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 ERCANTiLE Insurance 
 
 AS A PREVENTIVE OF 
 
 Business Demoralization 
 
 AND 
 
 Bad Debts 
 
 By henry lye, 
 
 Accountant, 
 
 Special Liquidator Central Bank of Canada. 
 
 DKLIVEREO AT A PUBLIC MEUTINC UNDER THE AUSPICES 
 
 —OF THb — 
 
 INSTITUTE OF CHARTERED ACCOUNTANTS 
 
 OF ONTARIO, 
 
 On Wednesday, April 9TH, 1890. 
 
 TORONTO : 
 Pkinted by Trout & Todd, 79 ft 74 Church St. 
 
 1890. 
 
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 1890. 
 
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 Mercantile Insurance 
 
 AS A I'REVENTIVK OF 
 
 Business Demoralization 
 
 AND 
 
 Bad Debts. 
 
 By henry lye, 
 
 Accountant, 
 
 Special Liquidator Central Bank of Canada. 
 
 DELIVERED AT A PUBLIC MEETING UNDER THE AUSPICES 
 
 -OF THE — 
 
 INSTITUTE OF CHARTERED ACCOUNTANTS 
 
 OF ONTARIO, 
 
 On Wednesday, April 9TH, 1890. 
 
 TORONTO : 
 
 Printed by Trout & Todd, 72 & 74 Church St. 
 
 1890. 
 
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 MERCANTILE INSURANCE. 
 
 
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 When I promised to deliver this address, I understood 
 that it was to be before the more familiar, and possibly more 
 sympathetic, audience composed of the members of the 
 Institute of Accountants. 
 
 I was not then aware that I was to be honored by so 
 influential an audience, therefore I must crave your indulgence 
 in every way, although I have such courage of my convictions 
 as makes me hope that you will, almost, if not altogether, 
 become persuaded of the practicability and the advisabiHty of 
 M(!rcaniile Insurance. 
 
 I may say that, in the open meetings of the Institute of 
 Accountants, it is usual for some member to introduce by 
 address or essay some principle or adaptation for general 
 discussion, and as it is understood that the discussion will 
 often be of greater value than the address, it is essential that 
 the address be neither too long nor too wearisome. Hence 
 ^y endeavour to be as brief and to be as little "dry " as may 
 be possible with such a subject as " Insurance " in any of 
 its forms. 
 
 Every new idea of justice or equity, every advance from 
 anarchy towards order, every amelioration of the conditions 
 of society by the application of humane principles, has been 
 stigmatised as an impracticable innovation, and assailed as 
 the work of a fanatic, a destroyer, or an enemy of his fellow 
 men. 
 
 There are eddies and cross-currents in the stream of pro- 
 gress, so that it is "by slow degrees, by more and more," men 
 advance in civilization. 
 
 Any new idea of personal restraint or of sacrifice of 
 individual liberty — or of self-denial for the common weal — is 
 naturally repugnant to the human race. We are generally 
 
profuse ol law and order and discipline for other people, but 
 if any attempt is made to restrain ourselves from pernicious 
 courses, we loudly denoimce our disturbers as tyrants or 
 socialists. 
 
 Man strives to fight the battle of life unaided and unim* 
 peded, desiring only independence and fair play. " A fair 
 field and no favor" is a man's motto. Men naturally rebel 
 against innovation, restriction, or outside control in respect 
 of their own ideas or actions or business ; yet we do, occa- 
 sionally, find them proposing doses of common sense for the 
 guidance of other people ; as for instance, the manifesto of 
 one of our Boards of Trade in respect to compulsory fire 
 insurance by retail traders, the spirit of which was near akin 
 to Bismarck's compulsory insurance of workmen against 
 physical disability by accident or old age, or to the compul- 
 sory education of young children as an assurance against 
 crime and incompetence, the natural results of ignorance — 
 all being very wise measures in their way, but not beginning 
 " at home." 
 
