendant, and quackery was encouraged as a revenue to the state, men—somewhat different to those who were licensed to kill in the days of Fielding and of Smollett—were employed in invigorating the constitutions and prolonging the lives of their fellow-countrymen. We must not also forget, that by 1825 a vast improvement had occurred in the manners and habits of social life. Our fathers still remember their visits when the bottle kept so constant a round that few remained sober; when to be asked to a dinner-party was to be asked to get intoxicated; when two and three-bottle men boasted their acquirements; when the wild orgy disgraced humanity, and the wild debauch destroyed life. We of the present day boast of this improvement to our children, and whatever new vice may have usurped the place of the old, it is, at least, less open in its defiance, and less baneful in its results. When Petty first published, the streets were confined, cleanliness was disregarded, refuse and offal accumulated in the highways, and ventilation was laughed at. There may still be many receptacles of filth in London, but they do not meet us in our daily avocations. The kennels of Southwark do not run blood two days in every week, as they did in the last century; nor are hogs “bred, kept, and fed,” in our populous neighbourhoods. If, therefore, there were any thing in the advance of chemistry, in draining, in ventilation, in more wholesome living, in the absence of open debauchery, it followed that there would be a considerable decrease in the rate of mortality. From 1700 to 1780, the deaths averaged about one in thirty-eight of the existing population. But in 1790 it became about one in forty-five, in 1800 one in forty-eight, in 1810 one in fifty-four, and in the ten years preceding 1820 one in sixty, in England and Wales.
But though these important facts had gradually become known; although it was also clear that people lived longer; that the wealthy classes attained a greater age than the indigent; that the value of a lady’s life, commercially, and not in the spirit of gallantry, was superior to that of a gentleman; it could scarcely be said to be acted on. So late as 1819, Dr. Rees suggested the importance of specifying the sexes, and discriminating them in the burial registers, advising also that the numbers of both sexes dying of every distemper in every manner and at every age should be specified. “This would afford the necessary data for ascertaining the difference between the duration of human life among males and females, for such a difference there certainly is much in favour of females.”
The tables on which the rates of the companies had been founded, had given the continuance of life at a far lower estimate than time had proved it to possess. The enormous success of the original societies had proved this; and, by 1821, it was generally understood that the Northampton table was only an approximation to the truth. This table was chiefly in use until the Carlisle table of Mr. Milne gradually made its way, up to which period the following were the principal sources whence information was derived:—
A Record of the Births and Burials in Breslau from 1687 to 1691.
London Bills of Mortality from 1728 to 1737.
Register of Assignable Annuities in Holland from 1623 to 1748.
Lists of the Tontine Schemes and the Necrologies of Religious Houses in France.