The Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation stands to-day its own evidence and justification. It was the first Insurance Office to extend its work to the troubled country of Ireland, where fires were more than ordinarily common, for it opened its first office in Abbey Street, Dublin, in the year 1722: and it retains to-day by the activity of its agents and the extension of its business that pre-eminence which its priority in time first gave to it. Of late years it has undertaken much work which in other days would have been deemed quite outside the scope of an Insurance Corporation. It was the first Insurance Office in England to set up a Trustee branch. This was in 1904, when as yet there was no Public Trustee, and many a legatee’s affairs were plunged into confusion by the death or business inexperience of an Executor. Thus, though not a philanthropic institution, the Corporation has pursued its business by beneficent means. It has seen companies--such as that which was originated by the famed Mr. Montague Tigg--blaze for a moment in a false prosperity and then disappear. It has remained proud in its antiquity, faithful to its traditions, and yet alert to each new development of the machinery of life which could strengthen its foundations and extend its influence. It has survived the most momentous changes and the most difficult crises in the national life of Great Britain. Yes, but self-preservation is not everything. For a Corporation to live for two hundred years is very well in itself; but to live at the end of that time amidst the increasing confidence and good will of those who have entrusted their interests to its care is a greater matter of which the Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation may well be infinitely proud. A. E. W. MASON. JAS. TRUSCOTT & SON, LTD., London. E.C. Transcriber's Notes: Italics are shown thus: _sloping_. Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained. Perceived typographical errors have been changed.