£135,000,000 is secured to families and rep-in the reach and commended to the acceptresentatives at death. ance of all. The time seems to have fully come when, among all the other means of raising and ameliorating the condition of the working people of Britain, Life Assurance should be recognized and advocated in a manner befitting its undoubted importance. It will serve to explain why in time past Life Assurance has done nothing for the lower classes, and at the same time indicate the line of future advancement in this respect, if we consider for a little one feature of Assurance as now almost universally practiced by the elasses who avail themselves of Business is almost wholly done on the plan of annual or bi-annual premiums. Now, great as have been the benefits of this system, and prosperous as are the many institutions which practice upon it, it is certain that to some it has always been attended with disadvantage, and that it cannot be suited to the circumstances and capabilities of all. The persons for whom it is peculiarly adapted belong chiefly to the middle ranks of life,persons of limited but certain income,-Clergymen, professional men, annuitants, and salaried employees of every grade; and generally all who, while not possessed of realized property, have the means by their incomes of paying annually the premiums necessary to secure the desired fund at their death. The laws of primogeniture and entail have also rendered Life Assurance on this plan a very valuable source of provision for the younger children of the landed aristocracy. The management and application of funds so large, and the effect of this comparatively recent accumulation upon the monetary interests and prospects of the community, might suggest several interesting questions and speculations, upon which, however, we forbear to enter. Looking at it merely in its direct bearings, Life Assurance presents one of the most pleasing features of modern society. The benefits of a system of provision so extended and admirable, adapt themselves to the various exigencies of life with peculiar effect. They have been felt in many a wid-it. owed chamber and orphan's home-in alleviating the anxieties of many a dying parent -in fostering the spirit of self-reliance-and, generally, in moderating the cares and mitigating the calamities of life. Indeed, we hesitate not to assign a very powerful influence to Life Assurance among the institutions and elements of that higher civilization which in later times has been evolved and enjoyed beyond all historical precedent among the upper and middle classes of this country. Among these classes the tendency is evidently to an increase of Assurance. With increasing business we may be allowed to express a hope that the offices of every kind now established may make the best use of their prosperity, and increasingly deserve it by improvements both in principle and practice, such as the new data of mortality and the better understood principles of equity warrant and demand; and that so doing, they have before them a career of honor and wide - spread social advantage which shall be coeval with that national prosperity which they contribute to promote and adorn. Before closing these remarks, we shall advert to the prospects of the extension of Life Assurance in this country, and to some interesting views of the subject, which are beginning to occupy the attention of thinking and philanthropic men. The benefits of which we have been speaking have hitherto been confined almost exclusively to the upper and middle ranks of society. The lower grades of the latter, and the whole body of the working-classes, have yet to learn that Life Assurance is adapted to them also; that under suitable modifica tions in its plan of working, it is calculated to diffuse its comforts and advantages throughout all the families in the land, however humble, and that its economic benefits and happy influences, may be brought with For the lower, grade of the middle classes, the struggling and embarrassed among professional men and shopkeepers, and for the whole body of the working-classes, the system in its own nature is not suited, and never can be made to adapt itself. Through the activity and canvassing of rival establishments, it has already been carried into these latter classes farther than it can perhaps be permanently maintained. The point of incompatibility lies in this, that while it is absolutely essential-to the safety and sound working of the whole system, that the premium should be paid punctually and without fail at every return of the periodical day of payment, under the penalty of forfeiting the Assurance altogether; the classes referred to are subject to fluctuations in their means and circumstances, which deprive them of the power of meeting the calls for premium, and so compel them on some unlucky day to forfeit the advantages to which they may have been directing the exertions and the hopes of many years. Relaxations may, and as complete as any single specific could supply, is furnished by the Life Assurance system itself, upon a different plan of operation. Persons whose policies have been forfeited or surrendered on account of their inability to continue paying the premiums, have, as the result shows, been attempting to secure