The assessment societies, outside of the fraternal and benevolent, reporting in 1889 to the insurance commissioner of Massachusetts, show outstanding risks amounting to $733,515,366. Losses to the amount of $7,270,238 were paid during the year at a cost for transacting the business of $2,403,053, which includes among other items "agency expenses and commissions," which amount to about $1,203,000, or 17 per cent. of the cost value of the insurance actually done. It would seem as if an allowance of 20 per cent. would be a liberal one in the case of the regular companies, which surely have as good facilities for doing business as the assessment societies. As far as insurance is concerned, there is less difference between regular and co-operative companies than is generally supposed. Regular companies assess each policy in advance for a year's insurance at a time, while co-operative societies furnish insurance only from one assessment to another. The difficulty in the way of collecting the assessment in the latter case would seem to be greater than in the former, owing to the more permanent nature of the regular insurance contract. In compensating agents the assessment companies naturally pay in proportion to the insurance obtained, inasmuch as there is no other basis to go upon, but regular companies usually pay the agent a percentage of the premium _which includes a considerable trust fund_ over and above the assessment for actual insurance. It is easily seen that by the last method the agent's compensation increases in proportion to the amount of savings bank business forced upon the company. To realize how far we are from anything like a scientific, not to say common sense basis for insurance expenses, we have but to examine the following list, which gives the ratios between the expenditures for general expenses in 1889, and those for the extension of the business. For every $100 used in a general way, the different companies spend for commissions and agency expenses: $37, $66, $67, $78, $91, $106, $110, $113, $120, $140, $157, $161, $173, $175, $186, $189, $200, $202, $222, $264, $311, $346. It will doubtless be said that I am taking a very advanced position when I say that in the ideal life insurance scheme there is no place for the commission system. Solicitors will be a necessity only so long as they are in the field, but fifty years of life insurance has taught our community its true value and, thanks to the modern press, the institution it is no more likely to fall into desuetude than is Christianity or the moral law.