If, however, the assertion that marine assurance was known to the ancients is not demonstrable, there is no doubt that life assurance was unknown and unpractised, although the Romans had some wise regulations in connection with the economy of the people. From Servius Tullius downwards, they took a census every fifth year, and the right of citizenship was involved in any one failing to comply with the requirements of his age, name, residence, the age of his wife, the number of his children, slaves, and cattle, together with the value of his property. They do not seem to have kept any exact mortuary register, as the chief object of their census was to levy men and money for the purpose of conquest. One of the commentators on the Justinian Code also gave a calculation of the worth of annuities, which, if it may be accepted as an expectation of life, gives far more correct views of its comparative value at various ages, than was known in Europe until the time of De Witt. Turning from these vague theories of an antique age to our own country, we find that associations founded on social principles, in which union for good or for ill, and in which provision was made for contingencies, were the prominent features, are to be found in our Saxon annals. The axiom, that “Union is Strength,” the necessity of providing for casualties by mutual assistance, in other words, assurance on its broadest and most rational basis, was practised in the Saxon guild, the origin of which was very simple: Every freeman of fourteen being bound to find sureties to keep the peace, certain neighbours, composed of ten families, became bound for one another, either to produce any one of the number who should offend against the Norman law, or to make pecuniary satisfaction for the offence. To do this, they raised a fund by mutual payments, which they placed in one common stock. This was pure mutual assurance. From this arose other fraternities. The uncertain state of society, the fines which were arbitrarily levied, the liability to loss of life and property in a country divided against itself, rendered association a necessity. And if it was necessary before the Conquest, it became doubly so after it. The mailed hand of the Norman knight was ever ready to grasp the goods of the Saxon serf; and the Norman noble trod the ground he had aided to subdue, with the pride of a conqueror, at the same time that he exercised the rapacity of an Eastern vizier. To meet the pecuniary exigencies which were perpetually arising from fines and forfeitures, and to aid one another in burials, legal exactions, penal mulcts, payments, and compensation,--ancient friendly societies, somewhat similar to those of the present day, were established; and the rules of one which existed at Cambridge prove its approximation to the modern mutual friendly association. The following extracts will satisfy the reader of the truth of this assertion:--