UNITY 
 
 IKE INSURANCE ASSOCIATION. 
 
 ADDRESS FROM THE DIRECTORS TO THE SHAREHOLDERS. 
 
 e Newspaper Press of this country ranks among the most valuable of our 
 titutions. Whether regarded as a mere vehicle of intelligence ; as the herald 
 d instigator of deeds of charity ; as an exponent of philosophical, scientific, 
 d useful discoveries ; as the great educator of the minds of the people ; as a 
 er in developing the resources of our country ; or, as a means of promoting 
 civilisation of the whole earth ; the Press is equally deserving of honour and 
 atitude. With almost unlimited power in the formation of public opinion, 
 d with a facility of dissemination such as no individual can cope with or 
 ntrol, how few are the instances of those powers being licentiously and 
 worthily exercised. Free, and almost unshackled in its course, by any legal 
 ms, it yet bows to a greater than any human law — the duty of man to man. 
 Every institution, however, has its attendant evil. If the press in one 
 pptment be pure, the corruption flows into another channel. Malice seldom 
 s/iong to wait for a voice, and there are few things a man can devise that he 
 not find another unscrupulous enough to put into operation. There was a 
 af period when the malicious slanderer, the liar, the anonymous assassin, in 
 f part of this country, had, through the columns of a prostituted and hireling 
 ess, the power of stabbing the reputation of his neighbour, and of giving vent 
 the most debasing feelings of human nature. Figaro , Paul Pry , The Town , 
 
 1 he Age, The Satirist , and other Prints of this class, are yet remembered with 
 deration for the misery they occasioned. Public life and private character, 
 
 4 palace and the cottage, the public assembly and the retirement of home, each 
 y open to the attacks of these miscreants of the press. While the malicious had 
 vehicle for the gratification of the basest passions, the editors and proprietors 
 vied “black mail ” upon those who had not the moral fortitude to resist 
 eir diabolical demands. Their reign, however, was short. The outraged 
 eling of the public arose to crush these hireling reptiles. Ry prosecutions, 
 y fines, by imprisonments, but (mightier and more telling than all,) by horse- 
 hips, they were threshed out of existence. The race of this class of writers is 
 'ot altogether extinct. The mantle it would appear must fall somewhere, and 
 e can only know it again by the usual produce of malice and slander. 
 
 Very soon after the extinction of most of the disgraceful prints above alluded 
 o, an individual assumed to himself the position of Proprietor and Editor of the 
 ost Magazine, a “ little 5 ’ periodical, stated to be devoted to the discussion oi 
 objects connected with matters of Assurance. In the outset, and for some 
 engthened period, it is believed, this print confined itself to fair expositions ot 
 Assurance matters and reports of public meetings. But eventually it commenced 
 series of attacks on Registered Companies, and soon after exhibited itself as 
 he organ of the old assurance corporations in their attempt to crush their y uuugepF 
 ivals. We need scarcely remind you of the controversy which has been sojpffe 
 especting young and old companies, nor of the tissue of misrepresentation 
 which led to the demand, on the part of Mr. Wilson, for a Select Committee of 
 the House of Commons. The issue of that inquiry, short as it 4vas. and the 
 character of the misrepresentations which had been made, may be judged of 
 by the following extracts from the Report of the Committee ; — 
 
 ‘With regard to the general condition of existing offices, so fq; as any evidence has been laid 
 before your committee, they feel it their duty, as well as their pleasure, to report, that it is more 
 satisfactory than they had been led to believe before they entered upon their inquiry." — Report, p. xv. 
 
 “Your Committee, in a former part of this report, have alluded to the Inconvenience which 
 lias arisen from the fact, that a portion of the existing Assurance Offices are registered under the 
 Act of 1844, and a portion not. Your committee eannot hide from themselves that the effect of 
 this distinction has been to lead to controversies between the ‘old offices’ (established prior to 
 1844) and the ‘new offices’ (established since the passing of the act of that year); which contro- 
 versies your committee arc of opinion have been prejudicial to the best interests of the public. Yonr 
 committee are, therefore, of opinion, that it would be highly beneficial to all parties if all 
 
 A 2 
 
UNITY FIRE INSURANCE ASSOCIATION. 
 
 4 
 
 companies, both those existing and that may in future be formed, could be brought under one 
 general system of registration. In accomplishing this, your committee would recommend that 
 the requirements for registration, as regards existing companies, should be as simple as possible, 
 but that whatever periodical returns may be deemed necessary , should be the same as regards all 
 companies whatever ” — Report, p. xvii. 
 
 It will thus be perceived that the Committee state, what was all along known 
 to be the case, that there had been great exaggeration and misrepresentation 
 regarding the position of the Registered Companies ; and, secondly, that the Com- 
 mittee seeing no reason for any distinction being maintained between “young” 
 and “ old” offices, considered that the controversy, (which be it remembered was 
 commenced by the “ old,” not the modern offices,) was “prejudicial to the best 
 interests of the public .” The so-called “controversy,” therefore, was shewn by 
 Parliamentary inquiry to be a mere undignified squabble between rival institu- 
 tions, and would have soon become resolved into its pristine elements. But the 
 Editor of the Post Magazine was not inclined to be so easily shelved. The very 
 existence of his print depended on keeping up the excitement. A new Fire 
 Insurance Office had appeared to contend with old Fire Insurance Companies, as 
 modern Life Offices had done before it. The success of that Fire Office had been 
 sudden and unprecedented. It had worked silently and quietly until it made 
 itself felt by its associative power. The public appreciated the new system of 
 mutuality. They withdrew their support from many an old corporation, and trans- 
 ferred their policies to the younger aspirant for their favour. Unused to such an 
 interference, the old monopolising Companies must be stirring. Their agents look 
 around for some means of crushing the interloper. They have not to look long in 
 vain. The Editor of the Post Magazine has time on his hands. He, moreover, is 
 known to be already irate towards the Manager of the new Fire Office, as will 
 be shewn in a subsequent portion of this address. To his unscrupulous hand 
 therefore is confided the task of injuring, if possible, the Unity Fire Insurance 
 Association. Hence the appearance of the Insurance Monitor . 
 
