TEMPERANCE, LONGEVITY, INSURANCE. 
 
 A TRACT FOR THE TIMES. 
 
 Reprinted from the Canada Citizeru 
 
 *' Smote by truth fall ancient errors, 
 
 Reared by power and propt by wrong 5 
 And Earth wonders when they perish, 
 How they held their sway so long." 
 
 There are few phases of the wonderful history of the great Tem- 
 perance Reformation that so well illustrate the unsoitnd basis and 
 unjust operations of unreasoning piejudiee, and also the astonishing 
 progress in enlightenment that has recently been made, as does the 
 remarkable change in the attitude, towards total bstainers, of Life 
 Insurance Companies, 'ihe hard-headed business sagacity that 
 directs these institutions is not very likely to be influenced by any 
 merely sentimental considerations, and yet the companies, that some 
 time ago looked with suspicion upon teetotallers, now seek after 
 them as insurers with the utmost eagerness, and even offer them 
 special inducements. Why do they do this ? Simply because 
 IT PAYS. Total abstaine; s, as a class, have longer lives and better 
 health than moderate drinkers, and insurance companies can do 
 with them a safer and more profitable business even at reduced 
 rates. Not only is the physical health of the abstainer superior to 
 that of his less careful neighbor, but he is much less liable to injury « 
 from thos ? climatic and ot'ier accidents of common life that so fre- 
 quently- lay the foundation for disease and death. All his faculties 
 and nervous safeguards agfiinst these causes of injury are also more 
 on the alert, an<i the prudence that impels him to avoid or counter, 
 act them is more keenlv active. 
 
 We might till a volume with pVysiological evidence and expert 
 medical opinion upon this matter, but we are Confining ourselves 
 now wholly to insurance facts, and even ]iei*e the field is so exten- 
 sive that we can only sample and condense the material that is at 
 our disposal. We nmst again, however, call attention to the charac- 
 ter of our VN itnesses. The managers of Life Insurance Companies are 
 among our most reliable and experienced business men, and the in- 
 surance .system has the endorsation of: the b st morality and the 
 highest intelligence of our communities. 
 
THE HISTORY 
 
 of temperance insurance though brief, is instructive. The Detroit 
 Indicator, a leading insurance journal, epitomizes the early part of 
 it as follows : — 
 
 " There was a time, not very long ago, when totai abstainers 
 from intoxicating drinks were looked upon by Life Insurance Com- 
 panies in Great Britain as a class that ought to pay an additional 
 rate for insurance on their lives. The Chairman of the United 
 Kingdom Temperance Society in moving the adoption of the 40th 
 annual report of the Society referred to the fact that he applied to 
 three Life offices for insurance, two of which accepted him at the 
 regular rates through the influence of friends, while the third 
 charged him a considerable amount extra. When he asked for the 
 reason, the reply was, "You are a teetotaller ; and the directors con- 
 sider teetotal lives are worse than ordinary lives." This was the view 
 hf Id by the majority of men in Britain in those days, the moderate 
 use of stimulants being considered beneficial to health and longevity. 
 The British Government, however, soon after commenced experi- 
 menting in this line, in the army, in the navy, in public institutions, 
 etc., etc., and were not long in discovering the reverse to be true. In 
 1838, statistics were kept of the numb r of men belonging to tem- 
 perance societies in the European armies, serving in India, admitted 
 to the hospitals, and the number of those not temperance men ad- 
 mitted during the same time. The record was for the first six 
 months of the jQiv and was decidedly in favor of the temperance 
 section. The stren-ch of the temperance societies was 9,340, and of 
 the remainder of the regiments 17,354. The relative proportions 
 •admitted to strength was in the former 1 in 16.47, and in the latter 
 1 in 7.28 ; the average daily percentage of men in the hospital being 
 among the temperance 3.65 and among the others 10.20, or nearly 
 tiiree times as great. This and other experiments set the English 
 people to thinking on the temperance question, and revealed to them 
 the iact that they had been entertaining fallacious views on this 
 subject. The results of total abstinence yere so favorable in other 
 directions that a life insurance company called The United King- 
 dom Temperance and General Provident Institution was organized 
 with the object in view of providing insurance for teetotallers in a 
 class by themselves." 
 
 Since the formation of the above-named company many others 
 have been instituted upon the same general lines, both in Great 
 Britain and other countries. Amonjgf these may be specially nanied 
 the Whittington Life Assurance Co., the Emperor Life Assurance 
 Ca, the Scottish Temperance Life Assurance Co., the Blue Ribbon 
 Life Assurance Co., the Australasian Temperance and General Life 
 Assurance Co. of Australia, th'^ Sceptre Life Assurance Co. ♦ ♦ ♦ 
 
s 
 
 The special advantages that abstainers enjoy in this matter were 
 soon noticed and made use of by that class of insurers who prefer 
 the system of mutual insurance on the death assessment plan. A 
 number of these societies sprang up, admitting only total abstain- 
 ers, it being clearly evident that the assessment calls upon members 
 of such societ es would be lighter than in similar associations ad- 
 mitting moderate drinkers. 
 