 History abounds with instances of the inconsistencies of 
 mankind ; human slavery had for its defenders as a bene- 
 ficent institution the men who were foremost in uphold- 
 ing the doctrine of State rights. The promulgators of the 
 doctrine of equality meant it in the sense of the Irishman, 
 " One man is as good as another, and a great deal better." 
 So we need not be dismayed by any of the peculiarities of 
 even business men, which we may have to consider and com- 
 bat ; nor especially of those which prevent co-operation for 
 the common benefit; because we may find numerous examples 
 of great nations who have fallen an easy prey to their enemies, 
 not because they were too weak to defend themselves, but 
 because of their indifference to the fate of their fellows. 
 Should we not learn the lessons taught by history and apply 
 them m our daily business? Do we not know those taught by 
 Greece, 
 
 " Clime of the unforgotten brave, 
 Whose land, from plain to mountain cave. 
 Was freedom's home, or glory's grave !" 
 
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 Or have we forgotten, 
 
 " Rome's Kf^At nnd KloriouH dead 
 'I'houKh we have heard so oft, 
 And read their histories ' 
 
 Like the herd of bulls in the fable, the states of Greece were 
 one by one destroyed, despite the innumerable instances of 
 personal bravery, of genius and of devotion to the public 
 welfare, on the part of Greeks famous in history and in song, 
 whilst the nmor patrice of the Romans, inducing coopera- 
 tion for the common weal, not only saved them from destruc- 
 tion in times of sore straits, but made them masters of the 
 whole world. 
 
 The fiercest wolf will wait for his victim until the flock is 
 scattered, being afraid of a few feeble sheep in the day time, 
 because they co-operate in presenting a common front to the 
 enemv. 
 
 You will perceive that I have a salutary fear of the 
 criticisms which my persistance in the advocacy of a scheme 
 of insurance against bad debts, may draw forth ; deprecating 
 the possible verdict of hare-brain, or wild-cat, or impractica- 
 bility, until the whole matter has been fully considered. 
 
 To ridicule the proposition of a scheme of insurance 
 against losses by bad debts because it is not in vogue, is to 
 assert that we have reached the limit of progress in the per- 
 fection of business methods, notwithstanding the army of 
 sheriff's officers, lawyers, assignees and trustees which are 
 found necessary to the present conduct of mercantile affairs. 
 We may be asked : Have we not rich merchants? Have we 
 not wise legislators? Have we not Boards of Trade whose 
 powers and influence in mercantile matters are almost 
 unlimited ? Granting all these, do we not know that, however 
 rich, or wise, or powerful a people may become, they 
 assuredly come short of their possibilities, gradually or 
 quickly falling into decay and relapsing into comparative 
 barbarism, unless they are blessed with the conservative 
 forces of Christianity, and not only comprehend, but put in 
 practice, that precept which enjoins the bearing of one 
 another's burdens, the very essence and the vital principle of 
 all true insurance organizations. 
 
 /2c'^9^d 
 
Need I instance Fhdnicia, once the mistress of the 
 mercantile marine of the world ? Or Venice, the Queen of 
 the Adriatic, which controlled by caravan and vessel the 
 trade of the Indies? Or— if we want an example of boundless 
 riches and boundless power with unlimited opportunities — 
 Spain, the proud mistress of the New World, with its 
 silver and gold of an extent which we are unable to compre- 
 hend, with navigators as bold as Colund)Us, or adventurtrs 
 as audacious as Pizarro or Cortez ? We may rest assured 
 that neither natural position, nor riches, nor learning, nor 
 military genius, nor naval power, give assurance of continuous 
 prosperity. Had not our own city of Quebec all these? yet 
 Montreal dug a way to the sea and left Quebec almost a 
 desolation. Had not Boston and Philadelphia all these ? yet 
 New Ycrk carried off all their commerce and most of their 
 trade, so that they are to-day mere suburbs tributary to the 
 City of the Hudson. Therefore we must look further and 
 deeper for the cause and stay of mercantile or commercial 
 prosperity and stability. 
 
 •• Let us rest and be thankful " was the complacent 
 observation of Lord John Russell, after the passing of a Bill 
 whi-h was but a step in the long march of Political Reform. 
 He thought the height of political progress was attained, but 
 his measure is ages behind the present. So, however much 
 we may congratulate ourselves on our accomplishments, 
 whilst we maybe "thankful" we may not "rest." 
 
 " Not in vain the distance beacons. 
 Forward — forward let us range, 
 Let the great world spin forever 
 
 Down the ringing grooves of change." 
 
 False profession and fraudulent practice may retard human 
 progress but cannot wholly prevent it. Abuses may discredit, 
 vested interests may oppose, old fogyism may bar the way, 
 cynics may sneer, agnosticism may be incredulous, and 
 absolute ignorance may be hard to overcome, but in spite of 
 all, the glorious fact remains — 
 
 " THE WORLD DO MOVE." 
 