 To the minds of those of our Shareholders who have read the first number of 
 the Insurance Monitor , there are two points that can scarcely have failed to 
 present themselves : — „ 
 
 I. THE ACKNOWLEDGED STRENGTH OF THE UNITY. 
 
 This is shown by the attack being made at all ; by the grossest falsehood 
 and personality being used in place of argument ; by the adoption of such a 
 shameless print by the old companies ; and by the great expense which they must 
 have incurred in sending the pamphlet, as they have done, by thousands through 
 the country. 
 
 II. THE PROGRESS OF THE UNITY. 
 
 This is manifested by the hot haste in which the pamphlet has been prepared 
 and issued. So keenly was the success of the Unity felt by these offices, 
 that there must not be an hour’s delay. “ It is the result of sudden deter- 
 mination,” says the Editor. One w'ould have thought that to attack a powerful 
 institution, to designate five thousand people as “fools,” (p. 6.) and to heap 
 personal and virulent abuse on an individual, would, at least, have been a subject 
 for grave and mature deliberation. But they could not wait even for the ordi- 
 nary prospectus and advertisement which usually precede a Publication. “ It 
 goes forth,” continues the Editor, “ without the explanatory notice by which 
 “ first numbers are usually preceded. It will perhaps be considered as putting 
 the cart before the horse ; but all necessary explanations respecting its plan 
 *L&nd purpose will be given in the next number.” — (p. 16). 
 
 'Ffee style of this Monitor is precisely that of other “ Figaros .” Misrepre- 
 sentation^ 1 ^ falsehood alternate with dark and malevolent insinuation. The com- 
 mencement^ the attack on the Unity, sets forth how that on a certain day the 
 Editor of theN^bnifor presented himself at the Bow Street police-office to 
 denounce a swindler, who was endeavouring to get up a Life Assurance office in 
 Ireland. This, while it serves as a puff to himself, he is enabled to connect 
 with all the most nefarious matters of Joint-Stock Companies, in order that, 
 having made an impression on the mind of the reader, he may identify that 
 impression with the Unity. It is the style of all the ribald writers of the time 
 to which we have alluded, who, when even they dared not openly attack, attained 
 their end by mixing a man’s or a woman’s name up with stories of crime and 
 profligacy. 
 
 But to leave generalities, we will now succinctly and practically refer to the 
 statements made in this pamphlet. 
 
\4jQ u • k 45 
 
 £ 
 
 ADDRESS TO THE 
 STATEMENTS OF 
 
 , - THE “INSURANCE MONITOR.” 
 
 {t> ^ I. “Many of the Shareholder s are 
 known to have become so, by the re- 
 presentations of parties receiving a 
 shilling a share for their trouble, out 
 of each 5s. paid to the Company.” 
 (P. 3.) J 
 
 II. “Not many weeks ago there was 
 a large gathering at Birminghafm * * 
 On the same day and in the same town, 
 the corner-stone was laid of a building 
 that is to cost £10,000, for a Local 
 Unity Office.” (p. 3.) 
 
 SHAREHOLDERS. 5 
 
 REPLIES OF 
 
 THE DIRECTORS OF THE “UNITY.” 
 
 I. This is not true. The shares are 
 <£2 each, the deposit, 5s. The commis- 
 sion to agents and brokers of the Unity 
 is 6d. per share, being at the rate of 
 1? per cent, on the capital of the Asso- 
 ciation. Out of this commission, the 
 agent has to pay his own expenses. 
 
 II. This is not true. The building 
 in Birmingham is not for a Unity office 
 only, and it is not to cost £10,000. It 
 is a range of chambers, which will not 
 only give the Unity noble offices, rent 
 free, but will return a large interest for 
 the money invested. It will contain 
 several tenants of the highest respect- 
 ability, and be designated the Unity 
 Fire Insurance Buildings. The follow- 
 ing letter from the Architect, exhibits, 
 these facts more at length : — 
 
 “Temple Row, Birmingham, 
 
 Oct. 29, 1853. 
 
 “My Dear Sir, — In reply to your 
 inquiry, I beg to state that the cost 
 of the Unity Fire Insurance Buildings 
 here, will be under £8,000; that the 
 rental, according to the best of my 
 judgment, after nearly twenty years 
 experience in valuing property in this 
 town, will be £533. 
 
 “ I need not remind you that the 
 vaults and two offices are let to Messrs. 
 Allsopp * on lease, at the sum of £130 
 per annum, and I have already had 
 many inquirers for the offices, and 
 several parties are now anxious to take 
 suites of offices as soon as the Building 
 is completed. I give the detail of my 
 estimate of the letting value below, 
 from which it will be seen I do not 
 include in the rental the portion re- 
 served for the purposes of the Unity 
 Office, which consists of a large General 
 Office, Secretary and Board Rooms, 
 Engine Houses, Store, and Firemens’ 
 Rooms, &c., and which would let 
 readily at £100 a-year. 
 
 “ I am, dear sir, yours faithfully, 
 
 “ Saml. Hemming, Architect. 
 
 “ T. H. Baylis, Esq.” 
 
 Vaults and two Offices, let 
 to Messrs. Allsopp . . 
 
 Tavo houses for Firemen . 
 Stable and Loft .... 
 Four Offices on the ground 
 
 floor 
 
 Three suites of three 
 Offices each (1st floor) . 
 Three ditto (2nd floor) . 
 Three ditto (3rd floor) . 
 
 £ s. d. 
 130 0 0 
 18 4 0 
 10 0 0 
 
 45 0 0 
 
 135 0 0 
 105 0 0 
 90 0 0 
 
 ? 
 
 £533 4 0 
 
 * The eminent brewers at Burton. 
 
6 
 
 UNITY FIRE INSURANCE ASSOCIATION. 
 
 STATEMENTS OP THE “ INSURANCE 
 
 monitor.” — ( Continued .) 
 
