In the eighteenth century a company was established, the chief feature in which was the omission of the clause which renders the policy void in the event of suicide. A man went and insured his life, securing the privilege of a free-dying Englishman, and then took the insurers to dine at a tavern to meet several other persons. After dinner he said to the underwriters, “Gentlemen, it is fit you should be acquainted with the company. These honest men are tradesmen, to whom I was in debt, without any means of paying but by your assistance, and now I am your humble servant.” He pulled out a pistol and shot himself.
That the clause which makes the policies of suicides void is not unnecessary, the following is an additional testimony:—
Among the passengers who filled one of our river steamers on a fine summer’s evening, the movements of one in particular were calculated to draw attention. There was something so haggard in his face, there was so continual an air of restlessness in his person, that it was evident his mind was ill at ease. He had chosen a position where scarcely any barricade existed between him and the stream, and casting his eyes rapidly round to see if he were observed, he, almost at the same time that he placed a small phial to his mouth, plunged into the water. An alarm was instantly given, the vessel was stopped, and the passengers saw him, true to the instincts of humanity, struggling and buffetting with the water for life. Assistance being soon rendered, the man was saved; and it was afterwards discovered that, having lost all his property, and not knowing how to maintain an insurance into which he had entered in more prosperous days, he had determined on sacrificing himself for the welfare of those who were dear to him. Believing that his death would be attributed to accident, he had taken some prussic acid at the moment he jumped in, unconscious that the effect of this poison is neutralised by the sudden immersion of the body in water.[32] It is well to be a chemist when one wishes to be a fraudulent suicide.
As the evening of an autumnal day began to close, four men might have been seen hiring a boat at one of the numerous stairs below Blackfriars bridge. Their appearance was that of the middle order, but the reckless daring which characterised their air and manner, marked them of the class which lives by others’ losses. By the time they had rowed some distance up the river, the only light that guided them was the reflection of the lamps which fringed it; and no sooner were they shrouded by the darkness of night, than, without any apparent cause, the boat was upset, and the four were precipitated into the Thames. They were close to land, and while they buffetted the tide and made their way, they hallooed lustily for help, which, as the shore was now ringing with the noise of boats and boatmen putting off to their assistance, was soon rendered. Of the four who had started, only three landed together, and great was their outcry for their lost companion. The alarm was immediately given; all that skill could do to recover their friend was tried, but the night was too dark to render human aid of much avail. It was pitiable to the bystanders to witness the grief of those who were saved, who, finding nothing more could be done, were obliged to content themselves with offering a reward for the body, coupled with a promise to return early in the morning. They then went away, and the scene resumed its ordinary quiet. A few hours after this, at the dead of night, a second boat, with the same men, pursued its silent and almost solitary course up the river towards the scene of the previous misfortune. With them was a large suspicious-looking bundle, which, when they had arrived at a spot suitable to their purpose, they lifted in their arms, placing their horrible burden,—for it was the body of a dead man,—where from their judgment and their knowledge of the tide, the corpse of their friend would be sought. Favoured by darkness and by night, they accomplished their object, again rowing rapidly down the stream to an obscure abode in the neighbourhood of Greenwich. When morning began to break, they returned once more to the place which had witnessed their mysterious midnight visit, where, with much apparent anxiety, they asked for tidings of their companion. The reply was what they expected. A body had been found,—it was that which they had placed on the strand,—and this they at once identified as that of the friend who had been with them in the boat, and for whom they had offered a reward. A coroner’s jury sate upon the remains, a verdict of accidental death was recorded, and the object of the conspirators fairly achieved. That object was to defraud an assurance office to a very large amount: for the missing man had not been drowned; the grief expressed was only simulated: and the body which had been placed on the banks of the Thames had been procured to consummate the deception.
Against a fraud planned with so much art and carried out with such skill, no official regulation could guard; and when the papers containing the report of the inquest and the identity of the body, were forwarded to the office as the groundwork of a claim for the representative of the deceased, not a doubt could be entertained of its justice. It was true that the claimant under his will was his mistress; that his executors were the persons who perpetrated the fraud, and were with him at the time of the accident; but there were the broad and indisputable facts to be disposed of, that the insured man had met with a sudden and accidental death, and this was attested by the verdict of a jury. The money was paid, and with that portion of it which came to the deceased, he went to Paris. In that gay capital, with a mistress as expensive in her habits as himself, the cash was soon spent; and so successful had been the first attempt in this line, that it seemed a pity for gentlemen thus accomplished to abandon a mine so rich. Very shortly, therefore, after the previous fraud, an application was made from Liverpool to an office in London, to insure the life of a gentleman for 2000l. The applicant was represented as a commercial traveller, and permission was sought to extend the privilege of travelling to America. This insurance was effected, and when only a few months had elapsed, information was received by the company that the insured gentleman, while bathing in one of the large American lakes, had been drowned; that his clothes had been left on the banks of the water where his body had been found; and in verification of this, all the necessary documents were lodged in due time. As the death and identity of the traveller seemed clearly established, the office intimated its readiness to pay the policy at the end of the accustomed three months. But three months seemed a very long period to those who felt the uncertain tenure by which their claim was held, so, to induce the office to pay ready money, they offered a large and unbusinesslike discount. This, together, perhaps, with some suspicions created by the manner of the applicant, placed the office on its guard. Inquiries were soon instituted, and discoveries made which induced them to proceed still farther; but no sooner was it found that a close inquisition was being entered on, than the claim was abandoned, and the claimant seen no more at the office.