benefits beyond their reach. Tempted by the desire to secure at once a considerable sum in the event of premature death, they have undertaken the equivalent obligation which they have not been able to fulfill. They have wagered their circumstances against their life, and the latter has gained to their own loss. The transaction has been too speculative in its character for them. In attempting to secure more than their means and circumstances rendered possible, they have lost all. Such a disadvantage as this, however, is by no means incident to Life Assurance under every form. It is inseparable from the premium plan, where the sum in the policy is equivalent to all the premiums which the assured is expected to pay, as on an average life; but it is entirely obviated on the plan of single payment, by which the full price of the Assurance is paid at once. By this method a much smaller sum in proportion to the payments actually made is secured at first; but to the extent of the payment, the full benefit of the equal ought, in equity, to be made in the stern and unsympathizing rules of the offices in regard to forfeited policies; and we are glad to observe that the highest of them are beginning to show some consideration in the matter; still, principle forbids their going beyond a fair allowance for surrender value; and the sad fact remains unmodified in its substantial truth, that under the premium system of Assurance, hundreds of policies are, each year, in every large office, surrendered or forfeited. The offices themselves, in their annual reports, do not assign much prominence to this fact. Their interest is to conceal it. It is our duty to bring it forth into the broadest light, not that we consider it in any respect a blot or a stigma on these institutions, but that the public are interested in observing and thoroughly understanding what Life Assurance, on the prevalent premium plan can do, and what it cannot do. Not that we grudge the happy contributors, whose steady flow of means never forsakes them when the inevitable premium day returns, their large policies and plethoric bonuses, and comfortable congratulations on the annual day; but that we feel it to be the part of both humanity and wisdom to cast an eye of careful regard toward the crowd of their less fortunate brethren, who, instead of sharing in the success, have been consigned to the lean limbo of defeat and disaster. It is a great and a growing evil. It may star-ization of life is secured, which is the essence tle some to be told, that in the year 1848, and within the Edinburgh offices alone, policies assuring sums to the amount of more than a million sterling were surrendered and forfeited! This fact proves at once and conclusively that the poorer class of the assured avail themselves of the benefits of the present system under great risks and disadvantages; and surely no one can doubt the grave and serious consequences arising to parties so disappointed, and their families.tems should be equal. Dying beyond the Loss of heart,-disgust with all methods of provident accumulation, and the encouragement of speculative tendencies, are among the moral evils which greatly outweigh the mere pecuniary loss incident to such forfeitures. It is high time that those who are competent to direct public opinion on this subject, and who wish well to Life Assurance as an important instrument of social benefit, should give earnest attention to what, if not met and mitigated, must become ere long a stumbling-block to thousands among the classes to whom we specially refer in the threshold of the best institutions. A remedy, partial, at least, and perhaps very of Life Assurance, while no risk of forfeiture can possibly defeat what has once been attained. To a large extent this system would supply the desideratum which is evidently felt among the classes most exposed to forfeiture. Dying under the average age, they would have secured a smaller sum than their single payments, paid as premiums, would have obtained for them. Living up to the average age, the benefits on both sys average age, the single-payment-depositor would have the advantage. For many purposes, such as securing or attempting to secure debts and provisions under marriagecontracts, and the like, this mode of Assurance would not be found suitable. Neither would it be possible, under any system, to obviate or prevent altogether the evils of forfeiture; but certainly it does appear that deposit or single payment Assurance would suit the views and circumstances of a very large and increasing class, who are now straining beyond their strength to share in the benefits of a more promising, but also to them more hazardous system. To the working-classes, the plan to which, we refer might, by extensive adoption, prove an invaluable boon. That the Savings' Bank does not meet all their wants, is proved by the existence of those numerous benefit and sickness societies which have been had recourse to by them. That they still need to be directed into the right method of applying their savings, so as best to meet future contingencies, is too sadly apparent by the all but universal confusion and disorder which have recently overtaken these societies. The exertions of Government to aid them in the reconstruction and right management of