Owing to the information elicited by the committee, it was deemed necessary to recommend that any future company should be provisionally registered, stating every particular of its purpose, its promoters, its directors, its subscribers; and that a complete registration should be accompanied by a copy of its prospectus, its deed of settlement, its amount of capital, its number of shares, the names and residences of the shareholders, the officers of the company, and a written acceptance of office. These recommendations were carried out by 7 & 8 Vict. c. 110.; but time has proved that the act has scarcely been successful, even in mitigating the evils it was meant to prevent. “Arguing from the experience of the present law,” says the “Morning Chronicle,” “during the past eight years, it does not appear that its effect has been in any way to restrain the formation of unsound insurance companies;” and in one respect it assisted them, as it gave the promoters the power of quoting a special act of parliament in their favour, thus adding a spurious stability to their character. In seven years from the working of the new act the number of projected companies averaged three and a half per month; the number actually opened, two every month, while about fourteen yearly were compelled to close their operations. It may be supposed that the old offices were somewhat surprised as project after project, each proclaiming its principle to be the very essence of life assurance, was registered. They made, however, a great show of business. Their annual reports were startling to the ears of staid, methodical gentlemen of the old school, who, seeing that their own policies had not increased with the population, thought, when new companies declared huge profits and boasted augmented policies, that the world was coming to an end. The assumptions of some of these new offices were audacious enough; one actuary asserting that a company might spend all their premiums and great part of their capital, and be perfectly solvent. The first year’s business of a society which started at this period produced 3300_l._; a large sum undoubtedly, but the first year’s expenses were 3000_l._ out of it. The business of the second year produced 2000_l._; but all the money paid by the policy holders was spent, with 15 per cent. of the capital in addition. Rumours like these--exaggerated perhaps by the terrors of those of the _ancien régime_--soon spread about, and there was a growing disposition in the public to regard new offices with suspicion. Of about forty which had been annually projected from 1844 to 1851, many had given up the ghost; and though the policies in some cases were transferred to other offices, yet in those which were not so fortunate there must have been great evil. For some years a cloud had been gathering; but when Mr. Labouchere moved that the accounts of the various offices should be printed, and when, in their naked attire and without the opportunity of