are also reported from this city, but not the amount of deposits. Nashville is also the seat of many benevolent societies and mutual insurance associations.

Chattanooga. Our correspondent sends us the following report of saving and loan associations in this city:

The Building and Loan Association has, until a comparatively recent date, been a new and unknown institution in the South, although it has been such a great and well-recognized factor in building the large cities of the North and West. Some six and one-half years ago, the first association of the kind was organized in this city, and has met with a success and prosperity unsurpassed, if ever equalled, in this or any other country. The Chattanooga Savings and Building Association was first organized in February, 1881, and had, therefore, at the date of its last semi-annual statement, issued in August, 1887, been in operation seventyeight months. This association was chartered and organized under Act of Assembly passed for that purpose in 1875. It is a perpetual association, issuing a series every six months, any one series being closed, and the holder of its stock being paid off full value when the share is shown by the statement to be worth $200. Any stockholder who has not borrowed on the same can withdraw his stock at any time, receiving full withdrawal value, being amount paid in and its share of profits earned to date of withdrawal. Dues are $1 a month on each share. Advances made to borrowers are paid by their stock, unless the borrower desires to pay before maturity, when he gets credit for value of his stock, is charged with money actually received, and the same proportion of the premium bid by him that his stock has earned. By the charter the capital stock is unlimited. In the by-laws it is limited to 5,000 shares, or $1,000,000. The August statement shows the number of shares issued, 4,205; withdrawn, 2,214; remaining shares, 1,991; number of shares borrowed on, 646. Total available assets, $136,973.88; outstanding loans on mortgages, $129,200; capital stock paid up, $136,548.48; amount paid on one share, first series, which had been issued seventy-eight months (mean time three and one-quarter years), $78; value by statement, $176.65, a profit of over 40 per cent. per annum.

Next in order of date is the Lookout Homestead Association, organized June, 1885. This is like the preceding in all its principles and methods of operation, and has met with phenomenal success. Its June statement shows it to have been in operation twenty-four months. Number of shares issued, 1,288; number of shares withdrawn, 358; remaining shares, 930; number of shares borrowed on, 127; value of one share in twenty-four months, on which was paid $24, $42.85; stock paid up, $26,670.65; loans outstanding, secured by mortgages, $25,400.

The Hamilton Perpetual Building and Loan Association, the third association of this kind, was organized July 25, 1887, under the

same act as the preceding, and with about the same methods of operation, except that the dues are $1 on each share every two weeks. Each share represents $200. The capital stock is fixed at 5,000 shares of $200 each. There have been about 600 shares issued so far, and this association has a most successful start.

The fourth association, the Merchants' and Mechanics' Building and Loan Association, was organized July 29, 1887, under the same law as the preceding. Capital stock is fixed at $100,000, of which about 600 shares have so far been taken, and a most successful beginning made. Money in this, as in the other associations, is sold to the highest bidder; but it differs in its operation from the preceding in these particulars; series of stock issued every month; stock may be paid up in full, and dividends then received in cash semi-annually; payments, 25 cents per week on each share; the premium bid is not included in note, but is paid weekly with interest and dues; money sold weekly.

The preceding are strictly loan associations: they do no actual building, but loan money to the highest bidders on real estate security, thus enabling them to build and pay for their houses in small weekly or monthly instalments. But there is another association, the Mutual Real Estate and Home Building Association, organized under another law, which does the actual building, or will sell a lot and receive pay in monthly instalments. It was organized in June, 1885. Its capital stock is 400 shares of $500 each, all of which have been taken, and can now only be had by purchase from private parties at a premium. Its methods of operation are to buy tracts of land for cash or on short time, and subdivide and sell out in smaller lots, at a profit and on easy terms; also, to build houses, charge a reasonable profit, such as will compare favorably with other builders, and give its patrons easy terms for payment. Its terms are 10 per cent. cash, the balance in monthly instalments of $12 per month on each $1,000 for eight years. This association finds a demand for ten times the amount of work which its capital allows it to do, and at its last annual statement declared a dividend of 60 per cent. Besides having built some twenty houses, it has sold some seventy-five lots for houses on its liberal terms since it commenced operations.

These associations, though four of them are yet in their infancy, have been the means of providing homes for from 200 to 250 families, or about one thousand people. Their usefulness will be more and more recognized, and their number will increase as Chattanooga's growth and prosperity demand.

Little Rock, Ark.- There are seven building and loan associations in this city, of less than $100,000 capital each.

Houston, Tex.- Mr. E. T. Dumble sends the reports of four flourishing building and loan and saving institutions from this city, all of which are in a flourishing condition. There can be no less than fifty of these institutions in the State of Texas.

