A number of the schedules collected by Mr. Ansell of the National Life Assurance Society in 1871, and from which were deduced the interesting results contained in his Statistics of Families in the Upper and Professional Classes, were, with the permission of the Directors of that Society, lent to Mr. Sprague, who wished to extract from them certain information bearing upon an investigation he was making. These schedules had been filled up by members of the clerical, medical, and legal professions, and by a large number of other gentlemen and noblemen in England and Wales; and they contain, in addition to full particulars as to the children of the marriage, the dates of the births and the marriage of the parents, and their state at marriage, whether bachelor or widower, spinster or widow. Mr. Ansell has not investigated the law which the ages of the wives follow, when a number of men of a given age marry; and at Mr. Sprague's suggestion, and upon principles indicated by him, I undertook this novel enquiry.

The profession of an Actuary, though mainly concerned with the science of finance as applied to transactions dependent upon the duration of human life, involves the consideration, more or less minute, of many other subjects not immediately connected with scientific analysis and computations. There is a practical side to our profession which has, perhaps, been sometimes in danger of being overlooked, and it has been hinted, if not openly stated, that the Institute too exclusively concerns itself with the mathematical aspect of life assurance to the neglect of other matters which might very properly engage its attention. Among the most obvious of such subjects are those which deal with questions of law, the forms of the contracts between assurants and assurers, and the numerous questions which arise as to their interpretation and execution. Such questions arise daily in our official practice, but have seldom formed the subject of our deliberations as an Institute. The great interest, however, which was excited last session by Mr. C. D. Higham's paper on the Assignment of Life Policies, naturally suggested that papers on other legal questions would be welcomed by the Institute; and it may be incidentally remarked that a subject of a legal character is peculiarly appropriate to the occasion of what is practically our first ordinary meeting in this ancient hall, formerly the seat of one of the Inns of Chancery.