Among the companies which were started in 1825, and which attracted attention from the importance of its promoters, was the Alliance. In its marine capacity it broke down the charters of the old corporations, and was at once successful, not from any special merit, but because it numbered among its members the representatives of the first city firms. It may be added, that, among them, four men more alike in the one desire of making money, but more dissimilar in tastes, pursuits, and habits, were never before united. These were John Irving, Baron Goldsmid, Moses Montefiore, and Samuel Gurney. The first of them, John Irving, affected West End company and aristocratic tastes, by virtue of the friendship of the House of Rutland. He was familiar with men in Lothbury who were never able to meet his eye in Hyde Park. He knew many a merchant on ’Change whom he could not recognise in St. James’s. “He shakes me by the hand in the City,” growled Rothschild to a friend; “but he can never see me in Piccadilly when he is walking with a duke.” Moses Montefiore, the huge capitalist, and Isaac Goldsmid, the hereditary financier, are familiar to the reader. The last on the list is Samuel Gurney, whose simple garb of russet brown and unassuming speech, contrast as much with his great wealth, as his massive, masculine, and almost leonine face does with his single-minded and benevolent character. These were the men who gave at once success and security to the Alliance. The increased number of offices had the tendency to extend public information, and to draw the attention of many who had hitherto thought nothing on the subject. The original object of life assurance was simply to enable a person to secure to his family the receipt of a certain sum at his death. But by 1825 it was applied to a variety of purposes; assurances were effected by creditors on the lives of their debtors. If money were borrowed for a year the life of the borrower was assured. In marriage settlements, where the capital would pass from the husband at the death of the wife, an assurance was effected on the life of the latter. “In every form,” says Mr. Gilbart, “the system seems to produce unmingled good. It promotes habits of forethought and economy on the part of the assured; it tends, by the accumulation of saving, to increase the amount of the national capital.”