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to see that there is no mistake about the words or the music; then again, he raises his right hand to his jaw, passes the thumb under the chin, and extends the forefinger to the right ear, and thus plays imaginary notes with the other three fingers in the air; finally, he stretches his mouth open to such an alarming extent that you prepare for a start simultaneously with himself, and the first quaver is an effort productive to European ears of the most discordant tones. But we have nothing particular at present to do with oriental musicians and strains, except to observe that as there is such etiquette to be observed in commencing a musical performance, so is it in every other pastime or occupation of eastern nations generally, from the stout Brahmin, who ties a straw round his waist to regulate the quantity of curry and rice to which he is limited at each meal, or the sedate Turk, who has his head and limbs scalded at barbers' shops, and who then, as though to create a corresponding irritation, causes a shampooing-master to crack and stretch these already injured members to an extent that makes those not accustomed to the art shudder at the sight of the operation.

But, the better to understand these processes, we may imagine ourselves pacing a main street in Aleppo, and pausing at the open windows of a barber's shop to scrutinize the barber himself and the contents of his establishment, with the shampooing-master also and his victims. Barbers all over the East have been for many ages noted as important subjects of the state. In India, they are the great newsmongers of the town. Almost every English officer indeed, and every civilian, has his own particular barber; but it often happens that the same individual, with perhaps an assistant or two, serves the whole community. They are regular attendants at regular hours of the morning, and the habitué in India looks forward to their arrival with as much impatience as a Lombard-street banker waits for his morning "Times." There is not a thing stirring in cantonment, not a man married nor a woman ill, not a dog lamed, not a favourite horse shod nor a dog who has increased her family, but the barber is acquainted with the fact, and the information is retailed by him piecemeal for the benefit of every customer he visits.

In China, a barber's experience is extensive; he has to do not only with the heads, but the tails of the people; and his skill is generally acknowledged by all, from the emperor downwards. In Siam, barbers are next in importance to prime ministers, and they rank with physicians, being usually conversant with blood-letting and a few other minor duties belonging to the apothecaries' art. But it is in Turkey, in the land of the Caliphs, that we meet with the barber in his proper soil, enjoying all the dignity of his sharp profession, looked up to and honoured by the multitude, and admitted to the confidence of the pasha. He is the advertiser of all the baths in the neighbourhood, the terror of young gentlemen with a weak growth of beard or a tender head, and the aversion of labourers, who are compelled to submit an eight days' beard to his rough management; yet all flock to him and pay him liphomage. Besides other things, the barber in Turkey is generally the vendor of cunning drugs and charms, anti-fleabite mixtures, deadly doses for

rats, with occasionally some favourite remedy for dangerous diseases. Exercising as he does such diversified functions, the Turkish barber has little spare time on his hands. He is always an early riser, and commences his day's operations by experiments upon himself. His moustache is a perfect pattern for curl, gloss, and enormous length; his head is as smooth and hairless as a monk's at eighty; his costume is in the height of Turkish fashion; and in the season he is sure to have a bouquet of sweet-smelling flowers in his bosom. Thus equipped, and having partaken of his early coffee and pipe, the barber sets forth for his shop, which is usually in the heart of the most thronged bazaar; and there, long before the busy world is astir, he and his assistant have set all things in apple-pie order; they have swept up the floor, dusted the shelves, spread out fresh napkins, rinsed the pewter basins, set on the fire huge caldrons of water to boil, garnished the soap-dishes with sweet-smelling herbs and flowers, set forth chairs and stools in goodly array, in preparation for the business of the day, which, by the time these arrangements are completed, commences in right earnest.