 Further light and knowledge still more thoroughly con- 
 vinced temperance men that, in justice to themselves and their 
 families, they ought to secure in their insurance investments, the 
 full benefit of their safer habits and superior life probabilities, and 
 temperance insurance at once passed from the region of theory and 
 experiment to that of fact and business. We are much pleased to 
 notice that a movement has been lately set on foot in Canada for the 
 formation of a home company, that will give to our cit zens the full 
 advantages of this system, by affording them an opportunity of hold- 
 ing stock as well as policies in a temperance company. At the last ses- 
 sion of the Dominion Parliament, a special Act was passed chartering 
 The Temperance and General Life Assurance Company of North 
 America. We publish to-day in the advertising columns of The Can- 
 ada Citizen the prospectus of this new company. The names therein 
 given of the principal promoters of the enterprise guarantee itg 
 success. Mr. O'Hara, who is working out the details of this scheme 
 is a well-known temperance worker, and P. G. W. P. of the Sons of 
 Temperance, and he has had extensive experience in life insurance 
 business. We heartily commend this institution to both investors 
 and insurers. 
 
 We believe the experiment of an insurance company doing busi- 
 ness with abstainers alone has not yet been made. 
 
 THE FACTS 
 
 in relation to temperance insurance and longevity, the records of 
 the working companies already referred to, and the mortuary sta- 
 tistics of total abstinence societies, constitute an overwhelming mass 
 of evidence in favor of total abstinence, as by far the safest prac- 
 tice in relation to all forms of intoxicating liquors. We have only 
 space for a few summarized items, and in considering them, our 
 readers will kindly bear in mind that no insurance company will 
 take risks on the lives of men of the class usually called intemper- 
 ate, and. the comparisons made in their tables are all between 
 tiioderate drinkers and teetotallers. 
 
The obituary record of the National Division of the Sons of 
 Temperance makes the following extraordinary showing : — 
 
 Of the male members in the year 1880-81, there were 8 deaths, 
 and the average age of the deceased was 64 years and 4 months ; 
 in 1881-82 there were 12 deaths, at the average age of 71 years and 
 2 months ; and in the year 1882-83 there were 10 deaths, at the 
 average age of 71 years and 6 months. The three years' record 
 
 fives 30 deaths, at the average age of 69 years and nearly 6 months, 
 he showing for 1883-84 is even more favorable still, the average 
 age of the members who died during that year being 72 years. The 
 age of the oldest member who passed away was 92. 
 
 A circular recently issued by the "Sceptre Life Assurance Com- 
 pany, of Great Britain," shows that for the past ten years the 
 deaths in the total abstinence branch of the company amounted to 
 only forty-five per cent, of the number anticipated. 
 
 At the annual meeting of the Whittington Life Assurance Com- 
 pany, on the 21st of August of the present year, the following 
 statement was made by the manager, Mr. Alfred T. Bov/ser : — 
 
 " One feature of interest I must not omit to mention — I refer to 
 the temperance section. The report has told you that the mortality 
 in ihat section continues to be favorable; I will tell you a little 
 more exactly. Three years ago I stated that the death rate in the 
 temperance section had, in the three years, been 23 per 1,000, against 
 60 per 1,000 in the general section. I have now the satisfaction of 
 stating that the comparison is even a little more favorable for the 
 temperance section during the past three years ; it has been at the 
 rate of 22 per 1,000, while in the general section it has been at the 
 rate of ol per 1,000." 
 
 The results obtained by the Temperance and General Provident 
 Institution are stated as follows by the Indicator, the journal 
 already quoted: — 
 
 " The results after, a few years trial, were surprising and con- 
 vincing. During the first five years of its existence the Temperance 
 and General Provident Institution iosued l,.59t) policies, and the 
 average death rate was but 7^ per 1,000, while it ranged from 13 
 to 26 in four other offices. There were, of course, other causes at. 
 work which helped to keep down the mortality, but these were not 
 sufficienttooccasionthe wholeditierences. But this difference was made 
 more apparent in the results in the two sections of this company it- 
 self, viz.: tlie Tenip<»rance Section and the General Section. The 
 records for seventeen years shows that in the former section the 
 expected claims were 2,644, and the actual 1,861, a per cent, of 70, 
 while in the latter the expected claims were 4,408^ and the actual 
 
4,339, a per cent, of 99, or neaily the full amount. This is an eXf 
 cess of 29 per cent, in favor of the Temperance Section." 
 
