A VICTORIAN “MARRIAGE INSURANCE COMPANY.”

Temuka Leader, Issue 927, 14 March 1882, Page 3

A VICTORIAN “MARRIAGE INSURANCE COMPANY.”

The Melbourne Age reports a decidedly novel and mutual development of the Mutual Assurance principle. A Victorian Marriage Insurance Company, Limited, has been formed, with the design, to quote the prospectus, “ of encouraging marriages by affording to poor people opportunities and inducements for joining in the bonds of wedlock with gain to themselves, and without fear of succumb, ing to those pecuniary difficulties which stand in the way of wouldbe benedicts ot limited means.” The offices of the company are at No 5 Eastern Arcade, and were, when a reporter from the Age office called, “ in charge of a pleasantlooking gentleman with a dark beard, who in the absence of manager, expressed

; himself prepared to afford all information.” The . ge thus summarises the company’s plan of operations According to the document which is before us, the number of members is to be limited to 1000. A subscription fee of 10s, as already staled will be required from each of these, and upon the occasion of any member’s marriage a call of 5s will be made upon each unmarried member, in order to meet the payment: of £2OO accruing, due to the particular member who has had the temerity to enter the matrimonial state. A certificate of marriage is to be forwarded to the manager of the company within seven days after the ceremony ; and within 60 days after proof of the same the married member will receive bis £2OO. A member after his mat riage is relieved from all further liability, but until he is married he is required to pay a call of 5s on the occasion of every marriage of his fellow members. So the game goes on, with the additional inducement, in order we suspect to attract nonmarrying subjects, that members of sixyears’ standing, and unmarried, will receive £ICO on application to the manager at his office. “ Commenting on this statement, a writer in the Otago Times says ; —“Supposing the scheme not a more attempt to obtain money under false pretences (which the Age innocently considers an open question), and supposing gets itself launched, the first item in the company’s ledger stands thus 1000 subscriptions at 10s—£500 —-which sum will, of course, go to the pleasant-looking gentleman with dark beard at No 5, Eastern Arcade, as com- ; pensation for preliminary expenses. Next when the first marriage bonus is to be paid : 999 calls at 5s —£249 15s Surplus—for the gentleman with the dark beard—£49 15s. The surplus will decrease by 5s with each successive marriage till the 200th, when the account will stand t hns — 800 calls at sa—£2oo —exactly the sum to be paid. At which crisis in the affairs of the Company the dark bearded gentleman, having raked in between two and three thousand pounds, will consider it expedient to shave and clear for parts unknown. The scheme will hardly get this length, however. The subscribers —40 of whom are already enrolled, will be chiefly members of the more confiding sex. They will be derelict women, whose marriage hopes are low. and who think to mend them by assuring a dowry of £2OO. When a sufficient number of these have paid their halfsovereign the gentleman with the beard will be enquired for in vain. No 5, Eastern Arcade will be let. The “ Victoria Marriage Insurance Company (Limiled)” is a singularly transparent fraud, but it b»ses itself in a rather deep insight into human nature that is, feminine human nature,”