The first customer that comes is an old man skilled in the art of shampooing, who undergoes the operation of being shaved gratis, he being a kind of sleeping partner in the barber's establishment. The napkin is no sooner removed from his throat than the usual every-day customers appear. Foremost among them is an old gentleman who is sadly tormented with rheumatism; he is very particular that not one item in the etiquette of Turkish shaving operations be omitted; the barber is aware of this, and prizes him as a regular customer that may be counted upon for at least ten paras (about two farthings sterling) a day. After a long string of compliments has been exchanged, and the fineness of the weather adverted to, the old man seats himself ceremoniously in the barber's state chai., and there groans involuntarily as he sees the mighty preparations going forward for an attack upon his head and beard. The barber next, drawing near, respectfully relieves him of his weighty turban, which is carefully laid upon a shelf and covered over with a white napkin. Then he is enveloped from his neck to his heels in a huge apron that ties behind, pinning his arms to his side. In this defenceless condition he immediately becomes the victim of half-a-dozen flies, which tickle his nose and flap against his eyes till he is reduced to the necessity of calling the barber to his assistance. On hearing the summons, this worthy, who has been preparing a huge basin of hot suds and sharpening his uncouth razors, rushes to the rescue, and in about a minute afterwards we have lost sight of the old victim, whose whole face and head, and every visible portion of the neck, present one extensive field of soap-bubbles, froth, and hot vapour. Now the barber may be seen scrubbing away, with a huge hair bag on either hand; then he darts to one side and fetches a huge basinful of very hot water; and the next instant the victim's head, soap-suds and all, are forcibly immersed in this. In a few seconds it emerges red and inflamed, with the eyes starting nearly out of their sockets, the victim meanwhile sputtering and grunting for breath. Barely has he

had time to implore a few moments' respite before another basin is produced, and the head again disappears beneath its depths. This time the water is cold almost to freezing, and the whole frame quivers again, as though quite electrified by the sudden shock. On being withdrawn, a deathlike palor has taken the place of the rubicund complexion so lately exposed to view. Soon, however, the friction of a dry towel restores the circulation, succeeded by the application of lukewarm soap and water, after which the razor almost imperceptibly, certainly unfelt by the customer, passes from the crown of the head and rounds the promontory of the chin with marvellous speed, leaving only a small tuft on the crown, and the much-prized oriental moustache. Turks who wear beards seldom, we may observe, resort to a barber's shop, as their heads only require to be manipulated, and to dress these is a department in the barber's art which is generally left to young practitioners.

afternoons in alternately notching scores against creditors and notching the bald heads of patients suffering from sick headaches. The latter is a common practice in Syria. Every man suffering from the headache goes to the barber, and gets him to make some half-dozen notches with a razor on his head, at surdly supposing that the blood thus escaping will immediately give ease. The remedy is a painful, and, in many instances, we should think, a dangerous one.

ANNALS AND ANECDOTES OF LIFE
ASSURANCE.

THE commercial world-prosaic, calculating, and imaginative as it is generally supposed to be-is the last place to which the lover of romance would be likely to go in quest of exciting and stimulating narratives. And yet, perhaps, there are few works, professing to deal with the actualities of life, that abound so largely with dramatic incidents as the successive publications emanating from the pen of Mr. Francis, the well-known city chronicler. There are, we presume, few persons sustaining any important mercantile relations in this country who have not felt the engrossing interest of his "Times and Traditions of the Bank of England," "The Chro

The ordeal just described having been passed through, the napkin is removed, and the customer is at liberty to rinse his hands and face; but before the turban is restored to his head he again submits himself to the barber's care, for the purpose of having all his minor joints cracked. First, the head is seized, and wrenched with such violent jerks from side to side that one unaccus-nicles and Characters of the Stock Exchange," and tomed to the spectacle would think the barber intent on violence. After this, every tender bone of the ear undergoes a similar process, and the joints of the fingers go off like a small battery of Chinese crackers. This completes the cracking process, which is anything but agreeable to those who have not been for years inured to it. The Turks, however, like it.

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his still more recent volumes on the "History, Social Relations, and Revelations of the English Railway." That this peculiar field of research is by no means exhausted is evident from the appearance, within a few weeks, of a new chapter in the dotes, and Legends of Life Assurance." Though, romance of Mammon," entitled, "Annals, Anecin our opinion, inferior, both as regards freshdecessors, it will be found by the general reader to ness of materials and literary execution, to its preafford much valuable information in relation to the subject upon which it treats, agreeably interspersed with anecdotes of an enlivening description. While strenuously inculcating the great advantages to be derived from an ever-widening application of the economic principle of assurance, the tendency of the work is decidedly to beget a spirit of extreme caution in reference to the associations with which the past is full of melancholy failures, and utters an individual may identify himself. The history of solemn warnings to the unscrupulous schemers of the present generation.

