French Life Research Articles

New books

Abstract EUROPE Denmark, Fast and Present. By Margaret Thomas. London: Anthony Treberne and Co., Ltd., 1902. Price 6s. Mediæval London. By William Benham, D.D., F.S.A., and Charles Welch, F.S.A. London: Seeley and Co., Limited. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1901. Price 5s. Guide to Capri. By Harold E. Trower. Second Edition. Presented by the Author. Our Neighbours’ Series. London : G. Newnes. 1901. Each volume price 3s. 6d., and well illustrated. 1. French Life in Town and Country. By Hannah Lynch. Pp. 261. 2. German Life in Town and Country. By W. H. Dawson. Pp. 271. 3. Swiss Life in Town and Country. By A. T. Story. Pp. 248. A Popular History of the Ancient Britons or the Welsh People, from the Earliest Times to the End of the Nineteenth Century. By the Rev. John Evans, B. A. London : Elliot Stock, 1901. Pp. ix + 413. Price 10s. 6d Highways and Byways in Hertfordshire. By H. W. Tompkins. With Illustrations by F. L. Griogs, and a Map. Pp. 348. Price 6s. The Path to Rome. By H. Belloc. London : George Allen, 1902. Price 7s. 6d. Ward, Loch and Co.’s Illustrated Guide Books. London : Ward, Lock and Co., Ltd. Price 1s. each. Aberdeen, Deeside, Balmoral, etc. 3 Maps and 40 Illustrations. Oban and Western Highlands. 7 Maps and 50 Illustrations. Inverness, Speyside, etc. 4 Maps and 50 Illustrations. Pearson's Gossipy Guides. London : C. Arthur Pearson, Ltd. Price 1s. each. Edinburgh and District. 80 Illustrations and 6 Maps and Plans. London and District. 108 Illustrations and 19 Maps and Plans. South Devon. 80 Illustrations and 6 Maps. Great Yarmouth, etc. 80 Illustrations and 5 Maps. Ilfracombe and North Devon. 80 Illustrations and 5 Maps. Paris and Environs. 100 Illustrations and 2 Plans. London and Environs. By Karl Baedeker. Thirteenth Revised Edition. Leipsic: K. Baedeker, 1902. Pp. 459. Price 6 marks. The Naturalist on the Thames. By C. J. Cornish, F.Z.S. London: Seeley and Co., 1902. Pp. 260. Price 7s. 6d. Asia Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, vol. ix., parts i. and ii. Bombay, 1901. Auf Java und Sumatra. Streifzüge imd Forschungsreisen im Lande der Malaien. Von Dr. K. Giesekhagen, a.o. Professor der Botanik an der Universität München. Leipzig : Druck und Verlag von B. G. Teubner, 1902. Pp. 270. Price M. 9. The Real Siberia. By John Foster Frazer. London, Paris, New York, and Melbourne : Cassell and Company, Limited, 1902. Price 6s. Siam in the Twentieth Century: being the Experiences and Impressions of a British Official. By J. D. G. Campbell, one of His Majesty's Inspectors of Schools, and recently Educational Adviser to the Siamese Government. London: Edward Arnold, Publisher to the India Office, 1902. Pp. xii + 332. Sul Limitare dell’ India. Par Dott. Alfonso Lomonaco. Casa Edetrice Nazionale. Torino‐Roma: Roux e Viarengo, 1902. AFRICA. A Ride in Morocco. By Frances Macnab. London : Edward Arnold, 1902. Price 15s. The Foundation of British East Africa. By J. W. Gregory, D.Sc. London Horace Marshall and Son, 1901. Pp. x + 271. Price 6s. The Gold of Ophir, whence brought and by whom, ? By Professor A. H. Keane, F.R.G.S. London : Ed. Stanford, 1901’. Pp. xv + 244. Price 5s. Mediæval Towns Series. Cairo. By Stanley Lane‐Poole, Professor of Arabic, T.C.D. London: J. M. Dent and Co., 1902. Pp. 340. Price 4s. 6d. AMERICA. History of the Conquest of Peru. By W. H. Prescott. Edited by John Forster Kirk; London : Bell and Sons, 1902. 2 vols. Central and South America. Vol. II. By A. H. Keane, F.R.G.S. Edited by Sir Clements Markham, K.C.B., F.R.S., President of the Royal Geographical and Hakluyt Societies. New Issue. London: Edward Stanford, 1901. Pp. xxiv + 493. Price 15s. Central and South America with the West Indies: Descriptive Geography from Original Sources. By F. D. and A. J. Herbertson. 239 pages, with Illustrations. Price 2s. AUSTRALASIA. Savage Island. By Basil Thomson, Governor of Dartmoor. London : John Murray, 1900. Price 7s. 6d. GENERAL. The British Empire Series. Vol. v.—General. London : Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co., Ltd., 1902. The Student's Handbook of Stratigraphical Geology. By A. J. Jukes‐Browne. London: Stanford, 1902. Statesman's Year‐Book Edited by J. Scott Keltie. London: Macmillan, 1902. L'Année Coloniale. Publiée sous Ia direction de MM. Cn. Mourey, Chargé du service de la statistique a l'Offlce colonial, et Louis Beunel. Première Année (1899), Deuxième Année (1900). Pp. 413 et 442. Paris : Librairie Illustrée Montgrédien et Cie. Price 10 francs. In the High Heavens. By Sir Robert S. Ball, D.Sc., LL.D., F.R.S. London: Isbister and Co., 1901. Pp. vi + 383. Price 5s.

