BUBBLE ANNUITY COMPANIES--THEIR PROMISES--EFFECT ON THE
PEOPLE.--DR. PRICE--HIS LIFE.--SIR JOHN ST. AUBYN.--THE YORKSHIRE
SQUIRE--ASSURANCES ON HIS LIFE--HIS SUICIDE.
The bubbles which sprang up in the shape of annuity institutions were
numerous. They were becoming objects of serious concern. They attracted
the class which understood the least. They appealed to the finest
sympathies of nature, and traded in the feelings they sought to excite.
Projectors and promoters arose, and with them came societies which
could do nothing but empty the pocket of the subscriber to fill that
of the manager. There were annuity clubs for naval and for military
men, for clergymen and clerks, for schoolmasters and for tradesmen;
but as there was no special information by which to govern the rates,
or as those rates were more tempting than trustworthy, the subscribers
were fleeced, partly in proportion to their own ignorance, and partly
in proportion to the consciences of the directors. This was the era
of annuity societies, as the present is the era of life assurance. A
prodigious traffic was carried on in such schemes, and a perfect rage
for forming them spread through the kingdom.
The most tempting names which could be chosen allured the world.
Prospectuses of a vaunting character were passed from hand to hand. The
promises of Mr. Montague Tidd, of the Anglo-Bengalee, were nothing to
these. Widows were to be provided with all they required, for a nominal
amount. Children were to be endowed with fortunes, for comparatively
nothing. The London Annuity and Laudable Society out-heroded Herod.
The coffee-houses were haunted by agents to spread the praises of a
royal Lancaster. Touters--this modern title is expressive--who brought
a certain number of subscribers, were allowed the privileges of most
of the societies for nothing. A commission of the first year’s premium
was no uncommon reward to those who attracted a new victim, and very
heartless and infamous was the result. In one case a son brought the
savings of a parent to a company which was sure to break. Friends
insidiously recommended societies, under the guise of kindness, to
their intimate acquaintance, and so long as they pocketed the heavy
reward, were regardless of consequences. These associations spread
from London to the Continent. Amsterdam, Bremen, Denmark, and Hanover
were filled with wretched bubbles of this character, which carried
misery to hundreds of homes.
The people were utterly guiltless of all knowledge on the subject.
The information which had been brought forward from time to time, had
produced its effect on the scientific portion of the world, but those
who were practically interested, knew nothing. The young and unthinking
were so ignorant or so indifferent to results, that they were content
to pay only a fourth or fifth of the fair amount of premiums for their
deferred annuities. The elder and more cunning--and by these the
societies were principally supported--thought that the bubbles would
last their time, and with the selfishness of age, were content. But in
the midst of their contentment a shell exploded in their citadel. Dr.
Price, an unsuccessful Unitarian preacher, and the contributor of many
rare papers to the “Philosophical Transactions,” published the work
which has brought his name down to the nineteenth century as a deep
thinker. There had been hitherto little or no advance in the science
which regulated assurance or annuities on lives. The reputation of
the doctor drew attention to his work. It was there found that, not
content with the tables of mortality from Breslau, he had obtained
correct tables from Northampton, Norwich, Chester, and other places.
He entered minutely and by name into the prospects of the various
societies, he proved it to be utterly impossible for them to perform
their contracts, and averred that, if some fresh arrangements were
not entered into, to strengthen the existing companies, they must
inevitably fail, for they were founded on principles which could not
last; which must deceive the public; and which could only pay the
contrivers.
It was seen that no ordinary care and research had been bestowed on
his calculations. Chester, Warrington, and Shrewsbury had contributed
the English portion of the statistics. From abroad, Sweden and Finland
had sent the mean numbers of the living with the annual deaths for
twenty-one successive years, together with a complete set of tables
of the values of the annuities on single lives, both with and without
the distinction of sexes, which completed the interest of a book that
is yet quoted with respect. If the book itself were thus important,
the character of the writer was sufficiently established to secure a
favourable reception to his doctrines. He had already written on the
subject, and nothing more completely evinces the general ignorance
than that his two previous papers should have been devoted to topics
which are now self-evident; one of them being to demonstrate that
marshy ground was insalubrious; and another, to prove that the value
of life in large close towns, was less than in the wide, invigorating
country.
From Dr. Price the world first heard that half of the children who
were born in London, died under three years of age; that in Vienna
and Stockholm, half died under two; in Manchester, under five; and in
Northampton, under ten. “London,” said the worthy Unitarian, “is a
gulf which swallows up an increase equal to near three-fourths of that
of Sweden.” The results of the work were as good as the work itself.
The papers of the day quoted its opinions; the subscribers to the
annuity societies took the alarm, discontinued their subscriptions, or
demanded an inquiry. The rage for establishing new annuity companies
was as suddenly stopped by Dr. Price, as in 1720 the old companies were
stopped by the arm of the law. A partial reformation was attempted
in some, the managers of others suddenly disappeared, while a still
greater number finding it impossible to continue, dissolved their
society and left the unhappy annuitants to regret their carelessness
and digest their loss. Of course, the author did not escape abuse, and
many an anathema was launched at the head of the doctor, and many an
epigram pointed at him by those “who live by others’ losses.”
In 1779, he made a further attempt to contribute to the information
of the public in an “Essay on the Population of England;” but the
data on which he founded his opinion, was scarcely certain enough
to render his conclusions of much value to the statistician. In the
fourth edition of his work on annuities, he gave several valuable
tables on single and joint lives, at various rates of interest, not
only from the probabilities of life at Northampton, but also from the
same probabilities at Sweden. His after career is well known. He was
employed to form a plan by which the poor might support themselves in
sickness and in old age; but which, when introduced to the senate,
was rejected. He lived to see the French Revolution, and to be a
prophet of good concerning it. Horace Walpole writes in 1790:--“Mr.
Burke’s pamphlet has quite turned Dr. Price’s head. He got on a table
at their club, and toasted to our parliament being made a national
convention.... Two more members got on the table--their pulpit,--and
it broke down with them.” In another letter he says:--“Dr. Price, who
had whetted his ancient talons last year to no purpose, has had them
all drawn by Burke; and the revolutionary club is as much exploded
as the Cock Lane Ghost.” In 1791, he died, and his name has survived
Horace Walpole’s sarcasms with his own revolutionary principles. The
information which he presented, was various and important. Gossip it
would be called by some; but it was that gossip to which the historian
appeals as a confirmation of his views. The poor’s rates were estimated
by him at 1,556,804_l._ in 1777. He calculated that 651,580 was rather
over than under the population of London in 1769. He explained that
the most obvious sense of the expectation of life, was that particular
number of years which a life of a given age had an equal chance
of enjoying; and he gave it as his opinion, founded on extensive
information, “that the custom of committing infants as soon as born to
the care of foster-mothers, destroys more lives than sword, famine, and
pestilence united.”