 III. “ On Saturday last, an adver- 
 tisement, occupying 18 columns, set- 
 ting forth a list of Shareholders in the 
 Company, appeared in the Times news- 
 paper, and in most of the other Lon- 
 don daily journals. The expenses of 
 the Birmingham Festival, the cost of 
 reports, and the charges for these 
 advertisements must, at the lowest esti- 
 mate that can be made of them, have 
 absorbed between £2,000 and £3,000. 
 When it is considered that the only 
 two objects accomplished by this exces- 
 sive outlay have been to announce to 
 the world that a certain number of 
 persons have been persuaded by a 
 young man of the name of Thomas H. 
 Baylis to form themselves into an In- 
 surance Company under the above 
 title, and that a great crowd of people 
 were brought together to see a single 
 stone put into its proper place — when 
 it is further considered that a simple 
 advertisement of half-a-dozen lines, 
 stating in plain figures the number of 
 Shareholders, would have answered 
 the former of these purposes, — (the 
 world not being a bit wiser by the 
 exhibition of names) — and that the 
 stone would have been quite as securely 
 fixed if there had been nobody present 
 at its laying but the mason and his 
 labourer, we think the truth of our 
 position will be admitted, that the 
 projectors of the Unity Fire Associa- 
 tion have displayed as much exuber- 
 ance of agency in introducing the 
 name of their Company to the public, 
 as the blacksmith who might use a 
 sledge hammer for the purpose of 
 cracking an egg-shell.” (p. 4.) 
 
 REPLIES OF THE DIRECTORS OF THE 
 
 “ unity.” — ( Continued .) 
 
 Thus it appears that the Directors 
 of the Unity obtain for their Share- 
 holders a return of between six and 
 seven per cent, on the investment upon 
 their buildings in Birmingham, besides 
 securing an admirable suite of offices 
 for their own purposes, rent free. 
 
 III. The laying of the Foundation 
 Stone of the Unity Fire Insurance 
 Buildings, by the Mayor of Birming- 
 ham, led to the assembling of the va- 
 rious Local Boards of the Unity for 
 the first time. From almost every part 
 of the country, were representatives of 
 the opinions entertained of the Institu- 
 tion in their several districts. Perhaps 
 the thousands of persons assembled on 
 the occasion were as well qualified 
 to judge of the propriety of the pro- 
 ceedings as this hireling writer. And 
 the opinion of the inhabitants of Bir- 
 mingham may be fairly estimated by 
 the fact that One Hundred Shareholders 
 joined the Unity Association within 
 ten days after the laying of this founda- 
 tion stone. As well might it be said 
 that the launching of a ship might be 
 effected by the agency of the Ship’s 
 Carpenter, or that a Church or Philan- 
 thropic Institution could be founded 
 without a single witness on so interest- 
 ing an occasion. When Mr. Titus Salt 
 the eminent manufacturer of Saltaire, 
 near Bradford, Yorkshire, recently 
 opened a new mill, he invited between 
 3,000 and 4,000 persons, and brought 
 them by express trains from various 
 districts, to partake of his hospitality. 
 On the evening of the day he gave a 
 grand concert, to which the principal 
 inhabitants of the surrounding country 
 were invited. It might be argued 
 that all this expense could have been 
 avoided by Mr. Salt. That it was un- 
 reasonable to solicit the attention of 
 a concourse of persons from their 
 important avocations, to celebrate 
 the successes of an individual. But 
 our great manufacturers are further- 
 sighted than this hireling. Without 
 detracting one iota from the princely 
 hospitality and large-heartedness of 
 Mr. Salt, can any one suppose that 
 the eclat of this day will not return 
 tenfold of even its gigantic expendi- 
 ture. If, then, a celebration such as 
 this would lead to the aggrandisement 
 of the commercial undertaking of one 
 gentleman, how much more important 
 was it that an event, connedncl withj an 
 Institution which, once consolidated, 
 is to last through succeeding genera- 
 
7 
 
 ADDRESS TO THE SHAREHOLDERS. 
 
 STATEMENTS OF THE “ INSURANCE 
 
 monitor , 1 "—{Continued.) 
 
 } 
 
 REPLIES OF THE DIRECTORS OF THE 
 “ unity.” — ( Continued .) 
 tions, and in which the immediate 
 interests of thousands of people are 
 involved, should be celebrated with due 
 and befitting ceremony. 
 
 One of the great features of the 
 Unity is the openness and candour 
 with which all its business is conducted. 
 It is undoubtedly just to the public 
 that they should know of whom the 
 association consists in which they are 
 called upon to place their confidence. 
 Parliament has enacted that the names 
 and addresses of the shareholders in 
 the Joint Stock Banks should an- 
 nually be published in the newspapers, 
 in order that the public who entrust 
 their money with them should be made 
 acquainted with the proprietary. Are 
 not the engagements of a great Fire 
 Insurance Company, such as the Unity, 
 at least as important as those of a 
 Joint Stock Bank? and was it not of 
 equal importance that the phalanx of 
 power possessed by the Unity should 
 be made known to the world? Would 
 not the public have reason to be better 
 satisfied with the Sun, the Phoenix , the 
 Royal Exchange, the County , the Impe- 
 rial, the Alliance, the Atlas, the Nor - 
 ivich Union, the West of England, the 
 Globe, the Guardian, the London, the 
 Union, the Hand-in- Hand, the West- 
 minster, the Liverpool and London, the 
 Yorkshire, the Leeds and Yorkshire, 
 the Birmingham, the Birmingham Dis- 
 trict, the Kent, the Essex Economic , 
 the Monarch, the Royal Farmers', the 
 General, the Church of England, Fire 
 Offices, if they were open in their pro- 
 ceedings ; if they, like the UNITY, 
 were in a position to publish eighteen 
 columns of Shareholders’ names and 
 addresses, to admit the public press to 
 attend their meetings, to publish their 
 balance-sheets, and in other ways to 
 afford the public, their customers, some 
 actual knowledge of their affairs and 
 capabilities of meeting their engage- 
 ments ? The public has now only the 
 ex parte statements suited to the con- 
 venience of these Offices. They do 
 not publish the names and addresses of 
 their Shareholders ; they do not admit 
 the public press to their meetings ; 
 they do not publish their balance- 
 sheets, or make any public financial 
 statement by which their actual posi- 
 tion may be known. All is enveloped in 
 mysterious secresy. The knowledge 
 of their affairs is confined to the 
 board-room. By this antiquated sys- 
 tem the public is left in total ignorance. 
 With the registered Offices, on the 
 
8 
 
 UNITY FIRE INSURANCE ASSOCIATION. 
 
