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Auckland Star, Volume V, Issue 1489, 18 November 1874, Page 2

Ij' we wanted another text for a sermon on the value of Life Assurance it is supplied in our Dunedin telegram. ''He had insured his life in the Government office about a month ago for £1,400, but had paid only one premium when the accident happened." Such is the significant addendum to the announcement of the death by drowning of the engineer of the Wallabi. Some one or another of the Government agents had probably been worrying and bothering him for months, just as Mr Mooney harrasses* people in Auckland until life without Insurance becomes a burthen that cannot be borne. At all events Mr Morton yielded to the claims of wife and wains on his affections. He had paid probably the sum of £7 4s Bd, which would be the quartely premium for a man of his age, and for that one solitary payment his wife and three children will receive the sum of £1,400. It will not supply the loss of husband and father, but it will prevent at least that sad conjunction of afflictions—bereavement and poverty —which above all is perhaps the most dreadful for a family to bear. From week to week our eai's are pained witii tales of distress, which could have been as easily prevented as the affectionate forethought of Mr Morton has driven the wolf from the door of his bereaved family. Sometimes it is enough to make one angry, if anger were adinisaable in the presence of sorrow, to see the appeals that must be made to the charities of the world in behalf of women and children who are only the victims of a man's own carelessness. There are hundreds of men in this city in the receipt of fair wages, whose families if the bread-winner died would be instantly in penury, and must at once cry out for help to those who are working for the support of their own families, these men—in cruel indifference to the state of affairs, and no doubt selfishly, in their quiet, thinking moments, trusting that others will step forward to the rescue if they themselves are removed by death —will not deny themselves the sixpence or shilling, or half-a-crown per week for which provision can be made for wife and children. Heally it is almost a crime that should be punished by law, and if husbands and fathers are so cold-blooded and heartless as to neglect so simple and ready means for making provision against the destitution of their children it is almost time for legislation to interfere. But how it comes to pass that men really loving their families—working for them from morn till eve—planning, and hoping, and anxious for their welfare, can rest under the thou ght that their own death must leave wife and children beggars is one of those problems in human conduct that we ( profess our inability to solve.