believed that there is not much difference in the scales of rates adopted by the different offices. Nearly all of them publish in their proposals lists of risks which they term ordinary, hazardous, extra hazardous, and special, or which they accumulate in classes as insurable at 1s. 6d., 2s. 6d., or 4s. 6d. per cent., or at special rates, but such lists give a very imperfect idea of the actual practice, in which the rates vary from 1s. 6d. to £5. 5s. per cent., and even more. These lists are somewhat delusive when made the foundation of an argument as to the right appreciation of a risk when hazardous alterations have been made, or material circumstances have not been disclosed, and for this reason might, perhaps, be advantageously omitted in future; they convey no real impression of the scale of charges, and differ from the actual rate book of a modern office as much as a broker's list of 50 years ago differs from the interminable columns of the prices of stocks and shares of the present day. As to a great variety of rates, it is however noteworthy, that they are as familiar The following is an example of such a classification of risks: First Class, 1s. 6d. per Cent. per Annum, with certain exceptions. Buildings of brick or stone, covered with slate, tile, or metal, and their contents, in which neither hazardous trades or processes are carried on, nor hazardous goods deposited. Second Class, 2s. 6d. per Cent. per Annum, with certain exceptions. Buildings covered with slate, tile, or metal, and built of timber, or brick and timber, and their contents; in which neither hazardous trades or processes are carried on, nor hazardous goods deposited. Buildings covered with slate, tile, or metal, and built of brick or stone, and their contents; in which hazardous trades or processes are carried on, or hazardous goods deposited; buildings thatched, having no chimney, nor adjoining to a building having a chimney; and their contents. Ships in port, harbour, or dock, and the cargoes of such ships; barges and vessels of all descriptions (except steam vessels) on rivers, or canals, and the goods on board such vessels, stage waggons, and their contents. This class comprises the stock and goods of cork cutters, bread bakers, bookbinders, and printers (having no stoves), apothecaries, druggists, chemists (having no laboratories), pawnbrokers, hotpressers, innholders, stablekeepers, curriers (having no pipe stoves), coopers, carpenters, oilmen (not being colourmen), pipemakers, tallow chandlers (not being melters), the stock in timber yards, also brimstone, hemp, flax, pitch, The tariff system. to the insured as to the insurers. The considerations which we have discussed, while they have prevented any general combination of experience, having given birth to what is termed the tariff system. Under it the fire offices unite to fix and publish minimum rates for certain descriptions of risks of the more hazardous kind, agreeing among themselves in no case to issue policies on lower terms. These tariffs have generally, if not always, been the result of a continued adverse experience in some particular district trade or business, and have not unfrequently taken the form of a compromise between the offices and the traderssometimes by an amicable agreement, sometimes after a protracted contest, in which the latter have repeatedly gone the length of starting fire offices of their own to reduce a hostile tariff by the compulsion of a sharp competition. In this manner many of the existing offices have had their origin, with the character of which they continue more or less impressed; but it has been observed, that when a company thus commenced has thoroughly established itself, tar, turpentine, rosin, oil, saltpetre, spirits, tallow, and other articles of similar risk, when kept in small quantities by general shopkeepers, in buildings not hazardous as described in the first class. Third Class, 4s. 6d. per Cent. per Annum, with certain exceptions. Buildings of timber, or brick and timber, in which hazardous goods are deposited, or hazardous trades or processes carried on, and their contents; buildings thatched and having chimneys, or adjoining to buildings having chimneys, and their contents. This class comprises the stock and goods of wax-chandlers, sail and rope makers; also china, glass, pottery, and articles of a similar nature, deposited in buildings not hazardous, as described in the first class. Fourth Class, special Rates. Buildings in which manufactures, trades, or processes attended with peculiar danger, are carried on, and their contents. In this class are comprised (amongst others) printers and bookbinders (having stoves), tallow melters, brewers, barge and boat builders, coachmakers, cabinet and chair makers, sea biscuit bakers, cork burners, colourmen, soap makers, machine makers, musical instrument makers, maltsters, lampblack makers, japanners, floor cloth painters, chemists (having laboratories), cotton works, distilleries, turpentine and varnish works, mills of every description, theatres, tobacco and snuff manufactories, and all buildings containing cockels or stoves. and, to a certain extent, effected the object for which it was started, it soon ceases its opposition, and