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Silence Dogood, No. 10
(Ben Franklin proposes insurance for widows)
Optime societas hominum
servabitur.
Cic.
To the author of the New England
Courant.
SIR,
Discoursing lately with an intimate Friend of mine of the lamentable
Condition of Widows, he put into my Hands a Book, wherein the ingenious Author
proposes (I think) a certain Method for their Relief. I have often thought of
some such Project for their Benefit my self, and intended to communicate my
Thoughts to the Publick; but to prefer my own Proposals to what follows, would
be rather an Argument of Vanity in me than Good Will to the many Hundreds of my
Fellow-Sufferers now in New-England.
"We have (says he) abundance of Women, who have been Bred well, and Liv'd
well, Ruin'd in a few Years, and perhaps, left Young, with a House full of
Children, and nothing to Support them; which falls generally upon the Wives of
the Inferior Clergy, or of Shopkeepers and Artificers.
"They marry Wives with perhaps 300 l. to 1000 l. Portion, and
can settle no Jointure upon them; either they are Extravagant and Idle, and
Waste it, or Trade decays, or Losses, or a Thousand Contingences happen to bring
a Tradesman to Poverty, and he Breaks; the Poor Young Woman, it may be, has
Three or Four Children, and is driven to a thousand shifts, while he lies in the
Mint or Fryars under the Dilemma of a Statute of Bankrupt;
but if he Dies, then she is absolutely Undone, unless she has Friends to go to.
"Suppose an Office to be Erected, to be call'd An Office of Ensurance for
Widows, upon the following Conditions;
"Two thousand Women, or their Husbands for them, Enter their Names into a
Register to be kept for that purpose, with the Names, Age, and Trade of their
Husbands, with the Place of their abode, Paying at the Time of their Entring 5
s. down with 1 s. 4 d. per Quarter, which is to the setting
up and support of an Office with Clerks, and all proper Officers for the same;
for there is no maintaining such without Charge; they receive every one
of them a Certificate, Seal'd by the Secretary of the Office, and Sign'd by the
Governors, for the Articles hereafter mentioned.
"If any one of the Women becomes a Widow, at any Time after Six Months from
the Date of her Subscription, upon due Notice given, and Claim made at the
Office in form, as shall be directed, she shall receive within Six Months after
such Claim made, the Sum of 500 l. in Money, without any Deductions,
saving some small Fees to the Officers, which the Trustees must settle, that
they may be known.
"In Consideration of this, every Woman so Subscribing, Obliges her self to
Pay as often as any Member of the Society becomes a Widow, the due Proportion or
Share allotted to her to Pay, towards the 500 l. for the said Widow,
provided her Share does not exceed the Sum of 5 s.
"No Seamen or Soldiers Wives to be accepted into such a Proposal as this, on
the Account before mention'd, because the Contingences of their Lives are not
equal to others, unless they will admit this general Exception, supposing they
do not Die out of the Kingdom.
"It might also be an Exception, That if the Widow, that Claim'd, had really,
bona fide, left her by her Husband to her own use, clear of all Debts and
Legacies, 2000 l. she shou'd have no Claim; the Intent being to Aid the
Poor, not add to the Rich. But there lies a great many Objections against such
an Article: As
"1. It may tempt some to forswear themselves.
"2. People will Order their Wills so as to defraud the Exception.
"One Exception must be made; and that is, Either very unequal Matches, as
when a Woman of Nineteen Marries an old Man of Seventy; or Women who have infirm
Husbands, I mean known and publickly so. To remedy which, Two things are to be
done.
"1.The Office must have moving Officers without doors, who shall inform
themselves of such matters, and if any such Circumstances appear, the Office
should have 14 days time to return their Money, and declare their Subscriptions
Void.
"2. No Woman whose Husband had any visible Distemper, should claim under a
Year after her Subscription.
"One grand Objection against this Proposal, is, How you will oblige People to
pay either their Subscription, or their Quarteridge.
"To this I answer, By no Compulsion (tho' that might be perform'd too)
but altogether voluntary; only with this Argument to move it, that if they do
not continue their Payments, they lose the Benefit of their past Contributions.
