necessaries do not include the whole of the good things attainable at any given time; whence it follows that the transition from labour to the ever so well-earned leisure of age would be connected with the deprivation of a number of highly prized customary enjoyments, if the copious proceeds of former labour were not in part laid by for use in this time of leisure. Take, for example, my father: if he pleased to spend now the 1,440£ which he receives as one of the Freeland executive, together with the 90£ which my mother's claim for maintenance amounts to, he could not, after his retirement from office, with the fifty-five per cent. of the maintenance-unit to which he and my mother together would be entitled--that is, with 330£--carry on his household without retrenchments which, though they might deprive him only of superfluities, would nevertheless be keenly felt, because they would involve the giving up of what he has accustomed himself to. It is true that a considerable number of his present expenses consists of items which in part would cease in the course of time, in part--_e.g._, his contributions to benevolent objects in other parts of the world--could not be expected from persons who are receiving a maintenance from the commonwealth, and in part would no longer accord with the tastes and capacities of aged persons. But in spite of all this, my parents would have to forego many things to which they are accustomed; and to avoid this is the purpose of their saving. 'In order that this end may be attained, we have an altogether peculiar form of insurance. The insurance department of our central bank supplies the stipulated insurance-money not in fixed amounts, but in sums bearing a certain proportion to the common maintenance-allowance, or--which amounts to the same thing--to the average value of labour for the time being. As the aim of the insured is to be completely saved from anxiety as to the future, there must, in view of the continual increase in the profits of labour, be maintained an exact correspondence between those profits and the amount of insurance. For the requirements of the individual are regulated by the standard of life around him, and when this is raised so are his requirements raised. The annuity secured by the insurance must therefore be variable, if its object is to be completely attained. Consequently, the premiums are regulated by the height of the profits of labour for the time being. Certainly the inevitable arbitrariness of the connection between the premium and the claim of the insured is thereby magnified; but we do not allow that to trouble us. Our experts have taken into consideration, with the most scrupulous attempt at accuracy, all the appertaining factors, and the premiums--the rates of which have, since the institution has been in existence, been slightly amended to bring them into harmony with the teaching of experience--were so fixed as to make it probable that they