Notwithstanding these varied materials, and although they were quoted as authorities for maintaining a high rate of premium, the societies in existence were well aware that their rates were fixed on too ascending a scale. They had found unexpected sources of profits in lapsed policies; they had estimated an employment of their money at 3 per cent., and, at the very lowest calculation, their receipts had averaged 4 per cent. Nor was this likely to diminish, for there can be no doubt that laws as unerring as those which govern health govern the annual value of money. In 1810, Mr. George Barrett had presented to the Royal Society a new mode of calculating life annuities. This the Society declined to publish, but that which was refused by a public body was adopted by a private individual, and Mr. Bailey gave it to the world in the appendix to his valuable work on “Annuities.” The method of Mr. Barrett was extended and improved by Mr. Davies, in 1825, in his tables of life contingencies; a proof that the Royal Society had made a mistake in refusing to publish the contribution of Mr. Barrett. In 1830 it was decided that a policy was vitiated because the person insured had only answered the questions demanded, and had not stated all the features of his case. The following is a digest of the circumstances:-- The life of the Duke of Saxe Gotha, after the fashion of the Germans half a century since, was said to have been a dissolute one, and by 1825 had debilitated his constitution. He had lost the use of his speech, and whatever mental faculties he had originally possessed, became materially decreased. Private reports to the directors hinted at these material circumstances, “little as they were believed to have an influence on his natural life.” No hint of the kind, however, escaped the friends of the assured, and the directors, trusting to the honour of the duke more than as traders they ought to have done, granted a policy. One year after, Death, respecting not the person of his highness, seized him for his prey, and it was discovered that a tumour, of some years’ standing, had pressed upon his brain and caused his decease.