 STATEMENTS OF THE “ INSURANCE 
 
 monitor.”— ( Continued,) 
 
 IV. “ If the amount of paid-up Ca- 
 pital be divided by the number of 
 Shareholders it will only show an 
 average investment of £ 25 each.” — 
 (p. 5.) 
 
 REPLIES OF THE DIRECTORS OF THE 
 “ unity.” — ( Continued .) 
 contrary, all information is cheerfully 
 rendered, and is at all times accessible 
 to the public on application at the 
 Registration-office. 
 
 The expenditure for advertisements 
 has been singularly small, not amount- 
 ing in the aggregate to more than 
 ^£2,500 from the commencement up to 
 the present date. The creation of the 
 Unity Fire Insurance Association was 
 an exercise of co-operative powder. No 
 advertisements were inserted, even of 
 the principles of the Association, as in 
 the initiative of other companies. It 
 was not until the Association was 
 formed, with nearly 5,000 share- 
 holders, that advertising began. It was 
 necessary that the 'public should be 
 made aware of the greatness, power, 
 and resources of the Institution. The 
 experiment was such as never had been 
 and never could have been tried, by 
 any other Company ; for no corpora- 
 tion ever yet formed possessed such a 
 constituency. Had the Directors ad- 
 vertised every day for twelve months 
 in all the London papers, they could 
 not have effected what was here 
 done in one day. What might have 
 been the effect of the ordinary “ six- 
 line advertisement,” which undoubt- 
 edly would have cost more, and would 
 scarcely ever have been read, can now 
 only be imagined. But the great fact 
 we have : — that we purchased by this 
 advertisement universal attention, 
 secured the confidence of the public, 
 and made known the principles of the 
 Unity in one day throughout the 
 United Kingdom. The immediate re- 
 sults have been that in the four weeks 
 since the appearance of the advertise- 
 ments, Seventeen Hundred and Twenty- 
 Six new policies have been issued , for the 
 insurance of property to the amount 
 of One Million , One Hundred and 
 Thirty-one Thousand , Eight Hundred 
 and Eighty-three pounds sterling ! 
 
 The metaphor of the editor may be 
 reversed against himself; for he ap- 
 pears to think that with his egg-shell 
 he can make an impression upon the 
 sledge-hammer. 
 
 IV. This is true ! ! ! It is precisely 
 the great fact on which the Directors, 
 in their address on the “ Closing of 
 the Share List,” (published in the 
 Times and other journals,) congratu- 
 lated themselves and their Share- 
 holders. The diffusive prhcfiple on 
 which the Unity is constituted is one 
 cause of its great strength. Uninten- 
 
9 
 
 ADDRESS TO THE SHAREHOLDERS. 
 
 STATEMENTS OF THE “ INSURANCE 
 
 monitor,”— ( Continued.) 
 
 V. “ Even if the Company were 
 successful, what rate of interest can 
 they expect for their money, to justify 
 the responsibility they have taken 
 upon themselves ? Suppose the Ma- 
 nagers of the Company not to touch a 
 penny of the Capital for Preliminary 
 Expenses, but to invest it all in the 
 Funds. The interest produced would 
 be £3,750 ; and it may be safely pre- 
 dicted that this amount will barely 
 cover the annual expenses of the esta- 
 blishment ; so that the hundred and 
 twenty-five thousand pounds which the 
 Shareholders have transmitted to No. 
 43, Pall-mall, will be but barely suffi- 
 cient to pay the salaries of Mr. Thomas 
 H. Baylis, Mr. Martin S. Baylis, and 
 other officers of the Institution, fees 
 to Directors, commission to Local 
 Agents, &c. &c. The dividends , there - 
 fore, can arise from no other source than 
 the hazards of the office /” — (p. 5.) 
 
 RErLIES OF THE DIRECTORS OF THE 
 “unity.” — ( Continued .) 
 tionally the writer has made a state- 
 ment which proves the great security 
 of the Institution, and its power, in- 
 fluence, and capacity, to command an 
 enormous business. 
 
 V. If the Company be successful, 
 that is, if it transact a large business, 
 what is there to prevent the share- 
 holders receiving a handsome return 
 for their investment ? Other offices 
 have amassed enormous profits. Their 
 shares have risen from 102 to 1,140 
 per cent, on their original cost. Yet 
 they took years to do what the Unity 
 has done in a few months. Take 
 for instance the Globe. Where does 
 the Globe obtain its dividend of 6 
 per cent, on a million of money which 
 it is bound continually to pay as in- 
 terest to the holders of its stock ? 
 This interest amounts to £60,000 a- 
 year, or above £160 a-day ; and, in 
 addition to this enormous tax, there 
 are other matters of no small import- 
 ance to make provision for. It is 
 necessary to provide from some fund 
 for the costly management necessarily 
 attendant on such a huge capital, and 
 also for the loss of interest upon the 
 large cash balances continually on 
 hand. How this £160 a-day is pro- 
 vided, considering that the funds of 
 this institution are bound by charter 
 to be invested in real securities, is far 
 more difficult to account for than the 
 paying the interest on the £125,000 
 of the Unity, where such large and 
 powerful means for procuring profit- 
 able business and investments are 
 known to exist. The beneficial system 
 of publishing accounts would be well 
 employed in clearing up this at present 
 inexplicable mystery. The same argu- 
 ment would apply to many of the old 
 offices. We have merely taken the 
 Globe as an instance. 
 
 What “ other source than the hazards 
 of the office ” can profits arise from in 
 any fire insurance office ? The larger 
 the surface of risk, when well chosen, 
 the larger will be the profit. A “ little ” 
 fire insurance office cannot succeed, 
 whatever a “ little” periodical may do. 
 It is when millions of risks are incurred, 
 not when the nominal amount of risk 
 is squared with the actual capital, that 
 those enormous profits accrue which 
 have enabled even young offices to 
 nearly double the value of their shares 
 in eight years. The Directors affirmed 
 the principle of looking to “ no other 
 source than the hazards of the office ” 
 
10 
 
 UNITY FIRE INSURANCE ASSOCIATION. 
 
 STATEMENTS OF TITE “ INSURANCE 
 
 monitor ” — ( Continued .) 
 
