Several writers, notably Messrs. Higham and Sprague, have treated of the Mortality Experience of Life Offices, basing their investigations upon various data; and it may be thought that there is no necessity to pursue the subject further. The question is, however, one of great interest and importance, both in its relation to abstract science, and in its bearing on the actuarial management of companies; and as it possesses collateral branches which have hitherto received but little attention, it occurred to me that my time would not be wasted in attempting to elicit new facts, and illustrate old ones, from the abundant materials now at our disposal.

There is a prevalent but erroneous idea entertained on this side of the Straits of Dover, that the business of the French life assurance companies is mainly composed of annuities and endowments, with but very little of life assurance properly so called. The truth lies much the other way. Indeed, the amount of business transacted in the assurance of human life, by the few French companies that exist—that is to say, for sums payable in the event of death—reaches a yearly aggregate of several millions of pounds sterling. The most successful French company, which at the same time is the oldest, issued, in the year 1874, whole life assurance policies for very nearly £2,000,000 sterling in that class of assurance alone, and in France alone—an amount that exceeds anything yet achieved by any English company whatever, taking, altogether, its business from Great Britain, the Colonies, and India.

M. Philip de Bosredon, Manager of the French General Life Insurance Company, having kindly furnished us with the printed reports of that company for a series of years, and Mr. George W. Kilford having sent us a similar series of reports of the French National, it appeared to us that a notice of these reports would be of great interest to the readers of the Journal in connection with the preceding paper. We have therefore drawn up the following account of the companies, with the assistance of Mr. J. J. W. Deuchar, of the Standard Life Assurance Company, to whom is due the whole credit of preparing the various statistical tables.—ED. J. I. A.

Referring to Mr. Sprague's reply to the Discussion on his paper (J. I. A. xix, 324), I would wish to point out that the admission by me, that a company, for its own internal purposes, may discriminate between expenditure on old and on new business, is not an admission of the principle which Mr. Sprague contends for. It required no argument to show that when an office wished to know what its new business was costing, it would be requisite for it to disentangle the expenditure on new business from general outlay. It is no conversion to Mr. Sprague's views to admit this. The point between us is not that, but the more complex one of the common measure to apply to outlay on all business, both old and new.