of readers who will honour him in his
admirable narrative of that transaction.

The words in which Sir John Richardson
mentions this Michel, after the earth is rid
of him, are extremely important to our
purpose, as almost describing the broad general
ground towards which we now approach.
"His principles, unsupported by a belief in
the divine truths of Christianity, were unable
to withstand the pressure of severe distress.
His countrymen, the Iroquois, are generally
Christians, but he was totally uninstructed,
and ignorant of the duties inculcated by
Christianity; and from his long residence in
the Indian country, seems to have imbibed,
or retained, the rules of conduct which the
southern Indians prescribe to themselves."

Heaven forbid that we, sheltered and fed,
and considering this question at our own
warm hearth, should audaciously set limits
to any extremity of desperate distress! It
is in reverence for the brave and enterprising,
in admiration for the great spirits who can
endure even unto the end, in love for their
names, and in tenderness for their memory,
that we think of the specks, once ardent
men, "scattered about in different directions"
on the waste of ice and snow, and plead for
their lightest ashes. Our last claim in their
behalf and honour, against the vague babble
of savages, is, that the instances in which this
"last resource" so easily received, has been
permitted to interpose between life and
death, are few and exceptional; whereas
the instances in which the sufferings of
hunger have been borne until the pain was
past, are very many. Also, and as the citadel
of the position, that the better educated the
man, the better disciplined the habits, the
more reflective and religious the tone of
thought, the more gigantically improbable
the "last resource" becomes.

Beseeching the reader always to bear in
mind that the lost Arctic voyagers were
carefully selected for the service, and that
each was in his condition no doubt far above
the average, we will test the Esquimaux kettle-stories
by some of the most trying and famous
cases of hunger and exposure on record.

This, however, we must reserve for
another and concluding chapter next week.

BE ASSURED.

Two hundred and twenty joint stock
companies in London say, as with one voice—
be assured. It matters not what may be the
object of your solicitude—be assured. Whether
you are thinking of the safety of your life by
land, or by railway, or by sea, or of the
unbroken condition of your arms and legs, or
of the maintenance of general health, or of
comfort and competence in your old age, or of
the interests of wife or children when you
may be no more, or of a provision for your
boy when he reaches the apprenticing age, or
of the happy marriage and the wedding
portion of your little Mary Anne, one day to be,
you hope, a blushing bride, now a tiny
prattling fairy of two or three years; or of
the honesty of your clerk, or of the safety of
rent due from your tenant, or of the security
of money due from your debtor, or of the
security of your house and property from
fire, or of the immunity of your plate-glass
windows from a smash, or of the
preservation from loss of your farming-stock
from the effects of a hailstorm—never mind
the subject-matter:  be assured.

This subject of assurance, or insurance, is
far more curious than is generally supposed.
One man insures because his neighbour has
done so, and has reaped obvious benefit by so
doing; but he seldom thinks why two or
three hundred companies should take the
trouble to look after his interest in this way.
It is worth while to know more about this
than is generally known; for insurance is one
of the very best modes of bringing about in a
healthy way the maxim share and share alike.

John Smith, aged forty, insures his life for
one hundred pounds, to be payable to his
widow or children when he dies. He is called
upon to pay to the insurance office about
three pounds a year, a little more or less,
as long as he lives. Now how can the
company know that this three pounds per annum
will be an equitable return for the
liability which they incur? If Smith lives
only two years, they will lose ninety-four
pounds by their engagement less interest
upon the money he has paid. If he live
forty years, they will gain considerably. The
truth is, that they have nothing to go upon
but past experience. If there are one
thousand men, aged forty each, it is found
—by the experience of insurance offices, and
by the tables of the Registrar General—
that they will live, one with another, a
certain definite number of years longer; this
definite number is the expectation of life at
that age. The company cannot possibly
know whether Smith will live more or less
than this number of years; but they feel
safe in depending on that average, especially
if their range of business be extensive. Nine
hundred and ninety-nine other Smiths or
Browns, all aged forty, will be pretty certain
to bring them right in the end. If in any
given case the insurer die before this average
time, his widow and children are gainers by
the insurance having been effected: if otherwise,
he will have paid more than they will
have to receive; but this loss is very little in
effect: he did not feel the small yearly
payments—they will feel the benefit of the
receipt in one useful sum; while the company
pays its way, not by this or that insurance,
but by an average of the whole. In fact, the
disastrous effect of the deaths of all the John
Smiths—disastrous to the widows and
children—is shared by all the shareholders in all
the insurance offices, and is thus rendered
individually less to those more immediately