twenty-five years. If the child is five years of age, and under six,
an annuity of £1, beginning after twenty-five years, can be purchased
for a yearly premium of 12s. 7d., or for a payment of £12 3s. 8d., the
money to be returned in case of the child's death. An annuity of £35,
therefore, would cost a yearly premium of £22 0s. 5d., or a lump sum
of £426 8s. 4d.

One or two of the insurance companies have also prepared tables for
the endowment of children. I find, for instance, in the tables issued
by the North British and Mercantile that an annual payment of £3 11s.
begun at infancy will insure the sum of £100 at twenty-one years of
age, with the return of the premium should the child die, or that £35
10s. paid annually will insure the sum of £1,000. There is also in
these tables a method of payment by which, should the father die and
the premiums be therefore discontinued, the money will be paid just
the same. No doubt, if the practice were to spread, every insurance
company would take up this kind of business.

It is not every young married man who could afford to pay so large a
sum of money as £426 in one lump; on the contrary, very few indeed
could do so. But suppose, which is quite possible, that he were to
purchase, with the first £12 he could save, a deferred annuity of £1
for his child, and so with the next £12, and so with the next, until
he had placed her beyond the reach of actual destitution; and suppose,
again, that his conscience was so much awakened to the duty of thus
providing for her that amusement and pleasure would be postponed or
curtailed until this duty was performed, just as amusement is not
thought of until the rent and taxes and housekeeping are first
defrayed: in that case there would be few young married people indeed
who would not speedily be able to purchase this small annuity of £35 a