The old customer now under consideration, released from the barber, calls loudly for pipe and coffee. When these are produced, he sips the one and whiffs the other, whilst seated in a large easy chair by the window-side, where the science of the shampooing-master is about to be put to the test. The leg of the old gentleman, tender perhaps from rheumatism, is hoisted upon a wooden stool, and the shampooer commences by gradually and softly pressing, between his fingers and thumb, the flesh from the ankle to the knee. By degrees, the nipping becomes harder and the movement more rapid, till by and by the cries from the old man, of Thumum! thumum! (It is enough!) indicate that the pressure has reached to such an extent as to be no longer endurable. The operation, how-much greater antiquity than is generally supposed. The casual practice of mutual assurance is of ever, has promoted a free circulation of blood in Passing by some doubtful illustrations of the the ailing limb, and the old man stalks forth principle during the Roman empire, we find that, upon it as securely as though it were made of iron, in our own country, one of the earliest exemplifiand were impregnable to to-morrow's twitches. occurred in connexion with the guilds of our cations of the axiom that "union is strength" Saxon forefathers. In the distracted state of society consequent upon the introduction of a new forced to find sureties to keep the peace, certain race by the conquest, every freeman of fourteen being neighbours, composed of ten families, became bound number who should offend against the Norman law, for one another, either to produce any one of the or to make pecuniary satisfaction for the offence. To do this, they raised a fund by mutual payments, which they placed in one common stock. This was

The next customer the barber has to deal with is an oriental dandy, who, after undergoing the operation of being shaved, stands at least five minutes whilst he twists his moustaches into a variety of shapes, and gazes with evident complacency on both sides of the circular mirror; in one of these he admires a giant and in the other a pigmy. At length he takes himself off, and a daylabourer, it may be, with his staff and bundle of day's provisions, heaves in sight, while shortly after him a whole posse arrive. By an hour before midday the barber's shaving and shampooing occupations may be said to be over, and he passes his

*London: Longman & Co. 1853.

pure mutual assurance; and from this arose other | annuity, and Audley made him suffer to the extent kindred fraternities. To meet the pecuniary exigencies which were perpetually arising from fines and forfeitures, and to aid one another in burials, sickness, and penal mulcts, friendly societies-the prototypes of those of the present day-were established; the curious rules of many of which are still extant, and cannot be read without admiration of the spirit of brotherly helpfulness that warmed the hearts of men towards each other in an age of comparative barbarism.

of 50007. in fines and forfeitures. The usurer soon found money trading better than law writing. He became a procurer of bail; he compounded debts; he enticed easy landowners into granting wellsecured annuities; he encouraged their extravagance, and, under pretence of ministering to their wants, became possessed of many a fine estate. The following story will illustrate his crafty and grasping character. In the early part of his career, a draper of mean repute was arrested by his merchant for 2007. Audley bought the debt of the latter for 407., and was immediately offered an advance on his bargain by the fraudulent tradesman. Audley refused the terms; but when the draper pressed, as if struck by a sudden whim, he consented to discharge the debt, if his creditor would sign a formal contract to pay within twenty years from that time one penny, to be progressively doubled on the first day of twenty consecutive months, under a penalty of 500l. The terms seemed easy, and the draper consented. The knave was one of those who grow rich by breaking.' But here Audley had him in his net. Year after year he watched his prey; he saw him increase in wealth, and then made his first demand for one

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his claim, progressively doubling the amount, until the draper took alarm, used his pen, found that to carry out his agreement would cost him more than 40007., and, to avoid it, paid the penalty of 500l."

