In time Lloyd's coffeehouse was recognized as a sort of unofficial headquarters for this special variety of insurance speculation, and the gentlemen most active there drifted into a loosely formed organization for the purpose of making the business less hazardous. In 1773, this association of underwriters moved into the Royal Exchange, taking the name of Lloyd's, and later appointed a governing body or committee to control the more adventurous spirits who were fond of gambling on the chances of war, on the length of Napoleon's life, and who would undertake to insure a man against the risk of twins in his family. From this beginning grew the vastly influential and highly organized Lloyd's of the present day which is something more than a corporation. It is also an aggregation of individual underwriters and brokers carrying on business, each for his own personal profit and on the strength of his good name and resources. As a corporation, Lloyd's has no financial liability in the event of the failure of any of its members or subscribers. All that Lloyd's does, in its corporate capacity, is to permit the admission only of men of stability and sound repute by means of stringent tests, and to exact a money guarantee or deposit from its members in the sum of £5000 or £6000, together with entrance fees of £400, and annual fees of twenty guineas. These payments form what may be called a reserve fund, and the individual underwriter writes his own policies. If the risk is heavier than he wishes to assume he divides it among his fellows. There are few more interesting places in London than Lloyd's, encrusted as it is with the barnacles of conservative tradition, and hedged about with all the exclusiveness of a club. The entrance is guarded by a burly porter gorgeously arrayed in the scarlet robes and gold-banded hat of a by-gone century. Having run the gauntlet of this dragon, one is likely to seek the underwriter's room where hundreds of members and their clerks are quartered at rows of little desks or "boxes," every man of them with his hat clapped on his head as decreed by ancient custom. There is always a crowd of them around the "Arrival Book" and the "Loss Book" in which are posted the movements of vessels in every port of the world, and the wrecks that number three thousand every year. The famous "Captains' Room" where the mariners used to gather and swap briny yarns is now used for the prosaic purposes of luncheon and for the auction sales of ships.