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Untitled Article
Mdredvfci-j iS it to be ihfeirrfed , because T > t Siiiith did not thitik it h ^ eesi&iy to his purpose to publish all th& facts , ttiatt Bt * Fitllaisbtt did riot exhibit them in his document ? We iioftr approach a subject which is most undoubtedly ft . defamatory attack ; because it declares Mr Firilaisoti to Be itt ^ competent ahd unfit to hold the situation which hfe fills , ot fktlf othefr Situation of the kind . It directly accuses him of having "
ocbasioned a specific public loss of 300 , 000 / . The writer & ! & $ deplores that the bbject of his denunciation is not in a situation to be tried by a Court-Martial , like an officer who lo ^ es his ship . It appears that , some three or four years ago , a speculation took place on the Stock Exchange , for the purchase df
Life Annuities oil a great number of aged lives nominated by the speculators at very high ages , from a supposition that they would live longer than the rest of mankind at similar ages . He of the c Almanack' admits , indeed , that Mi' Finlaisbti did JiU tttmdst to prevail on the Government to refuse dealings in sitfh a speculation , unless the ages were below 65 . But he argues that this would only have affected the question in quantity not in pririciple . Now the quantity is , in fact , every thing to the rhattfcr . Octogenarians do not themselves purchase Annuities
dti their own lives . And if no speculation were made bf others on their lives , there never would be ! any sale of stifch Annuities . The writer affirms that three millions of money were invested in the above speculation , and thste certainty i $ ft vferV Substantial difference between that sum and nothing ; But of
how ddes it appear that there ha ^ been a loss 300 , 000 ft 1 This is first strongly asserted as an absolute fact , as if it wer& knbtvh to be such to the writer , and is again and again affirmed as a most positive trdth . But at the end of the artidfe it fcliM out that thifc assertion rests on the mere inference of the Wiriteri
because he thiiiks that a total annuity of 300 , 000 / . Was purchased , he deduces that a class of highly selected lives will livfc so much longer than the average of men at high ages , that atly annuity purchased on the lives of those selected ohed nitist needft be one year ' s purchase more in value ttiatl thg \ &lue hi ordinary cases . But why of necessity one year ' s purchase precisely ? Only because it p leases the writer to say so . H # cannot pfrove it , nor can aiiy other man . We aiiftw ^ that if
there be , or be not any loss at all , or how much , in cohse ^ queiice & ' f this transaction , it is a fact that can never be known until the whole of the lives are dead . But still the question recurs , why is MrFinlaison accused of a loss , which , if demonstrable , arose out of a transaction entered into , as is admitted , in spite of his most strenuous opposition ? Why , truly , because it is alleged that he did not furnish the Government with the
Untitled Article
Liberal Mathematics * 47-
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1837, page 47, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1827/page/49/
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