QUESTIONABLE TASTE.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2569, 15 June 1881, Page 3

QUESTIONABLE TASTE.

Everybody (says the Sydney "Mail”) has heard of the zealous and sympathetic life assurance agent who attended funerals to address the mourners, at the close of the burial service, on the infinite consolation which would have resulted if the deceased person had taken out a policy in the society he represented. Well something akin to that has just occurred in Victoria. A clergyman of that colony was one of the victims of the Tarania disaster. For a short time he bad acted as agent of a local assurace society, and, practising what he preached, took out a policy himself for £ISOO. He being dead is made to speak once more to his coreligionists on the desirableness of assuring in (his society ; for the last issue of the weekly journal of (he denomination to which he belonged, has a life assurance supplement, in which his relation to the society and the amount of his own policy are stated, prefaced by an attractive summary of the society’s business. The mourners in this case are very numerous, and possibly a considerable portion of the £ISOO will be got back again in new policies : but we confess to a strong aversion to this mercantile use of a terrible catastrophe. The objection is only a sentimental one, of course ; but assurance people should be careful not to shock sentimental people.