That the power of a company is often vexatiously and unjustly stretched to its utmost limit, in order to escape the payment of a policy, the following will prove. It is in itself a strong argument for indisputability.
When railway travelling was in its infancy, one John Scott, of Birmingham, being compelled to journey by what was thought a dangerous conveyance, was urged to insure his life as a provision for his family. He offered himself to the Norwich Union, answered all their questions, was examined by their medical man, and reported as perfectly sound. So good a life was he, that the agent of the Imperial urged him to abandon his proposition with the Norwich, offering him such inducements that he consented, though it cost him six pounds to void his nearly concluded bargain. He then went through all the forms necessary with the Imperial, was reported again as a perfectly sound life, and gladly accepted in May, 1840; the policy being for 2000l. From 1840 to 1842, he worked with an untiring energy and an incessant labour utterly incompatible with failing strength, and in that year he became a bankrupt. So excellent was his health, that his assignees would not pay any more premiums until they had ascertained that its market value was equivalent to the payment, and they then sold it by public auction to Mr. Beale for 135l., the Imperial itself bidding up to 100l. The next premium was paid by Mr. Beale in May, 1843; and in the following December, Mr. Scott died.
The discharge of this policy was contested with a determination sadly at variance with unsophisticated justice; but because the Imperial had a witness to prove that Mr. Scott had suffered from an ulcerated sore throat in 1836, they refused to pay. And when on the first trial the jury returned a verdict against the company, they obtained a second trial on technical grounds, which again they lost, and yet another, which was once more decided against them; though so great were the expenses to the claimant that he gained nothing by his public purchase of the policy granted on the faith of a respectable company.
With a case like this, and there are many like it, is not an indisputable company desirable?
CHAP. XVI.
A TRADITIONARY CHAPTER.
THE BANKER’S MISTRESS.—THE ELDER NAPOLEON.—THE DECEIVED DIRECTOR.—THE MURDERED MERCHANT.—THE CORN-LAW LEAGUE AND THE CUTLER.—THE UNBURIED BURIED.—THE DISAPPOINTED SUICIDE.—A NIGHT ADVENTURE.
The stories which are contained in the following pages may in most cases be relied on as essentially true. But they have been placed together in one Chapter, because some are merely traditionary, because the authority was not absolutely reliable in all particulars, or because they might have been irrelevant in the body of the work.