 — Vide, a celebrated coloured astronomeK 
 
 Many an age passed before men admitted the equity of con- 
 
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 W' 
 
tribution by the ship and carj^o for loss b*' jettison. In our 
 own times the practice of Life Insurance has been lookid upon 
 as an impious deftancc of Providence ; the money paid on 
 the death of tlie insured characterized as " blood money " 
 and its recipients as httle less than ghouls in human form — 
 benefitting by the death of those whose life was spent in act 
 and thought for their welfare and happiness. I think it no 
 shame to take some credit to myself for having by precept, 
 example, and publication assisted in a better understanding 
 of the principles of life insurance, and in the suggestion of 
 wider fields of usefulness for one of the most beneficent of 
 human institutions. 
 
 That Mercantile Insurance is "something new under the 
 sun" may not be asserted until the ruins of the ancient cities, 
 whose memorials were buried in them, have been fully 
 explored without finding that, even in their days, life insur- 
 ance was denounced as leading to murder and stiicide ; fire 
 insurance as tending to arson ; guarantee insurance as the 
 cause of embezzlement ; accident insurance as resulting in 
 collision and recklessness ; that boilers never exploded until 
 the Boiler Insurance Company was in active operation ; that 
 drunkenness and stone throwing had their origin in plate 
 glass insurance; that lightning, hail, and tornados had th-^' • 
 origin m an insurance office, and that Mercantile Insurance 
 made necessary the enactment of insolvency legislation. 
 
 In answer to every form of objection, and to every 
 philosopher from the time of Solomon down to the present 
 evening, I confidently assert that Mercantile Insurance 
 against bad debts is now, and always has been, in vogue 
 amongst the mercantile community — yea, that it is, and 
 always has been, compulsory ; and further, that the effect of 
 every merchant being his own insurer against loss by bad 
 debts is, and always has been, such as would result from 
 every man being his own insurer against fire, or every man 
 being his own lawyer. But how can a practice be in vogue, 
 voluntarily or by compulsion, yet no one have any knowledge 
 of the matter and everybody be opposed to its introduction ? 
 
 Let us consider for a few moments. Does any trader 
 pretend that he can avoid bad debts by any exercise of 
 
8 
 
 prescience or caution ? Does not the wisest merchant, when 
 he IS establishing the prices of goods to be sold on credit, add 
 to the cost— one set of percentages for freight and duty, one 
 for expenses, one for losses by bad debts, and one for profit ? 
 Is not the " percentage for losses " practically the insurance 
 premium levied upon eveky purchaser, although the mer- 
 chant does not imagine the possibility of losing by any 
 considerable proportion of his customers ? Does he not 
 make a " discount for cash " of a much larger percentage 
 than the simple interest on the bank discount ; does not the 
 difference really consist of the premium for " insurance 
 against bad debti*," which a cash payment would make 
 unnecessary ? How, then, can it be stated that Mercantile 
 Insurance is not in daily practice ? 
 
 Let us follow the course of the merchant who knows his 
 business and utilizes his knowledge to the utmost extent in 
 his daily transactions, yet perforce, must sell goods on credit 
 if he sells goods at all. Let us follow his routine, giving him 
 credit for extreme caution at every step. 
 
 A new customer comes to his office : he satisfies himself 
 as to his personal habits ; gets a report from the mercantile 
 agency ; has the fire insurance policies assigned to himself ; 
 insists upon promissory notes well endorsed for the amount 
 of every invoice. Is he secured from loss by all this caution ? 
 He would be assured of the loss of his customer if he made 
 all these stipulations, because other merchants do business 
 more loosely; but, if he retains the customer, he has to face 
 the contingencies of a change of habits such as too frequently 
 occurs when a man becomes elated by prosperity or depressed 
 by adversity. He finds that his mercantile agency report 
 has been inspired by friendship for the customer, or by some 
 one who desires to realize an old debt out of the proceeds of 
 the new stock. He learns, when too late, that the fire insur- 
 ance policies have not been renewed or have been vitiated by 
 further insurance without notice, or that the customer has not 
 kept such books of account as enable him to establish his 
 loss, or has committed some fraud or foolishness preventing 
 the paymentf. Then he falls back upon the " endorser" to 
 find prior mortgages or other hindrances to realization from 
 
 J "■ 
 
 1 
 1 
 
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 1 
 
 him. Are any of these occurrences impossible, improbable, 
 or infrequent? I trow not ! The most wise, the most cautious 
 merchant has to provide for losses caused by them^ and, for 
 want of a mercantile insurance company, has to be his own 
 insurer. If his capital is large in proportion to his business, 
 or if he begins his business career contemporaneously with 
 the commencement of an era of good times, he may succeed ; 
 but if not, he furnishes one of the many illustrations of the 
 saying — " that of every one hundred men who enter mercan- 
 tile life, ninety and nine are failures." 
 
