If it be thought that life assurance offices should, for the sake of the public and of themselves, be interfered with by Government, the next step is to discover the simplest and the least vexatious mode of dealing with them. And here at once arises the question whether some difference should not be made between the mutual and the proprietary company. Assuming that the mutual system possesses every essential element of safety, it is equally true that there are hazards in the path of any company depending merely on its premiums, which do not attend a company with a respectable proprietary. Hundreds were once ruined by a mutual fire-company; and had the cholera, in 1849, fallen on the class which does insure as much as on that which does not insure, none can say to what extent the new and untried companies would have suffered, or whether they could have paid the policies which became due. And there is another point which materially affects an office with a small business. In the first few years of its existence the estimated mortality will probably ensue. But let us imagine, for a moment, this mortality seizing those who are insured for large amounts, instead of those who are insured for small sums; might not the demands be too great for its capital, even with no excess of mortality, especially when it is remembered that the expenses of establishing the society would necessarily have decreased its resources? A company with a subscribed and paid-up capital may fairly pay largely for advertisements; but a mutual company, without any independent funds, has scarcely the right to use their premiums for any other purpose than to decrease the annual payments or add to the policies. As mutual offices, therefore, have no other security than their premiums, these would require to be looked after more circumspectly and closely than where a capital and a proprietary are answerable to the insured. The mode in which the funds are invested by mutual offices might be a fair subject for publication; nor would this be an invidious distinction, as an irresponsible office has less claim to an equal latitude of investment, and less right to keep their secrets than a responsible company. One element in the success which the old mutual offices have experienced is attributable to the high rates they charge. Thus, the premium of an old mutual company at the age of thirty is 2_l._ 13_s._ 6_d._; while that of an old proprietary company is 2_l._ 2_s._ There may be an ultimate equivalent to the mutual insurer, if he live, in either a reduced premium or an increased policy; but as the former is too frequently accepted instead of the latter, the family of the insured do not receive the same benefit at his death which they would have done, had he paid the same sum to a proprietary office, and kept up the premiums as he would have been compelled to do.