St. Thomas of Canterbury

This magnificent work is part of a series of Rerum Britannic: Medii Ævi Scriptores, or “Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages,” published under direction of the Master of the Rolls as part of the Rolls. It embraces all the important contemporary materials for the history of Thomas. Vols. i.–iv. contain the contemporary Vitæ (by William of Canterbury, Benedict of Peterborough, Edward Grim, Roger of Pontigny, William Fitz-Stephen, John of Salisbury, Alan of Tewkesbury, and Herbert of Bosham, etc.); vols. v.–vii., the Epistolæ, i. e., the whole correspondence relating to Thomas. (An eighth and last volume is to contain the French Lives, edited by Paul Meyer.)

Life Assurance in France

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.

On the Life Assurance Companies of Germany—their Constitution, Condition and Prospects: being the substance of a Paper presented to the Institute of Actuaries

Next to England, Germany is the country in which the principles of life assurance have had the most successful development. It is true the more recent French Companies, La Caisse Paternelle, L'Equitable, La Caisse des Ecoles et des Families, which also call the assurances granted by them assurances sur la vie, show a greater extension in a shorter time; but what they guarantee to the public are not life assurances in our sense of the word. They are neither assurances granted for previously specified sums, nor is the payment of the claim dependent on the death of the assured. The more modern French life assurances are rather indefinite reversions obtained by paying in any sum the assured pleases, the interest of which (as in the Tontines), according to the mortality found to prevail in the different classes, may prove sometimes greater, sometimes less, and is only divided amongst those who attain the term of life which may have been previously agreed on. The contributions of those who die early, together with the interests thereon, go to augment the dividends to the surviving members. Whilst life assurance amongst the English and Germans is therefore calculated to be on the death of the assured a source of provision for their families, the more recent mode of life assurance amongst the French principally aims at granting to the assured himself, in his lifetime, an annuity or sum of money, which, increasing according as the computations are made for an earlier or later period, affords him the means of extending his business, of completing his education, of securing a dowry on marriage, or a provision in old age. In consequence, partly of the prospect of selfenjoyment of the reserve thus made, partly the possibility of obtaining a high profit for a small investment through a greater mortality in the classes than the tables assumed, this kind of assurance became very much in vogue amongst the French. Recently, however, a clearer understanding of the matter, and the exposure of some deceptions which a few of the Companies or their managers have been guilty of, have in some degree cooled the public favour.

On the French Life Assurance Companies

On the French Life Assurance Companies