Insurance companies are first cousins to governments. A man never confidently expects to be able to "do" his tailor or any other tradesman, for in the process he stands too' great a chance of being healed before " judge. Somehow or other, however, most people consider jit rather an achievement to escape paying taxes, and to get the better fof the Income Tax Commissioners, for instance, is something to be talked about—provided always the boasting is done before people who peat the facts to the myrmidons. Similarly with insurance companies. How many of us, if we were as truthful fas we ought to be, could deny that thing lost. ina Sre promptly sumes a value far beyond what it had before? Correspondingly, the best insurance man is one who knows as much as we do ourselves There is a Shanghai company com-Jeerned with a recent fire on Chin-jose premises. In every way it was fas mysterious a fire as Chinese Jeonflagrations can be, The assessor, searching for information, al~ most was persuaded that the firm's staff consisted solely of the man who wanted to draw the insurance money. By great good fortune he established the' fact that a watch man had been employed and immediately demanded an interview. The "watchman" was produced. He was stone blind and the proprietor explained that he only had been Jemployed out of charity because he was a very poor man, Further persistent inquiries established the identity of a "book-keeper," but his ledgers were more difficult. to understand than the toughest problem in Euclid. Again the proprietor was appealed to, but jonly, explanation was, "He belong mad, He no savee anything. His. books maskee." Such is the life of 'a fire lose assessor.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.