POLICY OF INSURANCE.

I should just like to relate a little episode that occurred in my very
early days in Calcutta, which nearly resulted disastrously for every
one concerned. It will serve, amongst other things, to enlighten
people of the present generation as to the wide difference that
subsists between that time and the present in respect of the treatment
of policy-holders generally by insurance companies. The firm with
which I was then connected were agents of a Hongkong house, and one of
our duties was to pay to the Universal Assurance Company, half-yearly,
the premium on a policy on the life of a man who was staying in
England. I forget exactly what the amount Was, but I recollect it was
something considerable. One fine day I was startled beyond measure by
the receipt of a notice from the then agents, Gordon Stewart & Co., to
the effect that the days of grace having expired for payment of the
premium, the policy in question under the rules had lapsed and had
been consequently cancelled. My feelings can be better imagined than
described, as I alone was responsible, and I was fully aware of the
gravity of the position. I made a clean breast of the state of affairs
to my Burra Sahib, and he instructed me to go straight over to the
agents and explain matters, and at the same time authorised me to
offer to pay anything they might see fit to impose in the nature of a
fine. I got very little satisfaction or comfort from my interview
with the head of the firm, a Mr. William Anderson whose soubriquet was
Gorgeous Bill, who told me that he could do nothing personally, that
the matter would have to be submitted to the directors at their next
weekly meeting, and that the probabilities were that they would
enforce the rule and cancel the policy. The following few days were a
veritable nightmare to me, as I fully expected they would act as he
intimated they would and as they were fully entitled to do. At last