Then there are the _kinds_ of payment under which a person may now purchase the benefits of Life Insurance through the medium of the Post Office. And certainly the most important arrangement, associated as it is with several novel features, is that of paying down the premium in one sum. Not that this need be the whole transaction of a proposed insurer. He may make his policy, if we may employ such a term, _cumulative_. Thus, if a person doubts whether he will be able to pay regular premiums for a number of years, he may perhaps be able to effect a small insurance, say of the lowest sum allowable, 20_l._, by the payment of a single premium. He may afterwards find himself able at subsequent periods to effect another small insurance,--and this he will be allowed to do, even if it only be to the extent of five pounds,--and may thus, whenever he has the money to spare, at regular or irregular intervals, go on increasing the original amount in transactions which, while complete in themselves, continually augment the sum to be received at death.[203] We are not informed in _Plain Rules_ whether the insurer will in each case have to pass a medical examination, or produce certificates of health; but there can scarcely be a doubt that he will be required to do one or the other. The proof of age, however, and other particulars which the insurer furnished in the first instance, will doubtless suffice for all subsequent negotiations. The principal objection to insurance effected by a single payment, at any rate among the poorer classes, is apparent. It is not that they can make better use of their money; as a security against an early death or reduced circumstances no better investment could be found for a working man who is in possession of a sufficient sum with no pressing need for it. The real difficulty is the one of keeping his savings until they amount to a sum sufficient for any object of this kind. Here, however, the institution of Post Office Savings Banks may be of service; and this has not been lost sight of by the authorities, who offer them as a medium for the collection and keeping of such fugitive sums as may be most easily spared with a view to taking a Life Insurance premium. Thus, all a workman has to do is to put his savings into the Post Office Banks in such amounts and at such times as will best suit him; and when he has saved a sufficient sum for the purpose, the Postmaster-General will direct that the transfer of the amount shall be made from the Bank to the Insurance Office without the necessity of the depositor seeing the money. Of the general plan of paying the premium in one sum we cannot speak too highly. Those whose wages or salaries are not fixed and regular, or those who are liable to be thrown out of work--and few are not--could not do better than employ their savings in securing such a provision; and the younger the better, seeing how young and old are alike taken in the grip of the Destroyer.