 Let us lock at the general conduct of retail business 
 affairs under the present system, premising every possible 
 good quality of head and heart oa the part of the retail 
 merchant ; with ample means, experience, good management, 
 forethought, care, and every human attribute of a good 
 business man. Can he command success ? However 
 v'sely he may buy, is he not likely to be encumbered by a 
 stock unsaleable by reason of an adverse season ? Is he not 
 liable to be surrounded on every side by bankrupt stocks, 
 pedlars, and auctions ? Does it not appear to be the special 
 study of some wholesale merchants to encourage reckless 
 trading, extravagance, and dishonesty, by giving credit and 
 granting compromises, apparently for the very purpose of 
 driving out of business those who intend to pay in full for the 
 goods they buy ? Is not every merchant liable to loss by 
 theft, burglary, conflagration, flood, or other contingency 
 against which he cannot provide, however careful he may be ? 
 Go to any city, town, or village on this continent and calcu- 
 late the chances of success to the honest retail merchant ; 
 consult the annals of the place to learn how many the failures 
 and how few the successes in proportion to the numbers of 
 adventurers of honest intent and intelligent conduct. Observe 
 how much more frequent are the visits of drummers than 
 those of profit-bringing customers ; how business is overdone 
 and demoralized, and then try to show that there is no need 
 for a system of mercantile insurance by which many of these 
 abuses would be abolished, and the business of the country 
 placed on such a footing as would enable capital and good 
 management to hope for adequate return. 
 
lO 
 
 In order to arrive at an appreciation of the means by 
 which we would prevent the demoralization of business and 
 losses from bad debts, we must fully understand the principles 
 of insurance, not only in the abstract, or in a sentimental 
 light, but also as an intelligent business method of minimising 
 the effects of unavoidable disasters. 
 
 True insurance is based upon the average of contin- 
 gencies. By it the losses of the few are borne by the many, 
 so that no one may be overwhelmed by any calamity ; it 
 considers the causes of losses and provides such safeguards 
 as diminish their frequency and their magnitude ; it investi- 
 gates every claim and prevents the success of frauds. By 
 insurance are mitigated the miseries which otherwise would 
 result from accident and storm on land and sea ; from dis- 
 honesty, sickness, fire, flood, malice, mischance, and death. 
 By its aid, the active operation of the principles of Christi- 
 anity in the bearing of one another's burdens, prevents the 
 growth of that form of socialism which tends to anarchy and 
 destruction. 
 
 The more extended its operations and the more strict its 
 practice, the more beneficial are its results; why, then, should 
 we hesitate at its adoption of new forms, its introduction to 
 new fields, or its adaptation to new uses, so long as we are 
 careful of its principles ? Have we not a very notable encour- 
 agement in the proposal of the chartered banks to insure the 
 redemption of each other's bank notes ? 
 
 As to its basis. Are the statistics of mercantile disasters 
 more difficult of arrangement for insurance purposes than are 
 those of fires, or lightning, or explosion, or accident, or death ? 
 Has not commerce its diseases and epidemics, its fevers and 
 agues? Do you not count upon the " turning of the wheel " 
 by which general success and general depression succeed each 
 other as do day and night ? Do you not use the terms the 
 " noonday of prosperity" or the "midnight of adversity? " 
 Is not the proverb " the darkest hour precedes the dawn " 
 pertinent to mercantile affairs ? Are not the alternations of 
 prosperity and adversity, of poor times and hard times, almost 
 as regular as those of the seasons, or of day and night ? Is 
 not a financial panic akin to a visit of the cholera ; is not the 
 
II 
 
 t 
 
 '■) 
 
 V 
 
 dulness of trade its typhoid fever ? Do not our leading 
 bankers and the presidents of boards of trade pose as the 
 chief physicians of commerce, and periodically prescribe for 
 its ailments? Are they prophets or are they mere charlatans ? 
 If the former, then we must confess that by experience and 
 forethought we can do something towards preventing cala- 
 mity. Would that many of our institutions and traders could 
 consult a disinterested and reliable physician " in time." 
 