 VI. “ It may be worth while to 
 shew, by a few figures, what these 
 hazards are. Ordinary risks are taken 
 as low as eighteen pence and two shil- 
 lings per cent. Take the risks at an 
 average of three shillings per cent, and 
 let us see what amount of property 
 must be insured in order to produce a 
 simple dividend of 5 per cent. Before 
 this sum can be created at three shil- 
 lings per cent, on the alleged paid-up 
 capital of £125,000, the shareholders 
 must have incurred risks exceeding 
 Four Millions Sterling. If the share- 
 holders had retained control over their 
 money they might have made 3 or 3J 
 per cent, by it in the funds ; and we 
 much doubt of Mr. T. H Baylis will 
 be able to make 5 per cent, of it for 
 them, even in incurring risks exceeding 
 32 times the amount of their entire paid- 
 up capital. Many of the shareholders 
 are men of business ; although they 
 may not have taken the trouble to 
 make the calculation in respect of their 
 corporate interests in the Unity, which 
 is thus made for them. Let the Share- 
 holders verify the figures ; arid they 
 will at once see the exact position in 
 which they stand, in respect of the 
 new line of business in which they have 
 become engaged as a body of partners. 
 Of course they will not fail to perceive 
 that this dividend of 5 per cent, will 
 not be realised unless it fortunately 
 happens that not a single house, or 
 article of property, is destroyed by 
 fire, out of the entire Four, Millions 
 they may undertake to insure.” — (p. 5.) 
 
 VII. “It is questionable, however, 
 whether the Unity Fire Association 
 will be able without an amazing deal 
 of trouble and a great addition to the 
 machinery of grand buildings, public 
 fetes, and costly advertisements, to 
 
 REPLIES OE THE DIRECTORS OE THE 
 ‘ * unity.” — ( Continued .) 
 for profit, when they stated in their 
 address, “ It is interest , not wealth — 
 income , not capital — which forms the 
 prosperity of a fire insurance com- 
 pany .”* 
 
 VI. We rejoice to be able to state 
 that the Shareholders are in reality 
 placed in the category assumed by the 
 editor, who, if he know anything at 
 all of Fire Insurance business, must be 
 aware that the amount of nominal 
 liability in a successful office will soon 
 be very far in excess of the actually 
 subscribed capital ; whatever the amount 
 of that capital may be. Is it not plain 
 to the meanest capacity that one mil- 
 lion of liability, in other words one 
 million’s worth of property insured, 
 would be an absurdly liliiputian busi- 
 ness to be backed by a Million of 
 Capital ? The writer argues as though 
 an office like the Unity would rest 
 contented with having insured four 
 millions of property. The directors 
 of the Unity trust that ere long the 
 risks incurred will be not only 6C thirty- 
 two times the amount of the paid up 
 capital,” but five hundred times the 
 amount of the whole capital of the 
 company. The ‘ Sun ’ pays £185,000 
 per annum duty to Government. Assu- 
 ming that the capital of the ‘Sun’ is 
 one million, and that the average of 
 3s. per cent, mentioned by the Monitor 
 is correct, it would shew that the ‘ Sun ’ 
 office insures property {on which it 
 pays duty , and irrespective of Farming 
 Stock , on which no duty is charged ) to 
 the amount of one hundred and twenty- 
 three millions of pounds. In other words, 
 the ‘ Sun’ has incurred risks one hundred 
 and twenty- three times the amount of 
 its supposed capital. The argument 
 amounts to this, that instead of rejoicing 
 over the large business now being 
 effected by the Unity, we should have 
 been better off if we had done no 
 business at all, because w r e should 
 have incurred no liability : and that, 
 though the profits of a Fire Insurance 
 business are derived from income, the 
 smaller the income the greater the 
 profits. The absurdity and ignorance 
 of the argument are about equal. 
 
 VII. The Unity has issued from 
 the commencement of its business 
 to this date 6 117 Policies insuring 
 £3,648,156 pounds sterling, and 
 it relies for its business on its un- 
 precedented number of Shareholders, 
 
 * See also the article from the Nottingham, Journal , p. 30. 
 
11 
 
 ADDRESS TO THE SHAREHOLDERS. 
 
 STATEMENTS OF THE " INSURANCE 
 
 monitor.” — ( Continued ,) 
 procure even the extent of business 
 adopted for purposes of argument.” — 
 (P- 5.) 
 
 VIII. “Did the shareholders ever hear 
 of such Fire Insurance Companies as 
 the Sun, the Phoenix, the Royal Ex- 
 change, the County, the Imperial, the 
 Alliance, the Atlas, the Norwich Union, 
 the West of England, the Globe, Guar- 
 dian, London, Union, Hand-in-Hand, 
 Westminster ? Do they really imagine 
 that the clients of these old offices will 
 leave them for no other purpose than 
 to assist in building a big house in 
 Birmingham for Mr. Thomas H. Baylis 
 or some relative of his to reside in ? 
 It is hopeless to expect people, in 
 the insurance of their property to re- 
 linquish the security of such offices. 
 Besides the leaseholders and tenants of 
 a large breadth of house property in 
 this kingdom are bound by agreements, 
 or induced by the influence of their 
 landlords, to insure in particular offices. 
 In respect of such insurances there can 
 be no competition. The old offices have 
 got possession of the field, and there is 
 no driving them from it.” — (pp. 5, 6.) 
 
 REPLIES OF THE DIRECTORS OF THE 
 
 “ unity.” — ( Continued .) 
 and on those principles which are 
 adopted wherever they are made 
 known and understood. 
 