With the rise and extension of our maritime commerce came a new application of the principle, in the form of marine assurance, not only against the ruinous casualties of storms and shipwrecks, at a period when navigation was far more hazardous than it now is, but also against the corsairs that then so daringly roved the seas. These piratical adventurers, after disposing of the cargoes which they seized, at the nearest market, were accustomed to sell the seamen into bondage, from which they could only be released on the payment of a large ransom. To secure this ransom, therefore, many mariners, before undertaking a perilous voyage, would give a certain premium to their merchant freighters, who, in return, pledged themselves to pay a sufficient sum to secure the navigators' free-penny. As month succeeded month he continued dom within fifteen days after the certificate of their captivity. It is a curious fact, too, that during the crusading era, when fanatical men undertook those extraordinary pilgrimages which to us wear such an air of romance, many of the palmers, with more good sense than we are usually disposed to give them credit for, were wont before starting to insure themselves against the chances of Saracen captivity. There was yet another mode of assurance commonly practised by the traveller of the "olden time," who, before departing on a long or dangerous enterprise, deposited a specific amount in the hands of a money-broker, on condition that if he returned he should receive double or treble the amount he had paid; while, in the event of his not returning, the money-broker was to retain the deposit, which was in truth a premium under another name. All this time, however, there were but a few exceptional instances of that inestimable form of assurance which is so popular in the present day; namely, the provision of a sum payable to his heirs on the death of the assurer. The paucity of such cases probably arose from the enormous premiums which then, in the absence of all authentic data, were charged by monied men who undertook the risk.

The granting of life annuities, it appears, had attracted considerable attention by the close of the seventeeth century. One of the first men who gained for himself an unenviable notoriety in this line was Audley, who seems to have had a perfect genius for money-making. "He was originally," says Mr. Francis," a lawyer's clerk, with a salary of six shillings a week; but his talent for saving was so well supported by his self-privation, that he lived upon half, keeping the other half as the superstructure of his future fortune. He was so great an adept in the tricks of law, that he was soon enabled to purchase his apprenticeship; and, with the first 6007. he had saved, bought of a nobleman an annuity of 967. for nineteen years. The nobleman died; his heir neglected to pay the

The first assurance on a life of which there is any positive legal record took place on the 3rd of September, 1697, when a policy was made on the life of Sir Robert Howard for a period of one year. On the same day in 1698, it appears, the assurer died, and the merchant refused to pay, on the ground that the policy had expired. Lord Holt, however, before whom the case was tried, ruled that" from the day of the date" excluded the day itself, and that the underwriter was liable. The first attempt to found an association for the purpose of granting life annuities to the nominees of the assurers was made by the Mercers' Company in 1698; but being based on erroneous data, the undertaking failed to make good its tempting promises. In their extremity, fifty years afterwards, they petitioned parliament for assistance, which was munificently granted, and the company is now one of the most flourishing in London. The Amicable Company, which is generally regarded as the nursing-mother of life assurance, dates its origin to the first decade of the eighteenth century. The assurance merchants, finding their profits endangered in 1706, applied to Queen Anne. for a charter of incorporation, which was conceded. If the Mercers' Company erred in fixing its premiums ruinously low, the Amicable went to the opposite extreme, while at the same time it actually made no distinction between an old life and a young one-between a healthy and an unhealthy man. Its terms of insurance have subsequently undergone repeated modifications and reductions, to adapt them to the advance of the science of probabilities and the increased value of human life.

It will scarcely be imagined that so early as the year 1708 a complete mania for universal assurance seized upon the people of England. Bubble schemes of the most absurd and transparently

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fraudulent character started into existence on every their calculations as to the value of life laid those side. "Tempting advertisements were inserted in solid and impregnable foundations upon which the the journals to show the especial advantages of a vastly ramified transactions of assurance now so new tontine. Infant or adult, married or single, securely rest. Among the fathers of this useful were addressed in 'The Lucky Seventy, or the science we may name De Moivre, Kersseboom, Longest Liver takes all;' while, paraded in pro- Hodgson, Dodson, Simpson, and, much later, Dr. mising forms, and painted in bright colours, arose Price. To discuss the comparative merits of the societies to keep the subscribers when they mar- contributions of these writers upon this most comried, and pay for their burials when they died." It plicated subject would occupy too much space, and is painful to reflect that, during this period of would possess, moreover, little interest for the disgraceful jobbing, it was not the well-to-do and general reader. It must suffice to know that, with wealthy class, but the poor and thrifty, who were more authentic and specific data thus at command, the chief victims; and it can hardly be matter of the companies that continued to creep into exsurprise that these "little goes" of assurance, asistence possessed guarantees for stability and sucthey were designated, exercised for a time a very prejudicial effect upon the progress of the principle.