falls with great alacrity into the tariff system itself. And this is not an unreasonable conclusion on either side, for the object of a tariff is not only to obtain a more ample premium, but to induce an improvement in the risks of which it treats, by carefully discriminating the causes of danger, and reducing the maximum rates where they do not exist, or as they are got rid of. In this way a classification of goods, an isolation of dangerous processes, and an improvement in the construction of buildings, have been often obtained to such an extent as to change a losing trade into a profitable one, without in the end causing any continued increase in the rates of premium charged. As the natural supplement to this system, the offices in many districts associate themselves for the purpose of having the principal risks surveyed and fixing the rates upon them. In such cases it is obvious that the legal effect of such an arrangement must be, while the circumstances remain the same, to preclude the insurers from objecting that the nature of the risk has not been sufficiently disclosed, or that material circumstances have been concealed, and the onus of proof in case of dispute would appear to be shifted. When a fire occurs, imme diate notice requisitions of the policy complied with. CHAPTER VII. THE LOSS AND ITS ADJUSTMENT. WHEN a loss occurs, the insurer is bound to give immediate notice to the office, and to prove the amount of the damage must be given, in such a manner as the conditions of the policy may require. If the policy makes it a condition precedent to the right to recover, that the particulars of the loss shall be delivered within a certain time, it is essential that this should be done or the benefit of the insurance may be lost (a). And the formal The condition may even make some formal act necessary, for the performance of which the assured may have no compulsory power. Thus, when the Phoenix Fire Office, in an old form of policy, long since fallen into disuse, required that the assured should obtain a certificate under the hands of the minister and churchwardens, as well as of some respectable householders of the parish not concerned in the loss, stating that they were acquainted with the character and circumstances of the assured, and that they knew or believed that he, by misfortune and without any fraud or evil practice had sustained the loss or damage mentioned in it; it was held that without such certificate no action could be maintained (b). In that case the additional words "but till such certificate of such insured "loss shall be made and produced, the loss money shall not "be payable," were not contained in the conditions. In a previous case where they were so, the courts considered it clear that no action would be supported without the certifi (a) Roper v. Lendon, 5 Jur. N. S. 491; Mason v. Harvey, 8 Exch. R. 819. (b) Worsley v. Wood, 6 T. R. 710; 2 H. B. 574. cate, although the minister alone had objected to sign it, on the ground that he was resident at a distance and had not sufficient knowledge of the circumstances of the plaintiff to warrant him in giving it (a). required to support the claim. The proof of the amount of the loss means not only the Legal evidence delivery of a statement or particulars of the claim, but the exhibition of such legal evidence to support it as the circumstances of the case will admit of (b). When the conditions stipulate for such evidence as shall be satisfactory to the directors of the company, this does not mean such evidence as caprice may require, but satisfactory means sufficient or such as would satisfy reasonable men (c); in almost all conditions the exhibition of the books of account of trading firms is required. claim. The policy, moreover, invariably has a condition Fraudulent annexed, that any attempt at fraud in making a claim shall or excessive render it void, and nullify the right of the assured to recover upon it. A mere claim for a larger sum than the jury shall think fit to award, if short of fraud, will not in general affect the right to receive the value of the actual damage, but an unfair claim may be evidence of fraud, and, in fact, amount to an attempt to cheat the insurers (d). Of this the jury will be the judges, and are bound to decide according to the evidence adduced. On the one hand it would go far to destroy the value of fire insurance, if a mere want of proof invalidated a claim conscientiously made, although with a very keen apprehension of the interest of the claimaint; while on the other it is impossible to conceive a greater temptation to dishonesty and vice, and to the wilful destruction of the insurer's property, than to allow a man to run his chance of making a wilfully exaggerated claim, and afterwards, when he is detected, to permit him to say, you must pay the sum which I now prove" (e). In Goulstone v. the Royal Insurance Company (ƒ) a claim for (a) Oldman v. Bewick, 2 H. B. 577. (b) Goulstone v. The Royal Insurance Company, 1 F. & F. 276. (c) Strong v. Harvey, 3 Bing. 304; Braunston v. The Accidental Death Assurance Company, 2 Best. & Smith, 523. (d) Haigh v. De la Cour, 3 Camp. 319. (e) This position was powerfully il lustrated and explained in two very (f) 1 F. & F. 229. |