 VIII. This may act as a gentle puff 
 to the offices named, and doubtless was 
 inserted as an assistance for the sale 
 of the Monitor. Admitting for the mo- 
 ment that it has been customary here- 
 tofore to bind tenants to insure in 
 certain offices for the benefit of the 
 agents or solicitors of the holders of 
 house property, and giving the power 
 of imposing an arbitrary rate of pre- 
 mium upon the tenants, there is no 
 reason why such a tyranny should con- 
 tinue for ever to be exercised. We 
 live in an age when matters such as 
 these are carefully looked into. Tenants 
 are not now serfs, nor landlords feudal 
 lords, and both are open to conviction 
 with regard to their own interests. It 
 may fall to the lot even of the Unity 
 with its powerful constituency and 
 numerous ramifications to assist in 
 breaking down a monopoly, which, 
 while it brings no peculiar security to 
 the landlord, certainly inflicts a posi- 
 tive injury on the tenant. Irrespective, 
 however, of existing leases of houses 
 erected, there is a field of enormous 
 magnitude for the Unity and other 
 offices to contend for in the wonderful 
 growth of every city, town, or village, 
 in the United Kingdom. We believe 
 it quite possible that the landlords and 
 tenants of these new buildings may 
 think themselves as secure in the 
 Unity, where all the names of the Share- 
 holders are published, as in an office of 
 which they know nothing. They may 
 also consider they might as well take 
 their business to an office which returns 
 them two-thirds of the profits, as to 
 one that charges arbitrary rates of 
 premium, and puts all the profit into 
 the pockets of its unknown proprie- 
 tary. 
 
 The Directors have not only heard 
 of the offices enumerated by the Moni- 
 tor, but have read a correspondence 
 (extracted from the Times newspaper 
 of 21st November, 1851,) respecting 
 their views and mode of conducting 
 business, which will be found at pp.31, 
 32. This correspondence they recom- 
 mend to the earnest attention of their 
 shareholders and of the public. It 
 shows but too clearly the desire of 
 certain ancient corporations, not only 
 to monopolise business to the injury 
 of all who insure, but also to crush, if 
 they can, by unfair and unwarrantable 
 
12 
 
 UNITY FIRE INSURANCE ASSOCIATION. 
 
 STATEMENTS OP THE " INSURANCE 
 
 monitor . 5 5 — ( Continued .) 
 
 IX. "The Unity Shareholders may 
 possibly say, i Oh ! but we intend to be 
 our own customers.’ Bigger fools they. 
 Such a step would be in direct oppo- 
 sition to their own interest and secu- 
 rity. In insuring their property in 
 other offices they would be reimbursed 
 by other persons for all their property 
 that might be destroyed, whilst in 
 insuring in their own office they would 
 have to pay to themselves out of their 
 own funds the entire amount of their 
 losses. It is entirely opposed to the 
 principle of such associations for a man 
 to come to himself to insure with him- 
 self, and to make that portion of his 
 property which he has no occasion to 
 insure responsible for the destruction 
 by fire of that portion of his property 
 which he does insure.” — (p. 6.) 
 
 X. "Enough, it may be assumed, 
 has been stated to justify the writer in 
 renewing his endeavours to induce the 
 public to discourage any further exten- 
 sion of Institutions, whether professing 
 to have for their object Assurance on 
 Life, or Insurance against Fire. Every 
 Institution of the kind more than the 
 number required to conduct the busi- 
 ness to be transacted occasions a posi- 
 tive loss to the public of the entire amount 
 of the management expenditure of the 
 office. It would not be difficult to name 
 50 companies, the business of which, 
 if the whole of them were dissolved to- 
 morrow, could be carried on by distri- 
 bution among the other offices, without 
 the addition of a single clerk; and 
 averaging the annual expenditure of 
 these 50 companies at £3,000 each, 
 there is already a positive loss to the 
 public of £150,000 a year, in conse- 
 quence of these surplus companies! 
 
 (p. 6.) 
 
 XI. "One of the fortunate young 
 men thus provided for was Mr. Thomas 
 H. Baylis, who became Secretary of 
 
 REPLIES OE THE DIRECTORS OF THE 
 
 " unity. 55 — ( Continued.) 
 means, every new competitor who 
 seeks only a fair field and no favour. 
 
 IX. The ridiculous absurdity of this 
 transparent sophistry almost makes it 
 an insult to the reader to dwell upon 
 it. Is there a shareholder in a Joint- 
 stock bank that would not prefer his 
 own bank to that of another ? Is not 
 Fire Insurance a self-supporting and 
 highly-profitable business, when on a 
 sufficiently extensive scale? If not, 
 how can it be ■worth the while of the 
 " Sun ” the " Globe ” or any other 
 office to transact such business? If it 
 be, why should not those w r ho make the 
 profits — namely, the insurers — receive 
 the profits themselves, instead of pay- 
 ing them to others. This writer evi- 
 dently does not comprehend the differ- 
 ence between Capital and Income. He 
 supposes that all losses should be paid 
 from the former instead of from the 
 latter, and therefore that every loss 
 detracts from the capital, instead of 
 having been duly provided for by the 
 income. What are premiums for, if 
 they be not sufficient to meet the losses ? 
 They do so — and leave a large margin 
 of profit. The whole of the 5,000 
 Unity Shareholders who duly appre- 
 ciate this principle may retort the 
 vulgar epithet cast upon them by this 
 most disinterested and more than ques- 
 tionable authority. 
 
 X. This principle might apply to 
 every banking interest and to commer- 
 cial establishments of every kind with 
 equal force. It might, with equal 
 absurdity, be contended that the Bank 
 of England could transact all the 
 business effected by Messrs. Roths- 
 child, Messrs. Baring, and all the Pri- 
 vate and Joint-stock Banking estab- 
 lishments of the country ; that Messrs. 
 Barclay could brew porter enough to 
 supply the whole demand of the public ; 
 that the Times newspaper could supply 
 the public with intelligence, and that 
 the morning journals are interlopers, 
 and entail loss upon the public. People, 
 however, recognise very fully the salu- 
 tary principle of honourable competi- 
 tion, and are not prepared to yield the 
 possession of this manifest advantage 
 for the purpose of maintaining a mono- 
 poly, at a sacrifice to themselves. 
 
 XI. Of the value of Mr. Baylis’s 
 services the present position of the 
 Unity is the best test and proof. 
 
ADDRESS TO THE SHAREHOLDERS. 
 
