By G.A. Litchfield.


It is the purpose of this article to fairly treat the subject under
consideration and to set forth such claims only as can be sustained to
the satisfaction of candid and unprejudiced minds. It will not be
assumed that the science of Assessment Insurance is perfected; on the
contrary, our most advanced thinkers upon the subject are those who see
most clearly its defects, and are laboring most assiduously to correct
them. Grave obstacles have been encountered in their endeavors to
perfect the system. Those who have written upon the subject in the
public press have been largely such as have given it but a cursory
study, or such as have been totally unfit to discuss it from an
impartial standpoint by reason of preconceived notions or prejudices in
favor of the level premium system of insurance, if, indeed, they have
not been retained for a consideration by that gigantic moneyed monopoly.

So largely has prejudice controlled in the consideration of the subject,
that those who have sought judicious and stringent legislation to
correct abuses, and to bring the business under equally careful and
official supervision as that given other forms of insurance, with a view
to making it _permanently_ subserve public interests, have been
more than once defeated in their laudable endeavors, because they
insisted that no legislation could meet the necessities of the case that
did not contemplate it as a _permanent_ institution. Great advances
have been made however in the last three or four years, and much that
was objectionable has been corrected. Wise legislation has been secured
in many States. At the last session of her legislature, Massachusetts
signalized an important step in advance, by enacting a law whose
provisions indicate an intelligent comprehension of the subject on the