 THE OPINIONS 
 
 of experts in the business of insurance go to emphasize all that has 
 been said in reference to even the moderate consumption of the 
 milder alcjholic beverages. Some time ago we published in The 
 Canada Citizen the foliov*ing statement of 
 
 Colonel Green, PrcHldent of the Connecticut Mutual 
 Life Insurance Cotnpany : — 
 
 " I protest against the notion so prevale.it and so industriously 
 ui'ged that beer is harmless and a desirable substitute for the more 
 concentrated liquors. What beer may be, and what it may do in 
 other countries and climates, I do not know from observatioii. That 
 in this country and climate its use is an evil only less than the use 
 of whiskey, if less on the whole, and that its etfect is only longer de- 
 layed, not so immediately and obviously bad, its incidv nts not so 
 repulsive, but destructive in the end. I have seen abundant proof. 
 In one of our largest cities, contaimng a great population of beer- 
 drinkers, I liad occasion to note the deaths amoDg a large group of 
 persons whose hab ts, in their own eyes and in those of tueir friends 
 and physicians, were temperate; but they weie habitual users of 
 beer. When- the observation began, they were, upon the average, 
 something under ndddle age, and they were, of course, selected lues. 
 For two or three years there was nothing very remarkable to be 
 noted among this group. Presently death began to .strike it ; and, 
 until it had dwindled to a fraction of its original proportions, the 
 mortality in it was astounding in extent, and .still inoie lemarkable 
 in the manifest identity of cauae and mode. There was no mistak- 
 ing it ; the history was a most invariable : robust, ap^.arent health, 
 full muscles, a fair outside, increasing weight, tloiia faces ; then a 
 touch of cold, or a snitl' of malaria, and instantly some acute disease, 
 with almost invariably typhoid symptoms, was in violent action, and 
 ten days or less ended it. It ivas as if the system had been kept fair 
 outside, while wdhm it was eaten to a shell ; and at ilm first touch 
 of disease there was utter collapse ; every fibre was i/oiboned and 
 weak. And'this, in its main features, varying of course in d* gree, 
 has been my observation of beer-drihkmg everywhere. It is 
 peculiarly deceptive at first ; it in thoroughly destiuUive at the last.'* 
 
 This statement was recently published by I'he Voice, an Ameri- 
 paper, issued by Messrs. Funk & Wagnall. of JSuw York. The 
 editors of The Voice have received and printedmany lett rs coi:firm.- 
 ing Colonel Green's opinions, and from thecolumns of that paper 
 we take the following : — 
 
6 
 
 • 
 
 From Thomas W. Russell, President Connecticut 
 General lAfe Insurance Co.: 
 
 " I have no doubt fche results are correctly stated by Col. Greene. 
 Pneumonia, typhoid fever, inflamation of the brain, of the bowels, 
 etc., are not unfrequently given as the cause of death, when it 
 should be truthfully added---directly induced by the use of such 
 beverages." 
 
 From, George C. Ripley^ President Home Life In^ 
 
 surance Co,: 
 
 " Our experience, as a rule, confirms that of Col. Greene. It in- 
 dicates that malt liquor used habitually, even though moderately, 
 causes an increase of mortality." 
 
 From T, S, Brosnan, President United States Life 
 
 Insurance Co,: 
 
 " Our experience has been very much more limited than the ex- 
 perience of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Co., but, as far 
 as it has gone, and to the extent of our own powers of observa-. 
 tion, whether speaking officially or personally, we believe that Col. 
 Greene's views represent the facts." 
 
 Similar statements were received from the following well-known 
 gentlemen: — 
 
 tT. JB, TeniplCf President Southern Mutual Life Insur" 
 ance Co., Kentucky. 
 
 A, G, Bullock, President State Mutual Life Assur^ 
 ance Co. 
 
 Stephen Ball, Secretary of the Martford Life arid 
 Annuity Insurance Co* 
 
 Samuel C- Huey, President of the Pennsylvania, 
 Mutual Life Insurance Co. 
 
 J", Jff, Ifitehin, Secretary National Life Insurance 
 Co., U. S. A. 
 
