that is unsound, and unworthy, and infirm; and Time itself, that severest Mentor, has set his most impressive seal upon the sterling and enduring excellencies of the Sun Fire Office.

Enduring, and destined still to endure.

Who can doubt this? In the possession of resources of a magnificent type, of a business which is at once the emulation and the despair of rival institutions, and of an organization of that high and sterling character which only time can ensure; there attaches to the Sun all the potentialities which Insurance enterprise can either desire or secure. Around it too, as the growth of a long, honourable and successful past, there clings the tradition of all that is lofty and high-minded in tone and administration. Standing amidst the struggles and the triumphs of 1890, and yet regarding even this period as but the dawn of a larger day, we may pass in imagination from our own time into a future “far on in summers that we shall not see," and even then may still behold amongst the foremost of our commercial institutions, and shining in ever-increasing lustre, the Sun Fire Office.

Insurance News, 15 August, 1891.

THE SUN FIRE OFFICE.

Another year has been passed in the long and stately progress of the Sun Fire Office. Many Insurance officials, even amongst those who can no longer be reckoned young, will live to see the completion of the second century of this great national institution. But it is not alone the antiquity of this Office which places it in so prominent a position. The Sun was not the first to enter upon the business of fire insurance. The principle, in fact, of such business has been recognized and acted upon from the remotest periods of civilization. The Sun can lay claim to a heritage of glory and honour far greater than that arising from the mere lapse of years. An existence of stagnation and indifference, if prolonged for centuries, will bring with it neither reputation nor reward. "Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay." Not unadvisedly have we spoken of the Sun as a national institute. It is national in this respect, that its existence has been co-extensive with that marvellous national growth and development which set in with the Georgian. era, and which has continued uninterrupted ever since. What that growth and development have been, who can sum up in a few brief words? It is now some fifty years since Lord Macaulay was writing his history of England, and in the introduction he contrasts the England of his day with that of the later Stuarts. The statistics of wealth, commerce, industry, and enterprise which he there adduced to show the

eminent position to which Great Britain had risen, were largely taken from Porter's Progress of the Nation. Lord Macaulay was essentially a man who deemed that finality had been reached when his conceptions were realized, a characteristic, too, of the late John Bright. We smile now over Porter's statistics, so magniloquently set forth by the great rhetorician. They seem to us to betoken a state of commercial infancy. The current of our national life has deepened and broadened as the years have passed on. We take up the work as it falls from the hands of our fathers, and the point at which they ceased is where we have to begin. How long the conditions of modern industrial life will remain undisturbed it is impossible to say; these conditions are on the whole beneficial, and far on into the future it would appear that the chariot of progress will still continue to roll.

To the Sun Fire Office belongs the distinction of having throughout accompanied this great onward march. But it has done much more. than this. We cannot tell what has been the inner life of the Sun during its prolonged life of nearly two hundred years, but from its present position one thing at least is clear, that there has been nothing. like stagnation or immobility. Change in practice and methods is the one great feature written upon all human institutions,-there could be no progress without change-and perhaps the hardest lesson which the individual has to learn is the paramount necessity of recognizing this truth. It is the reluctance to receive and adopt this lesson which causes private enterprise to die out in the second or third generation. It is the rarest thing to find private firms existing or prospering after the lifetime of the founders or their immediate successors. The difficulty is less apparent in the case of a Company, but the one feature in the Sun which strikes us above all others, is that age has not brought unadaptability, nor prosperity unenterprise. The position gained perhaps a century and a half ago has never been lost, not because it was gained once for all,-by no means,-but because keen, vigilant eyes, from one decade to another, have watched for the changes, slow or sudden, which the years have brought forth, and then, quick to adopt or to adapt, the Sun has kept in touch with six generations in succession, and at the close of the nineteenth century is, in this respect, as young and mobile as it was at the beginning of the eighteenth. Far beyond Insurance circles the Company has a name and a place, and representing as it does, the best characteristics of the commercial advancement and eminence of Great Britain, who is there that will not heartily join in the wish for the continued existence and prosperity of this ancient Office?