 Well has the poet asked — 
 
 " Coiiid experience, ten times thine, 
 Pain from Being disentwine?" 
 
 No, nor can all the experience and forethought of the whole 
 world prevent failures and losses ; consequently we must 
 consider the second principle of true insurance by which the 
 inevitable losses of the few are borne by the many. This, ot 
 course, is by each one paying such a rate of premium as will 
 yield sufficient income to defray the expenses and pay the 
 losses. 
 
 Suppose that we utilize the combined experiences of 
 merchants, mercantile agencies, and trustees in the compila- 
 tion of comparative statements of 
 
 ist. Defaulters to traders (in number). 
 
 2nd. Losses to sales (in amounts). 
 
 3rd. Liabilities of defaulters to realization from their 
 estates. 
 
 4th. Cost prices of bankrupt stocks to proceeds of their 
 sale. 
 
 5th. Cost of collection and realization of insolvent estates, 
 
 we shall ♦ihen have the data for such premium charges 
 as will enable our business men to be saved from the greater 
 anxieties oi mercantile life. 
 
 Just here I wish you to rid yourselves of the thought that 
 the assignee holds the sole key to the problem of rates. 
 
 Men are not, as a general rule, either incompetent or dis- 
 honest. More men fail from circumstances beyond their own 
 control than by extravagance, recklessness, or any other 
 personal misconduct. To illustrate my meaning, I must go 
 
12 
 
 to that branch of insurance with which all are familiar, viz., 
 that against losses by fire. Some adjusters start out with the 
 notion that every fire is from deliberate arson, and every 
 claim an attempt to defraud. Observation and experience 
 do in time teach them that 50 per cent, of insurable persons 
 either have no insurance at all, or are insured for a compara- 
 tively small proportion of the value at risk. Of every 
 thousand insured persons, one will have a fire. Of every 
 thousand persons who have fires, not more than one will have 
 committed arson, and not more than one hundred will present 
 wilfully dishonest claims, unless they know that they will 
 meet a Huckster instead of an Adjuster; so that, with reason- 
 able care, out of a million people you will have only one who 
 will perpetrate arson for gain, and of every thousand, only 
 one will commit deliberate fraud. 
 
 This carries me from the second proposition to the 
 fourth, because, by neglecting the careful investigation of 
 every claim, the insurance companies can soon make fraud 
 so easy and so profitable as to induce people to adopt the 
 commission of arson as a profession. But by the employ- 
 ment ot competent, conscientious adjusters, they can make 
 successful fraud so difficult as to be profitless. My intention, 
 however, was more particularly to draw your attention to the 
 fact that the careful investigation of all classes of claims 
 gives the intelligent investigator information as to the causes 
 of losses, which, utilized in the inspection of risks, enables 
 the " stitch in time." Give me ten first class men, with a 
 hundred thousand dollars a year for their salaries and 
 expenses, and authority to insist upon safety precautions 
 which will neither add to the expense of business nor dimin- 
 ish either its volume or its profit, and I would reduce the fire 
 losses in Canada by one million of dollars a year. 
 
 So it would be with investigation of mercantile losses 
 and inspection of mercantile risks ; therefore we should, by 
 mercantile insurance, make one step towards obtaining a fair 
 field for legitimate traders. Then why should we continue to 
 discourage honest men by a system against which all careful 
 observers protest, and which fills the first few pages of every 
 Issue of our mercantile journals with such dreary news ? 
 
J3 
 
 The Mercantile Insurance Co. would, at the outset, 
 require from the applicants such informations as would war- 
 rant the transactions. These "informations" would be a 
 combination of such as are furnished to the different insur- 
 ance companies and the mercantile agencies. The questions 
 would readily suggest themselves. They might not be 
 uniforn , as locality or circumstances might cause their varia- 
 tion. The contract would be a combination of guarantee, 
 supervision and subrogation ; it could not be cancelled in 
 prejudice of the vendor of the goods. It might sometimes 
 be necessary to exercise the same powers as could have been 
 exercised by the vendor if the purchaser had been found to be 
 wasting or misusing the estate — or if the goods had been 
 obtained by fraud upon the vendor or company. You will 
 perceive, therefore, that the idea embraces all the safeguards 
 which are required in mercantile transactions. I do not need 
 the reminder that such safeguards would be refused to any 
 merchant, or that any such demands would be scornfully 
 denied to him, under the present regime, but so were the 
 informations now given to the present insurance companies 
 denied in many instances, until the different forms of insur- 
 ance became recognised as business necessities. 
 
