[Insurance against fire has been known and carried on in England for nearly a century and a half; at present the number of British Fire Offices amounts to nearly twenty. The premium demanded for insurance varies from 1_s._ 6_d._ to 10_s._ 6_d._ per £100 according to the supposed risk; the duty is enormous, being no less than 3_s._ per cent. on the amount insured. This tax yields a considerable addition to the revenue; in 1842 it amounted to £986,420, which corresponds to £563,668,571 value of property insured, leaving out of consideration the value of insured farming stock, the duty on which was repealed in the year 1833. On common risks the duty is no less than 200 per cent. upon the premium! “Such a duty” observes M‘Culloch, “is in the last degree oppressive and impolitic. There cannot, in fact, be the slightest doubt that, were it reduced, as it ought to be, to one-third its present amount, the business of insurance would be very much extended; and as it could not be extended without an increase of security and without lessening the injurious consequences arising from the casualties to which property is exposed, the reduction of the duty would be productive of the best results in a public point of view; while the increase of business would prevent the revenue from being materially diminished.” Several attempts have of late been made in Parliament to induce the government to lower the amount of duty, hitherto without success; it is however to be hoped that some other mode of raising the revenue may be devised than that of taxing so enormously the prudence of the industrious classes[714].