The check imposed upon speculation by the failure of these schemes was not, however, of very long duration, for shortly afterwards commenced that terrible era in commercial history signalized by the South Sea Bubble, when men, as if smitten with gold-madness, ran about Exchange-alley, exclaiming, "Give us something to subscribe to we care not what it is." No wonder, when such was the feverish state of the public mind, that men and companies were to be found willing to humour this gambling mood, and "fool" these eager dupes "to the top of their bent." Amidst the general wreck of projects that then took place, two or three managed to weather the devastating storm, and have descended to our own times. Of these, the Royal Exchange and the London Corporation are entitled to honourable mention.

We sometimes take credit to ourselves for the unparalleled ingenuity of the actuaries and projectors of the present day in devising novel applications of the principle of assurance; but these fond delusions are speedily dispelled on exploring the annals of the past. Thus, we find that more than 120 years ago, most of the sagacious expedients for lessening the calamities of life which now excite our admiration had occurred to the minds of our forefathers. The "Commercial Credit Mutual Assurance Society" was foreshadowed in 1720 by two bubble companies for the insurance of debts. The "Guarantee Society," which now indemnifies employers against the evils of dishonesty, had its prototype at the same early period in an office opened at a tavern, to insure masters and mistresses against losses from theft, etc. Among the other curiosities of that fertile era were insurances from housebreakers, from highwaymen, from lying, and from death by drinking rum or geneva. But although, except in the former of these, we are confessedly behind our ancestors, we can find nothing in the catalogue of their projects at all equal in extravagance and presumption to one modern society that lifts its impious head among us, namely, that for "insurance against the pains of purgatory." We trust the day is not far distant when the diffusion of scriptural truth among our Roman catholic friends will reduce such societies to use a commercial phrase-to a non-paying

point.

As we approach the middle of the eighteenth century, the science of life assurance begins to assume consistency and an intelligible shape. A number of statists appeared in succession, and by

cess not often enjoyed by their predecessors.

Passing by the establishment of the Equitable -which had to endure for several years a stern conflict with danger and difficulty, both from within and from without, and which narrowly escaped spoliation by the government when straitened by an exhausted treasury-we are brought down to the middle of the eighteenth century. At this period, a new attack of the gambling mania, which it would seem has been accustomed to come and go periodically in the commercial world with all the regularity of an epidemic, had seized upon the public mind, and at length became so serious that the legislature were compelled to interfere. This form of speculation in human life and human adventure is one of the strangest by-ways in the annals of insurance. "From 1720," says Mr. Francis, "much of the legitimate business had been usurped by it, policies being opened on the lives of public men, with a recklessness at once disgraceful and injurious to the morals of the country. The life of Sir Robert Walpole was assured for many thousands; and at particular portions of his career-when his person seemed endangered, as at the excise bill, or by party hate, as at the time of his threatened impeachmentthe premium was proportionately enlarged. When George II fought at Dettingen, twenty-five per cent. was paid against his return. The rebellion of 1745, as soon as the terror which it excited had passed away, was likewise productive of an infamous amount of business. The members of Garraway's, the assurers at Lloyd's, and the merchants of the Royal Exchange, being unable to raise or lower the price of stocks any more by reports of the Pretender's movements, made sporting assurances on his adventures, and opened policies on his life. Sometimes the news arrived that he was taken prisoner, and the undertakers waxed grave. Sometimes it was rumoured that he had escaped, and they grew gay again. Thousands were ventured on his whereabouts, and tens of thousands on his head.

"The rebel lords who were captured in that disastrous expedition were another source of profit to the speculators. The gray hairs of old Lord Lovat did not prevent them from gambling on his life. The gallantry of Balmerino and the devotion of Lady Nithsdale raised no soft scruples in the minds of the brokers; and when the husband of the latter escaped from the Tower, the agitation of those who had perilled their money on his life, and to whom his violent death would have been a profit, is described as noisy and excessive. But no sooner was it known that he had escaped, than fresh

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