But even as we write this we feel how stern and uncompromising are the demands of modern times. We must come down to a lower, and

yet a more practical level. The Sun is great by mere antiquity alone, and as we have said, in its methods it has always kept abreast of the times. But something more is yet wanting. This is the age of wealth, of massive and colossal resources, and how does the Sun fare in this respect? Well, we could not have penned this panegyric on the Company, had there been the slightest qualification or drawback. In this, the great and supreme test, the Sun is as eminent as in everything else. The most rigid requirements that even the epoch-making experiences of the past twenty years can lay down, are doubly met by the funds which the Company holds in hand; not to mention the untold resources which lie behind these, in the shape of the proprietors. A glance at the accounts will show what a year of great prosperity the Sun has had, and will afford, too, some indication of the secret of that prosperity. The business of the Company has as its basis, a connection throughout the land which is without a parallel, and which no power or influence can materially affect. We have far more than hope to guide us in forecasting the future of the Sun. We have the record of the past and the conditions of the present. We think of the far past years, when, in 1710, the Sun sprang into being, and we mentally run over the long period which has elapsed since that time, a period so pregnant in great movements and in great events. As we come down to our own day, we are compelled to pause. The unknown future lies before us. But it is not unreasonable or presumptuous to suppose that the complexion of the future will be largely influenced by that of the past and of the present, and such being the case, we may safely anticipate for the Sun Fire Office a position of influence and prosperity far greater and more renowned than even that which the toils and successes of two centuries have brought forth.

CHAPTER III.

LITERARY HISTORY

of the

Exchange House Fire Office,

Company of London Insurers,

and

SUN FIRE OFFICE.

THE issuing of papers (generally historical or political) in the form of newspapers-frequently only a single leaf-was one of the means adopted about 200 years ago to endeavour to attract business.

As early as 1696, Lloyd, the proprietor of Lloyd's Coffee House, and the original of the existing Society of Lloyd's, published a weekly paper called Lloyd's News, chiefly, if not entirely, devoted to shipping intelligence, which doubtless greatly tended to the patronage of his house by those interested in maritime affairs. It lasted for six months, and was resuscitated as Lloyd's List in 1726.

The publication of 1696 may perchance have given Povey some idea regarding the General Remark, if indeed his inventive brain had wanted any such hint.

The GENERAL REMARK was first published in 1705.

It was followed in 1710 by

The BRITISH MERCURY, published by the Company of London Insurers, alias Sun Fire Office.

That paper was discontinued in 1716, and immediately followed by The HISTORICAL REGISTER also published by the Sun Fire Office and discontinued by them in March 17, though it was published by other parties up to the year 1738 inclusive.

GENERAL REMARK.

This paper was first published by Charles Povey in the year 1705, its title then being

General Remark on Trade.

As one of Povey's writings, it will be most fitly described under that heading (Part III).

The first connection of the paper with insurance was on the setting up of the Traders' Exchange House Office for Lives, and the earliest notice thereof which we have been able to trace is in July, 1707.

Many particulars of that Office will be found under the heading of Povey's Schemes (Part III).

The numbers from 1 October, 1707, to 23 March, 17% (except No. 430, 29 November-1 December, 1708, and No. 440, 22-24 December, 1708) cannot be traced, and therefore we are unable to say to what extent either the Traders' Exchange House Office for Lives, or the Exchange House Fire Office were noticed.

The information respecting the latter Office contained in those two numbers will be found at pp. 263–266.

The Remark was supplied to the subscribers both to the Traders' Exchange House Office for Lives, and to the Exchange House Fire Office.

In December, 1709, it was declared, "Moneys due of the first payment by the subscribers" to the Company of London Insurers "to be paid to Mr. Povey. Every one to have the Remark gratis, and be insured for his goods paying only for the policy."

17%, 23 March. Povey, on the transfer of the Exchange House Fire Office to the Company of London Insurers, covenanted not to publish the General Remark any more, nor to set up another paper.

BRITISH MERCURY

Published by the Company of London Insurers.

Successor to General Remark.

Francis, Annals of Insurance, says:—

The Sun published first weekly then quarterly a work, a valuable addition to historic literature.

It was the general custom for insurance companies to publish periodical papers in aid of business; another mode of advertising.

Hatton, the old London historian, speaking of the Union Society for Lives, says, Every subscriber desiring the same may have one of the printed papers they publish once or twice a week gratis.

No mention being made of the name of the paper, we are unable to give further particulars respecting it.

Francis evidently refers to the British Mercury, which however was published thrice a week; and to the Historical Register, published quarterly.