 13 
 
 STATEMENTS OE THE (( INSURANCE 
 monitor.” — ( Continued.) 
 the Trafalgar. If Mr. Thomas H. 
 Baylis had been as wise as he was for- 
 tunate, he would have been content 
 with the good-luck which, under the 
 skilful contrivances of more able per- 
 sons, had placed him in a position far 
 beyond any pretensions he could ad- 
 vance, on the ground either of age, 
 experience, or marvellous ability. Mr. 
 Thomas H. Baylis, however, seems to 
 have imagined that the duties of one 
 Secretaryship were not sufficiently 
 arduous, or the salary of the office not 
 sufficiently high to exhaust his ener- 
 gies, or satisfy his expectations ; so, 
 following in the steps of those who 
 had established one company for the 
 purpose of providing him with a berth, 
 he appears to have considered that he 
 might as well set up another company 
 on his own account, in order to com- 
 plete the good work they had begun.” 
 (p. 7.) 
 
 XII. “ Any company formed by Mr. 
 Edward Baylis, and by the gentlemen 
 associated with him at the Profes- 
 sional Board, w T ould necessarily be of 
 a very different nature from those 
 swindling schemes which it has been the 
 good fortune of the ‘ Post Magazine 5 
 to expose and crush. Its editor, 
 therefore, should have been left unmo- 
 lested by Mr. Thomas H. Baylis, in 
 the arduous and critical duty he was 
 discharging — a duty which in its nature 
 was quite as protective of the “ Profes- 
 sional,” the “ Trafalgar,” the “ Water- 
 loo,” and the Unity, as of companies 
 that were in existence long before 
 Mr Thomas H. Baylis became secre- 
 tary of the “ Trafalgar” by virtue of 
 sonship, and secretary of the Unity by 
 right of discovery and conquest. The 
 Siamese secretary, however, thought 
 it was high time to put down the Post 
 Magazine ; and he seems to have con- 
 sidered there was nobody in the world 
 so capable of doing it as himself. 
 Accordingly, at a public meeting, held 
 at Birmingham about twelve months 
 ago, Mr. Thomas H. Baylis waxed 
 valorous, and declared — 
 
 “‘If the list of names published by the 
 ‘ Unity' was made use of by their opponents to 
 injure them; if they tried to oppose their career 
 of success— for it was by no means difficult to 
 write a 'penny pamphlet to traduce them — the 
 slanderers might, erelong, have bitter occasion 
 to rue the insane course they had felt proper to 
 adopt. It would recoil upon them sooner or 
 later.’ (p. 7.) 
 
 XIII. “Mr. Thomas H. Baylis dares 
 the editor of the Post Magazine to 
 
 REPLIES OF THE DIRECTORS OF THE 
 “ unity. 55 — { Continued.) 
 
 The Directors of the Unity are of 
 opinion that their judgment in the 
 selection of a manager or other offi- 
 cers does not require assistance ; and 
 least of all the volunteered advice of 
 such a person as the Editor of the 
 Monitor. 
 
 The insinuation that the Company 
 was established for the purpose of pro- 
 viding Mr. T. H. Baylis with another 
 berth, is, like so many of the Moni- 
 tor's statements, simply untrue and 
 unfounded. 
 
 The Directors take this opportunity, 
 once for all, of expressing their high 
 opinion of the ability, experience, and 
 integrity of their General Manager. 
 
 XII. — It is difficult to reconcile this 
 statement with the opening remarks of 
 the Monitor. If, as it is here stated, it 
 is true that “ Any company formed by 
 Mr. Edward Baylis and by the gentle- 
 men associated with him at the “ Pro- 
 fessional,” “ woidd necessarily be of a 
 very different nature from those swind- 
 ling schemes which it has been the good 
 fortune of the “ Post Magazine 55 to 
 expose and crush, 1 ' why refer to a 
 swindler’s proceedings on introducing 
 the name of the Unity ? How can 
 these two positions be made to agree ? 
 
 The editor of the “ Post Magazine ” 
 seeks every means of puffing his own 
 wares and name. He has no scruples 
 in attributing motives of any descrip- 
 tion to suit his own views. In Mr. 
 Thomas H. Baylis’s speech at Birming- 
 ham, no allusion was made by name to 
 the Post Magazine, and the editor, 
 therefore, had no right to assume to 
 himself the position of qualifying any 
 statements made on the occasion re- 
 ferred to by Mr. Baylis, or of making 
 his print, or his own proceedings of 
 such importance, as to occasion Mr. 
 Thomas II. Baylis the slightest con- 
 sideration. 
 
 XIII. Mr. Thomas H. Baylis, in his 
 speech from which the foregoing ex- 
 
UNITY FIRE INSURANCE ASSOCIATION. 
 
 14 
 
 STATEMENTS OF THE “ INSURANCE 
 
 monitor.” — (C ontinued.) 
 make use of the names published by 
 the Unity.” — ( p. 9.) 
 
 XIV. 6i The Unity advertisement 
 displays a list of nearly 5,000 share- 
 holders whose payments of five shil- 
 lings on each £ 2 share yields, it is 
 said, a working capital of one hundred 
 and twenty-five thousand pounds. 
 There is no disputing the extent and 
 importance of such a capital if it were 
 all paid up ; but in looking into the 
 schedule to the deed setting forth the 
 names and occupations of the parties, 
 and the number of shares subscribed 
 for, the following numbers are found 
 to stand against the fifty names which 
 occupy the first four pages of the sche- 
 dule : it is sufficient to give the num- 
 bers, without the names ; and they are 
 placed in columns, under the respec- 
 tive headings of ‘ Paid ’ and Unpaid.’ 
 
 Unpaid. 
 
 Paid. 
 
 100 
 
 40 
 
 500 
 
 100 
 
 400 
 
 10 
 
 200 
 
 10 
 
 500 
 
 10 
 
 100 
 
 50 
 
 20 
 
 2000* 
 
 100 
 
 200 
 
 1000 
 
 350 
 
 3000* 
 
 50 
 
 100 
 
 20 
 
 100 
 
 20 
 
 200 
 
 50 
 
 1000 
 
 100 
 
 100 
 
 10 
 
 50 
 
 10 
 
 50 
 
 10 
 
 50 
 
 100 
 
 400 
 
 100 
 
 50 
 
 50 
 
 200 
 
 40 
 
 40 
 
 
 4i * Mr. E Raylis’s shares. — (pp. 9,10.) 
 
