The Odds and the Difference.

The Odds and the Difference.

The opinion promulgated by David A. Wells, says our friend the Commercial Bulletin, of Boston, that the excess of fire losses this year over last, about $25,000,000, is undoubtedly in large degree the result of incendiarism contingent on hard times, charmingly illustrates the difference between opinions of a man who, with no practical acquaintance or knowledge of the subject, sets himself up as an oracle, and those who have a business experience in that line. Against Mr. Wells’s ipse di.xii the intelligent reader will set the opinions of underwriters, who, it goes without saying, have a particular interest in the matter. These gentlemen do not wholly concur in Mr. Wells's conclusion. For instance, Mr. Beddall, U nited States manager of the Royal Insurance Company, which company is among the great leaders in the line, has rather a favorable opinion of hard times than otherwise as a result of his experience, and one of the principal underwriters and company managers of this city expressed the belief that when people begin to fail the incentive to incendiarism largely diminishes. When firms are going down on every side failure ceases to be disgraceful (if it ever is nowadays), and it is much easier and more safe to compound with easy-going creditors than to run the risk of the penalties for arson.

再次,保险公司不支付更多n the market value, at the date of the lire, of the goods destroyed, so that a falling market does not present any special inducement to the storekeeper to sell out to the insurance companies. It is rather in kiting times, when everything is on an inflated basis and nominally prosperous, that the hazard of incendiarism attains its maximum.