these societies are every way laudable; but it is evident that their limited numbers and small funds give them no chance of obtaining the advantages of favorable investments, or a sufficient average of mortality among their members, while the element of self-government will always expose them to serious risks. The plan of Deposit Assurance, carried out extensively among the saving and industrious classes of the community, would powerfully promote all the ends which benevolent and patriotic men most earnestly desire to accomplish. It would familiarize them with a plan of saving and accumulating in all respects the most easy, safe, and suitable for them which they have ever known, and in their own sphere and degree would make them partakers with their richer brethren in the comforts and dignity of independence. THE WINTER wind is roaring in the air, The wild wind shrieks! and, as I glance from out The broad bright blaze leaps, laughing, crackling up Quaint clock, which ticks with such industrious tongue, The tongs has cast a straddling shape, with knob Nodding so wisely, every chair has lined Its giant frame-work all around. The tall Chiming harmonious with the silver chirp Of the unceasing cricket, casts its high And reaching figure up the wall, with breast Bent to an angle, stretching half along The ceiling, wavering to each mirthful fit Of the glad firelight. How the cinder-blaze Rang with its voice), and glittering on the joints Of cool, dark forest streams, and leaping trout, VOL. XIX. NO. III. 22 1 Of rambles in the fresh, green, pastoral hills All tumults soothed-at sweet peace with itself- To drum and trumpet. Glows the happy soul Have brought the time for slumber-then with prayer And hearing, in the slow delicious creep Of slumber o'er the frame, the stormy wind And beating snow, I slide within the land, The dim, mysterious, unknown land of dreams. From Blackwood's Magazine. HOWARD. John Howard and the Prison-World of Europe. From Original and Authentic Documents. By HEPWORTH DIXON. To add another to the numerous eulogies | which have been justly bestowed on the memory of Howard the philanthropist, is not our object. We are far from making the attempt: our aim is to contribute something to the more accurate and familiar knowledge of the man himself-his life, his character, his career, his services. It not unfrequently happens that the great men of history, whom we have admired in our youth, sink grievously in our estimation, and lose their heroic port and proportions, when we survey them more nearly, and at a season of maturer judgment. They shrink into the bounds and limits of commonplace mortality. We venture even to administer reproof and castigation, where, perhaps, we had venerated almost to idolatry. Such is not the case with Howard. Poets have sung his praises, and his name has rounded many an eloquent period. Howard the philanthropist becomes very soon a name as familiar to us as those of the Kings and Queens who have sat upon our throne; but the vague admiration, thus early instilled into us, suffers no diminution when, at an after period, we become intimately acquainted with the character of the man. We may approach the idol here without danger to our faith. We may analyze the motive. we may 'vex, probe, and criticise"-it is all sound. Take your stethoscope and listen-there is no hollow here-every pulse beats true. The Howard that poets and orators had taught us to admire loses none of its greatness on a near approach. But it undergoes a remarkable transformation. The real Howard, who devoted his life to the jail and the lazaretto, was a very different person from that ideal of benevolence which the verse of Darwin, or the eloquence of Burke, had called up into our minds. Instead of this faint and classic ideal, we have the intensely and somewhat sternly religious man, guided and sustained, every step of his way, not alone, nor principally, by the amiable but vacillating sentiment which passes under the name of philanthropy, but by an exalted, severe, imperative sense of duty. It is Howard the Christian, Howard the Puritan, that stands revealed before us. The form changes, but only to grow more distinct and intelligible. The features have no longer that classic outline we had attributed to them; but they bear henceforth the stamp of reality—of a man who, without doubt, had lived and moved amongst us. Those who have rested content (and we think there are many such) with that impression of Howard which is derived from the panegyrics' scattered through our polite literature, and who accordingly attribute to him, as the master-motive of his conduct, simply a wide benevolence-a sentiment of humanity exalted to a passion-must be conscious of a certain uneasy sense of doubt, an involuntary scepticism; must feel that there is something here unexplained, or singularly exaggerated. Their Howard, if they should scrutinize their impression, is a quite anomalous person. No philanthropist they have ever heard of--no mere lover of his kind, sustained only by the bland sentiment of humanity, not even supported by any new enthusiastic faith in the perfectibility of the species-ever lived the life of this man, or passed through a tithe of his voluntary toils and sufferings. Philanthropists are generally distinguished