 Charles Dewey, President National Life Insurance 
 Company. • 
 
 THE CONCLUSIONS 
 
 to be drawn from the above cited facts and opinions are too mani- 
 fest to need anything more than mere mention. The duty of in* 
 surance has often been urged with earnestness and force. The 
 Canadian Roi^aZ Teinplar in a recent issue makes the following 
 interesting statements : — 
 
" Not long since the Rev. C.'Tl. Spurgeon, taking for his text ; 
 * Take no thought for the moprow, what ye shall eat, or what ye 
 shall drink, or wherewithal ye shall be clothed,' commenced his ser- 
 mon by announcing the fact, * I insured my life last week for £1,000 
 and have thus been able to carry out the injuction of the text, and 
 not to be over anxious for the morrow, for much undue care and 
 anxiety that I had is now laid aside, secure in the knowledge that 
 my forethought has provided for my loved ones.' As a further 
 practical proof of his opinion of the value of Life Insurance, Mr, 
 Spurgeon induced all the young men of the Metropolitan Tabernacle 
 to assure their lives, he paying half the premium for them for the 
 first two years.'* 
 
 If provision for our families by insurance is a social and Chris- 
 tian duty, it must also be a duty to make that provision as complete 
 and as secure as possible. When epidemics ravage a country they 
 invariably make most havoc in the drinking ranks, and this fact- 
 makes the discrepancy between the respective positions of the in- 
 sured abstainei* and liquor-consumer even greater than what the 
 quoted statistics indicate. It is the abstaining insurer's duty to 
 make his provision as cheap and as positive as he can, and he cannot 
 do this in a company that makes him pay for the extra risk it carrier 
 in the moderate drinker's insurance. There is also manifest the 
 duty of temperance capitalists to support an enterprise that gives- 
 even-handed justice to its patrons. In addition to these considera- 
 tions the success of such institutions furnishes a powerful argument 
 in favor of the great total abstinence and prohibition reform. 
 
 Our principal interest in this matter, however, lies in the estab- 
 lished relationship of temperance to health and longevity. Here we 
 have an unanswerable argument in favor of the cause we are labor ^ 
 ing to promote; and in the interests of the public weal, we appeal ta 
 all true philanthropists to aid us in our crusade against the unholy 
 traffic in the dath-dealinsr drink. 
 
 Published at the office of 
 
 THE CITI2EN PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 
 King Str««t K««t, Toronto^ * 
 
THE TEirtPJERAl^Ci: AMD 
 
 General Life Assurance Co'y 
 
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 HEAD OFFICE, TORONTO. 
 
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 Incorporated by Spwial Act <^ ike Parliament of Canada^ April 10th, 1884. 
 
 A Charter has been obtained by the following prominent business men who, by 
 the Act, are appointed the Provisional Directors : 
 
 Hon. G. W. Ross, Minister of Education ; Hon. Alex. Vidal ; Hon. R. W. 
 Scott ; Hon. T. R. Melnnis ; Hon. S. H. Blake, Q.C.; Hon. J.«W. Sifton ; G. E. 
 Foster, M.P. ; John McUiwhau, Esq.; Henry O'Hara, Esq.; David Millar, Esq.; D. 
 D. Hay, Esq.; Robert McLean, Esq. ; Thomas Caswell, Esq.; T. W. Casey, Esq.; 
 J. W. Manning Esq.; E. M. Morphy, Esq.; R. McPhail, Esq.; Robert Houghan, 
 Esq.; Thos. W. Campbell, Esq.; J. H, Flagg, Esq. 
 
 A large majoriiy af the Provisional Directors are total abstainers from the use 
 of intoxicating liquors, holding prominent positions in connection with Dominion 
 Alliance and other Temperance organizations. 
 
 They propose forming a company similar to the " United Kingdom Temper- 
 «nce and (jlener.il Provident Institution,"* of Great Britain, established in 1840, 
 which is one of the most prosperous British Life Companies. The mortality of 
 total abstainers in this Company, for the last seventen years, was thdrty 
 per cent, less than that of the " general" class insured by the Company, 
 notwithstanding the great care exercised in the selection of risks in 
 this class. These facts show beyond doubt that there is an opening in this coun- 
 try for a company that will do justice to total abstainers. 
 
 " The stock books for the new company which has its head office in Torbnto, 
 ere now open and a cousideralile amount of stock has been subscribed. Persons 
 seeking a profitable and safe investment would do well to apply at once. " — Daily 
 Mail. 
 
 " A stock book having been opened, a considerable amount of the stock has 
 been subscribed and the balance will no doubt be quickly taken up, as there is no 
 etock that ia safer and pays better dividends than that of Life Assurance Compaa* 
 ies." — Dailif Globe. 
 
 Persons wishing stock or Agency of the Company should apply at once to 
 
 ^O r^t-^ "^^^ O'SjSl.E-A. <Sc CO., 
 
 RO^ %>kftnJfn£^njtl^\^lUg^U« 30 Adelaide Street East, Toronto 
 
 
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