A NEW MOVE IN LIFE INSURANCE.

Otago Witness, Issue 1342, 18 August 1877, Page 21

A NEW MOVE IN LIFE INSURANCE.

The panic among people who insure their lives continues so great, that' the Western manager of an Eastern Company has hit upon a notable expedient to assure his customers that his company is solid and safe. ' Instead of taking a whole basement on first floor, with plate-glass windows, and solid silver, and French glas3 partitions, and mahogany counters, and regiments of clerks with their hair parted' in the middle, writing on circular-top,, monocleide desks, and glaring lithographs of the building of the company at headquarters, he has taken an entirely new mode. He has a big, bare flat in a. cheap, building near the fiver, with "old newspapers pasted on the windows for blinds, and pine tables and kerosene*' lamps, and' a rusty stove kept so slightly charged with fuel that the office is as cold as Greenland. !When they lasso and run in a' customer; • he is naturally impressed with the Spartan simplicity of the office, and asks the agent why, if his company is so solidt 'it "-is. snot lodged in better quarters 1 ' " Because, sir/ replies the agent, "instead of squandering its money to Mauresque Neo Kennaissance palaces, and tiled floors, and rosewood, - and plate-glass,- and- mirrors, and -Brussels carpets ""and silver -railings," we, conducting our business' with the utmost economy consistent with-efficiency v apply all our funds to secure ' \he safety and prosperity of our policy-holders." Then^he tells the office messenger to go and get him a schooner of lager, and. as much free lunch as he can cram into his jacket pocket, and explains to the intending insurer that the company pays for the lunch, and he does not like to charge it too much, and thus divert from the pockets of the policy-holders their due' profits. This knocks the customer, and he puts down his name for a policy, and as soon as he has gone out, the agent throws a handspring, and exclaiming, "Sold again, and got the application," tells the boy to-put that ■ truck ' in the waste basket, and. hurries off to order some quail on toast and early strawberries, like a little Major. — Chicago Tribune.