OTHER SAVINGS INSTITUTIONS.

There are many societies and organizations for the encouragement of savings in Tennessee, Texas, and Arkansas, but no accurate statistics have been attainable. In Texas there has been in operation for forty years a system of land sales by the State, which has compensated many-fold for the absence of savings banks, and, in fact, has proved more beneficial to the people. By this system, millions of acres have been sold in small tracts, on long and easy terms. No statistics have been kept; but for years all the charitable and a large proportion of the educational institutions have been supported by funds derived from these States. It is a modest estimate to say that no less than a half million farmers have obtained homes since these school, university, and asylum lands have been upon the market. By this system, many people, including those locally impoverished by the Civil War, have been enabled, not only to lay by savings, but to secure an opportunity to make them. Very few of the purchasers have possessed any capital to begin with. The above remarks do not apply to another class of lands which have been donated to homesteaders, by which means, both in Arkansas and in Texas, billions of wealth have been created and saved.

8. LIFE INSURANCE.

A REPORT BY THE COMMITTEE.

(Read Sept. 7, 1888.)

The history of life insurance is well known, but may be briefly summarized here. Although extending back, in its rude forms of annuity and reversionary payments, some two hundred years, it practically owes its origin in the modern form to Dr. Richard Price, the disciple and friend of Dr. Franklin, in 1769. In that year, Dr. Price published his "Observations on Reversionary Payments"; and soon after that date he and Dr. Franklin joined in prescribing rates and rules for a life insurance and annuity company, chartered in Pennsylvania in 1769. The early American companies had little business, however, as compared with their successors, or with the English companies, for which Dr. Price furnished his famous Northampton table of premium rates.

Incorrect as these tables have proved to be, in some respects, they had the merit of erring on the safe side, and thus, when followed by the insurance companies, they have secured the managers from that common source of failure in life insurance,― too lavish promises to the policy holders, which, when broken, caused the company to lose business, or, if an effort was made to keep them, brought it into insolvency. The English tables have been successively improved by the illustrious Registrar-General, Dr. William Farr, and by the English actuaries, and the result has been to show a much greater "expectation of life" at given ages below seventy years than Dr. Price estimated. Of course, this apparent and often real prolongation of life has inured to the benefit of wellorganized life insurance companies in England, while it has not prevented a great extension of what is there called "life assurance." Thus in 1880 the whole face value of the policies then in force was estimated in the United Kingdom to be $2,100,000,000 in a population of about 34,000,000. At this rate per capita, there should now be in the United States policies in force to the amount of $3,700,000,000 which is not the case. So that Great Britain still leads us in the proportionate amount of life insurance, as she has long led other countries.

The early experiments in life insurance in the United States did not succeed in making this form of investment popular, and probably did not have that purpose in view. They were rather investment companies, with an insurance side, than insurance companies based upon good investments. But a little more than forty years ago (from 1843 to 1850) the business of life insurance took a fresh start and a firm hold in New York, and its tributary State, New Jersey, and also in New England. The two greatest New York companies, all things considered,- the Mutual Life, organized in 1842, and the New York Life in 1845,- the Mutual Benefit of New Jersey, organized in 1845, the New England Mutual, organized in Boston in 1835, but not very active for ten years, and one or two Connecticut companies, for a long time did almost or quite one-third of all the life insurance in America. At present there are other large companies in New York and New England, and one in the North-west, which compete with the three older companies, and do a business much larger than some of them.

The Equitable Life Insurance Company of New York, for instance, though organized not quite thirty years ago (1859), now has receipts larger than any other American company except the New York Mutual, having outstripped the New York Life Company about seven years ago. These three giant companies now have a yearly income of more than $60,000,000, and pay out to the families of insured persons about $30,000,000 annually. These sums are nearly one-half of all that is received and paid out to policy holders in the whole United States. If we add to these three New York companies the next largest two,- the Connecticut Mutual of Hartford and the Mutual Benefit of New Jersey,- the yearly income of the five companies will exceed $75,000,000, and the annual payments to policy holders will be more than $40,000,000,- considerably more than half the corresponding aggregates for the United States. Besides these five companies, there are ten others whose yearly income exceeds $2,000,000, and seven others with an income of more than $1,000,000.

In England and Germany there is less concentration of this business in the hands of a few great companies, so far as we can judge by the returns accessible; but in France such concentration is still more marked, for three companies there (the Compagnie d'Assurance Générale, the Nationale, and the Phénix) have issued about three-fifths of all the policies in force in France, which in 1885 did not exceed $1,000,000,000. In the same year,