The first effort to show the value of annuities on lives from the London Bills of Mortality is attributable to James Hodgson. Nor was this endeavour uncalled for or unnecessary. Many assurance offices had arisen, undertaking to grant these annuities; and the tables principally in use were founded on the decrease of life at Breslau. But by the Breslau Tables, half the people lived till they were about 41 years of age, while in London half did not reach the age of 10. This was a vast difference in the estimate of mortality, and affected the price of annuities in a proportionate degree. But if the Breslau Tables calculated life at too high a rate, it was equally evident that the London Tables made them too low; it is obvious, therefore, that the value of a life annuity founded on any confined observations would be unsuitable to the general annuitant; and it is evident that a scale of prices should have been based on a more enlarged foundation. The work of Mr. Hodgson deserves very great attention, and the notice of the reader is called to its investigation, as the conclusions were arrived at after great labour, and are a specimen of the time and trouble bestowed on the subject. “The easy way of raising money for public uses,” says Mr. Hodgson, “by granting annuities upon lives, has met with so great encouragement that there is no room to doubt it will be carried down to future times.” The following statements of this gentleman will be read with surprise by those who are acquainted with the chances of life as calculated at the present day. He estimated that “1000_l._ would purchase an annuity of 70_l._ per annum for a life of 29 years 10 months, when money is valued at 3 per cent. per annum; that the same sum will purchase the same annuity for a life of 23 years, when money is valued at 4 per cent. per annum; and that the same sum will purchase the same annuity for a life of 23 years, when money is valued at 5 per cent. per annum; and that it will purchase the same annuity for a life of 16 years 2 months, when money is valued at 6 per cent. “It appears that the highest value of a life is when the person is about 6 years of age, and that from the birth to that time the value of lives decrease, as they do from that time to the utmost extremity of old age; that a life of 1 year old is nearly equal in value to a life of 7 years old; that a life of 3 years old is nearly equal in value to a life of 12 years old; that a life of 4 years old is nearly equal in value to a life between 9 and 10 years; and that a life of 5 years is nearly equal in value to a life of 7 years of age. And hence arose the custom of putting the value of the lives of minors upon the same value with those of a middling age, which at the best is but a bold guess, and made use of for no better reason, than that they knew of no better way to find the true value.”