In 1708 began what were then known as “the little goes” of assurance. One was held at the Cross Keys, in Wych Street. We gather that each person subscribed 5_s._ fortnightly, inclusive of policy, stamp, and entrance money, on condition of 200_l._ being paid to his heirs and executors. Another was an evident bubble, 5_s._ a quarter entitling the subscriber’s representatives to receive 120_l._ at his demise; while a third, called the “Fortunate” Office, was to provide marriage portions of 200_l._ for those who paid 2_s._ a quarter. If contemporary accounts are to be trusted, the ravenous appetite for assurance was something like that which at the present day possesses projectors, as offices were opened in every part of the town. If one company was commenced to insure marriage portions, a second was sure to follow to insure the portions of their children. A mutual life assurance was instantly followed by a mutual ship assurance. The following notice from the “British Apollo” will be found to illustrate this speculative fancy:--“A first and second claim is made at the Office of Assurance on Marriage, in Roll Court, Fleet Street. The first will be paid on Saturday next; wherefore, all persons concerned are desired to pay 2_s._ into the joint stock, pursuant to the articles, or they will be excluded. _The two claimants married each other, and have paid but 2s. each._” They were, however, to receive but 37_l._ Here is another specimen: “Any person by paying 2_s._ at their entrance for a policy and stamps, and 2_s._ towards each marriage but their own, when the number is full, will secure to themselves 200_l._; and in the mean time, in proportion to the number of subscribers.” This undertaking was found to answer so well, that many others opened in the same line--one of them, appropriately enough, in Petticoat Lane. Soon after this, appears an advertisement from a baptismal office of assurance, where every subscriber paid 2_s._ 6_d._ towards each infant baptized, until he had one of his own, when he was to receive 200_l._, “the interest of which is sufficient to give a child a good education; and the principal reserved until it comes to maturity.” Most of the projects were systems of wholesale robbery. For a time, however, they were greedily run after. “The success of these schemes,” says a chronicler of the time, “sharpened the invention of the thrifty, and immediately almost every street in London abounded with insurance offices, where policies for infants three months old might be obtained for short periods. From these, they diverged into other ages and various descriptions of persons.”