 The classes of mercantile insurance would be various, 
 the field would be continuously extending. 
 
 There would be the guarantee for the payment for special 
 purchases. 
 
 The guarantee for a fixed line of credit. 
 
 The guarantee for deferred payments in the following 
 events, viz. : 
 
 An oversto<":k by reason of a bad season. 
 
 The death of a partner. 
 
 The dissolution of a partnership. 
 
 Transfer of assets. 
 
 The hquidation of an estate. 
 
 The applications for msurance would always be from the 
 debtor. The creditor would have no responsibility. 
 
 The principle of subrogation would be incorporated in 
 the policies. 
 
 1 am quite prepared to admit that some wholesale mer- 
 
H 
 
 cantiie houses would continue to be their own insurers, as 
 well as that there might occasionally be some friction in the 
 working — that when there are a number of such companies, 
 as there assuredly will be, they will exhibit the usual char- 
 acteristics of competition, and that there will be ups and 
 downs until the practice is settled — but are not many men 
 their own insurers in spite of their knowledge of the foolish- 
 ness of their conduct, or have not these been m the experience 
 of every class of insurance companies, or is there anything in 
 the prospect to prevent the successful operation of mercan- 
 tile insurance ? 
 
 As to rates of premium — these would be based upon 
 averages of experiences. As a matter of safety they might 
 for a time be higher than the outcome might justify, but, as a 
 corrective, the principle of " participation "by scrip dividends, 
 as practised by the Hand-in-Hand, Continental, and other 
 fire insurance companies,, would be adopted. I venture to 
 say that in a very few years after the inauguration of the 
 first mercantile insurance company, however dubious the 
 mercantile world might be to begin with, and however un- 
 promising the first year or two might be, we should find that 
 the merchant who neglected to protect himself by mercantile 
 policies, would be counted to be as reckless and unbusiness- 
 like as is the man who does not protect himself, by insurance, 
 against boiler explosion, plate glass breakage, or fire or 
 embezzlement, or who does not provide for those he pretends 
 to love, by means of life msurance, or for the wants of his 
 own old age by means of endowment policies. 
 
 If a mercantile insurance company had a number of 
 risks in one locality, they, most assuredly, would not assist in 
 the ruin of their clients by promoting the sale of goods under 
 such prices as would allow a reasonable profit to be made by 
 all ; but would devise such a system of central storage, 
 re-packing and sale, as would enable their disposal without 
 the present baleful effects, which are as destructive of legiti- 
 mate trading as conflagrations are to property, or as epidemic 
 diseases are to health and life. , 
 
 I therefore respectfully submit that mercantile insurance 
 is not a wild, impracticable idea, but one worthy of your most 
 
15 
 
 earnest consideration — one from which this Institute can 
 gather fresh laurels, one from which the members may 
 reasonably expect to reap an extension of their fields of 
 operation, and one from which will How benefits to the 
 country at large, as notable as from any of the forms of 
 insurance now in recognized operation. 
 
 Again I say, let us not imagine that the majority of men 
 are dishonest or reckless, or are of necessity failures. There 
 are many men simply " out of place," they are fixed by cir- 
 cumstances in such positions as prevent success, whilst a 
 little aid, or a little advice from a disinterested party, or one 
 whose first interest would be their well-doing, might give 
 them a " coigne of vantage " in the battle of life, although 
 for the immediate present they have missed that tide which 
 " taken at its flood leads on to fortune." 
 
 I have purposely refrained from statistics, being more 
 desirous of your consideration of the principles involved, than 
 in the presentation of elaborate masses of figures, which would 
 weary you to no immediate purpose. If we can divest the 
 idea of its " red-rag " we may reasonably expect its exami- 
 nation without prejudice ; I feel quite confident that such an 
 examination would cause the inauguration of a Mercantile 
 Insurance Company which would be an honor to its founders, 
 a profit to its shareholders, and a boon to the mercantile 
 community.