for their love of speculation; they prefer to think rather than to act; and their labors are chiefly bestowed on the composition of their books. Philanthropists have occasionally ruined themselves; but their rash schemes are more notorious for leading to the ruin of others. As a race, they are not distinguished for self-sacrifice, or for practical and strenuous effort. There must, therefore, to the persons we are describing, be a certain doubt and obscurity hanging over the name of Howard the philanthropist. It must sound like a myth or fable; they must half suspect that, if some Niebuhr should look into the matter, their heroic figure would vanish into thin air. Let them, however, proceed to the study of the veritable Howard, and all the mystery clears up. The philanthropist of the orator gives place to one who, in the essential elements of his character, may be ranked with Christian missionaries and Christian martyrs. Instead of the half-pagan ideal, or personification of benevolence, there, rises before them a character which a rigorous analysis might justly class with those of St. Francis or Loyola, or whatever the Christian church has at any time exhibited of exalted piety and complete self-devotion. The same spirit which, in past times, has driven men into the desert, or shut them up in cells with the scourge and the crucifix; the same spirit which has impelled them to brave all the dangers of noxious climates and of savage passions, to extend the knowledge of religion amongst barbarous nations-was animating Howard when he journeyed incessantly from prison to prison, tracking human misery into all its hidden and most loathsome recesses. He who, in another century, would have been the founder of a new order of barefooted monks, became, in Protestant England, the great exemplar of philanthropic heroism. Perhaps he too, in one sense, may be said to have founded a new religious order, though it is not bound together by common rules, and each member of it follows, as he best may, the career of charitable enterprise that lies open before him. The mystery, we say, clears up. Benevolent our Howard was, undoubtedly, by nature, as by nature also he was somewhat imperious; but that which converted his benevolence into a ceasless motive of strenuous action, of toil, and of sacrifice; that which utilized his natural love of authority, transforming it into that requisite firmness and predominance over others without which no man, at least no reformer, can be rigidly just, and, face to face, admonish, threaten, and reprove; that which constituted the mainspring and vital force of his character, was intense piety, and the all-prevailing sense of duty to his God. The craving of his soul was some great task-work, to be done in the eye of Heaven. Not the love of man, nor the praise of man, but con science, and to be a servant of the Most High, were his constant motive and desire. Men of ardent piety generally apply themselves immediately to the reproduction in others of that piety which they feel to be of such incomparable importance. This becomes the predominant, often the sole object of their lives. It is natural it should be so. In such minds all the concerns of the present world sink into insignificance; and their fellow-men are nothing, except as they are, or are not, fellow-Christians. Howard was an exception to this rule. Owing to certain circumstances in his own life; to the manner of his education; to his deficiency in some intellectual qualifications, and his pre-eminence in others, he was led to take the domain of physical suffering of earthly wretchedness for the province in which to exert his zeal. For the preacher, or the writer, he was not formed, either by education or by natural endowment; but he was a man of shrewd observation, of great administrative talent, of untiring perseverance, and of an insatiable energy. The St. Francis of Protestant England did not, therefore, go forth as a missionary; nor did he become the founder of a new sect, distinguished by any doctrinal peculiarity; but he girded himself up to visit, round the world, the cell of the prisoner to examine the food he ate, the air he breathed, to rid him of the jail-fever, to drive famine out of its secret haunts, and from its neglected prey. It was this peculiarity which led men to segregate Howard from the class to which, by the great elements of his character, he belongs. To relieve the common wants of our humanity was his object-to war against hunger and disease, and unjust cruelties inflicted by man on man, was his chosen task-work; therefore was it vaguely supposed that the sentiment of humanity was his great predominant motive, and that he was driven about the world by compassion and benevolence. His remains lie buried in Russia. Dr. Clark, in his travels through that country, relates that "Count Vincent Potocki, a Polish nobleman of the highest taste and talents, whose magnificent library and museum would do honor to any country, through a mistaken design of testifying his respect for the memory of Howard, has signified his intention of taking up the body that it might be conveyed to his country seat, where a sumptuous monument has been prepared for its reception, upon a small island in the midst of a lake. His countess, being a romantic lady, |