"I know it lies as a fair Objection against such a Project as this, That the
number of Claims are so uncertain, That no Body knows what they engage in, when
they Subscribe, for so many may die Annually out of Two Thousand, as may perhaps
make my Payment 20 or 25 l. per Ann, and if a Woman happen to Pay that
for Twenty Years, though she receives the 500 l. at last she is a great
Loser; but if she dies before her Husband, she has lessened his Estate
considerably, and brought a great Loss upon him.
"First, I say to this, That I wou'd have such a Proposal as this be so
fair and easy, that if any Person who had Subscrib'd found the Payments too
high, and the Claims fall too often, it shou'd be at their Liberty at any Time,
upon Notice given, to be released and stand Oblig'd no longer; and if so,
Volenti non fit Injuria; every one knows best what their own Circumstances
will bear.
"In the next Place, because Death is a Contingency, no Man can directly
Calculate, and all that Subscribe must take the Hazard; yet that a Prejudice
against this Notion may not be built on wrong Grounds, let's examine a little
the Probable hazard, and see how many shall die Annually out of 2000
Subscribers, accounting by the common proportion of Burials, to the number of
the Living.
"Sir William Petty in his Political Arithmetick, by a very
Ingenious Calculation, brings the Account of Burials in London, to be 1
in 40 Annually, and proves it by all the proper Rules of proportion'd
Computation; and I'le take my Scheme from thence. If then One in Forty of all
the People in England should Die, that supposes Fifty to Die every Year
out of our Two Thousand Subscribers; and for a Woman to Contribute 5 s.
to every one, would certainly be to agree to Pay 12 l. 10 s. per Ann.
upon her Husband's Life, to receive 500 l. when he Di'd, and lose it if
she Di'd first; and yet this wou'd not be a hazard beyond reason too great for
the Gain.
"But I shall offer some Reasons to prove this to be impossible in our Case;
First, Sir William Petty allows the City of London to contain
about a Million of People, and our Yearly Bill of Mortality never yet amounted
to 25000 in the most Sickly Years we have had, Plague Years excepted, sometimes
but to 20000, which is but One in Fifty: Now it is to be consider'd here, that
Children and Ancient People make up, one time with another, at least one third
of our Bills of Mortality; and our Assurances lies upon none but the
Midling Age of the People, which is the only age wherein Life is any thing
steady; and if that be allow'd, there cannot Die by his Computation, above One
in Eighty of such People, every Year; but because I would be sure to leave Room
for Casualty, I'le allow one in Fifty shall Die out of our Number Subscrib'd.
"Secondly, It must be allow'd, that our Payments falling due only on the
Death of Husbands, this One in Fifty must not be reckoned upon the Two thousand;
for 'tis to be suppos'd at least as many Women shall die as Men, and then there
is nothing to Pay; so that One in Fifty upon One Thousand, is the most that I
can suppose shall claim the Contribution in a Year, which is Twenty Claims a
Year at 5 s. each, and is 5 l. per Ann. and if a Woman pays this
for Twenty Year, and claims at last, she is Gainer enough, and no extraordinary
Loser if she never claims at all: And I verily believe any Office might
undertake to demand at all Adventures not above 6 l. per Ann. and secure
the Subscriber 500 l. in case she come to claim as a Widow."
I would leave this to the Consideration of all who are concern'd for their
own or their Neighbour's Temporal Happiness; and I am humbly of Opinion, that
the Country is ripe for many such Friendly Societies, whereby every Man
might help another, without any Disservice to himself. We have many charitable
Gentlemen who Yearly give liberally to the Poor, and where can they better
bestow their Charity than on those who become so by Providence, and for ought
they know on themselves. But above all, the Clergy have the most need of coming
into some such Project as this. They as well as poor Men (according to the
Proverb) generally abound in Children; and how many Clergymen in the Country are
forc'd to labour in their Fields, to keep themselves in a Condition above Want?
How then shall they be able to leave any thing to their forsaken, dejected, &
almost forgotten Wives and Children. For my own Part, I have nothing left to
live on, but Contentment and a few Cows; and tho' I cannot expect to be reliev'd
by this Project, yet it would be no small Satisfaction to me to see it put in
Practice for the Benefit of others.
I am, SIR, &c.
SILENCE DOGOOD.
The New-England Courant, August 13, 1722
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