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ance companies to begin collecting statistics from the outset, which would enable them to cope with these difficulties successfully, and they have proceeded much further in this regard than other insurance companies. Upon the results of these statistics, they predicate their premiums, and without such a basis life insurance would perhaps be an unsafe speculation.

Two other facts lead the life insurance companies to exercise great care in determining the rates of premium. In other branches of insurance, the companies may cancel the insurance by returning a pro rata portion of the premium. They may also refuse to renew when the term for which the premium was paid has elapsed. And they may make their own terms about renewing. But a life insurance company must not reserve the right to cancel or to refuse to renew or to alter the rate of premium.

In other branches of insurance, as has been said, the insurance which is payable to a person who has no interest in the thing insured is recognized to be a gambling transaction. The same thing applies with vet greater force to a life insurance, and it would clearly be against public policy to permit gambling where a human life was made the contingency. Insurances, effected by one man on the life of another, are therefore viewed with suspicion, unless the nature and the amount of the insurable interest is clear. The question, what constitutes insurable interest, remains to be discussed, however, in its proper place.

The amount of insurance is, as has been said, also an item of importance; for even a contract of indemnity, based upon a valid insurable interest, can be made a