~Indian Famine.~--The total amount subscribed here towards the fund for the relief of sufferers by famine in India in 1877 was £7,922 13s. 2d. ~India-rubber,~ in 1770, was sold at 3s. per cubic half-inch, and was only used to remove pencil marks from paper. Its present uses are manifold, and varied in the extreme, from the toy balloon of the infant to railway buffers and unsinkable lifeboats. ~Infirmaries.~--See "_Hospitals_," &c. ~Inge.~--The family name of one of the large property owners of this town, after whom Inge Street is so called. The last representative of the family lived to the ripe old age of 81, dying in August, 1881. Though very little known in the town from whence a large portion of his income was drawn, the Rev. George Inge, rector of Thorpe (Staffordshire), was in his way a man of mark, a mighty Nimrod, who followed the hounds from the early age of five, when he was carried on a pony in front of a groom, until a few weeks prior to his death, having hunted with the Atherstone pack duriug the management of sixteen successive masters thereof. ~Insane Asylums.~--See "_Lunacy_." ~Insurance.~--In 1782 a duty of 1s. 6d. per cent, was levied on all fire insurances, which was raised to 2s. in 1797, to 2s. 6d. in 1804. and to 3s. in 1815, remaining at that until 1865, when it was lowered to 1s. 6d., being removed altogether in 1869. Farming stock was exempted in 1833, and workmen's tools in 1860. ~Insurance Companies.~--Their name is legion, their agents are a multitude, and a list of their officers would fill a book. You can insure your own life, or your wife's, or your children's or anybody else's, in whose existence you may have a beneficial interest, and there are a hundred officers ready to receive the premiums. If you are journeying, the Railway Passengers' Accident Co. will be glad to guarantee your family a solatium in case you and your train come to grief, and though it is not more than one in half-a-million that meets with an accident on the line, the penny for a ticket, when at the booking office, will be well expended. Do you employ clerks, there are several Guarantee Societies who will secure you against loss by defalcation. Shopkeepers and others will do well to insure their glass against breakage, and all and everyone should pay into a "General Accident" Association, for broken limbs, like broken glass, cannot be foreseen or prevented. It is not likely that any of [**] will be "drawn" for a militiaman in these piping times of peace, but that the system of insurance was applied here in the last century against the chances of being drawn in the ballot, is evidenced by the following carefully-preserved and curious receipt:-- "Received of Matthew Boulton, tagmaker, Snow Hill, three shillings and sixpence, for which sum I solemnly engage, if he should be chosen by lot to serve in the militia for this parish, at the first meeting for that purpose, to procure a substitute that shall be approved of.