 REPLIES OP TEE DIRECTORS OF THE 
 
 “ unity.” — ( Continued .) 
 tract was made, does not appear to 
 have referred to the editor of the Post 
 Magazine more than to any other 
 slanderer. His words, though uttered 
 more than twelve months since, would 
 appear, however, to have been some- 
 what anticipatory. A twopenny slan- 
 der has been written ; it lias been 
 adopted by the opponents referred to, 
 namely, the Companies which were 
 then mainly engaged in attacking 
 young life offices ; and the Directors 
 have that implicit faith in the good 
 feeling of their Shareholders and the 
 public to believe that the slander will 
 “ recoil” upon those offices which have 
 given it such wholesale publication. 
 
 XIV. It is true the Unity adver- 
 tisement did display a list of nearly 
 5,000 Shareholders, and it is equally 
 true that the deposit of 5s. on each 
 £2 Share yields a working Capital of 
 £125,000. The manner in which this 
 statement is made in the Monitor, and 
 the ambiguity of language employed, 
 would seem to imply a doubt of this 
 amount having been paid up. In 
 reality the whole of that sum has 
 been received by the Directors, and 
 is invested at excellent interest, 
 with the exception, of course, of the 
 preliminary expenses necessarily in- 
 curred in this great undertaking. As 
 the Capital is, therefore, all paid up, 
 (i there is no disputing the extent and 
 importance of such a Capital ” 
 
 In this extract the writer has again 
 wilfully misrepresented the position of 
 the Unity. If he be really as well 
 acquainted with the Registrar’s Office, 
 in finding out the condition of com- 
 panies, and as honourably disposed 
 as he would lead the public to be- 
 lieve, he must have well known that 
 in taking such an extract from the 
 schedule of the Unity Deed he was 
 committing an act of the grossest de- 
 ception. The extract given in the 
 Monitor is taken from the schedule, 
 which is bound to be deposited in the 
 office of the Registrar-General, at the 
 very commencement of the Company ; 
 and one of the provisions of the Act 
 is that that schedule shall contain the 
 number of shares which each subscriber 
 holds, and the distinctive numbers 
 thereof, distinguishing the numbers 
 of the shares on which the deposit has 
 been paid from those on which it has 
 not been paid. The particular part of 
 the schedule extracted by the Monitor 
 was therefore deposited with the 
 
ADDRESS TO THE SHAREHOLDERS. 
 
 15 
 
 STATEMENTS OF THE “ INSURANCE 
 monitor.” — ( Continued .) 
 Unpaid. Paid. 
 
 25 
 400 
 20 
 10 
 200 
 50 
 500 
 200 
 100 
 20 ” 
 
 XV .- — “ The advertisement in the 
 Times newspaper professes to exhibit 
 the names of upwards of 4,000 share- 
 holders. There is much delusion in 
 this. A great number of the names 
 run in fours, fives, and sixes ; being 
 the names of papa and mama, and 
 two, three, or four of the dear chil- 
 dren — one of them, perhaps, the blessed 
 baby lying in its cradle, unconscious 
 of its early importance in life as a 
 shareholder in the Unity Fire Insur- 
 ance Association ; — its nurse possibly 
 singing the old lullaby, with a slight 
 variation in phraseology : — 
 
 “ Oh ! rest thee my darling 
 Oh ! sleep whilst you may ; 
 
 Papa ‘ pa.\ s the Piper : ’ 
 
 You’ve nothing to pay.” — (p. 10.) 
 
 XVI. “It won’t do, Mr. Secretary 
 Baylis, — Fire Insurancebusinessisto be 
 viewed under a very different light from 
 that which you are disposed to throw 
 upon it. You were once heard to de- 
 clare that ‘Fire Insurance Offices never 
 fail.’ Indeed,, Mr. Baylis, Fire Offices 
 do fail ; and if you have still any doubt 
 of a fact of which you ought to have 
 well-informed yourself before you un- 
 dertook the responsibility of putting 
 the parties whose names are enrolled 
 in the leviathan advertisement, in the 
 best of all possible positions for ascer- 
 taining whether they do fail or not, 
 
 REPLIES OF THE DIRECTORS OF THE 
 “ unity.” — ( Continued.) 
 Registrar previous to the 13th of Sep- 
 tember, 1852, at least one month 
 before the Unity commenced business, 
 and three months only from the time 
 the first prospectus of the Company 
 was issued. More than a year has 
 elapsed since that time, and during 
 that period the signatures of nearly 
 5000 shareholders have been appended 
 to the deed. The extract therefore is 
 from a document dated 1852. The 
 Monitor is published in 1853, more than 
 a year afterwards. That any man 
 should dare to use this extract as an 
 evidence of the present condition of 
 the Unity, is the best criterion which 
 could be afforded of the credit to be 
 attached to any statements he may 
 make. 
 
 XV. The advertisement in the 
 Times newspaper does exhibit the 
 names of upwards of 4,000 share- 
 holders. There is no delusion in this. 
 It is true that in several instances a 
 parent or guardian acts as trustee to 
 a minor, holding shares of the capital 
 stock of this Association, as is the case 
 in almost every other large under- 
 taking. How many millions of pro- 
 perty, represented by Government 
 stock of all kinds, are held in the same 
 manner ? How does this fact detract 
 from the responsibility of the Unity, 
 more than from that of any other com- 
 pany ? On the contrary, when the head 
 of a house has enrolled himself as a share- 
 holder, he has effectually strengthened 
 his interest in the Association, by 
 adding the names of his family. It 
 has been well said that “ children are 
 the to-morrow of society ; ” and in a 
 very few years, many of the minors of 
 to-day will be the matured means of 
 carrying into new and extended circles, 
 a natural and growing influence in 
 * favour of that which has been a source 
 of gratification to them in youth. 
 
 XVI. The Shareholders of the Unity 
 are not in any way indebted to the 
 Monitor for having recited the names 
 of the various small Companies which 
 have merged their business into other 
 Offices. The Directors of the Unity 
 made them known to their Share- 
 holders long before the appearance of 
 the Insurance Monitor. It will be per- 
 ceived that of those sixty-four Fire 
 Insurance Companies, no less than 
 forty-six were local offices, three were 
 sectarian, and the remainder either 
 scarcely commenced business, were 
 started by a single trade or profession 
 
16 
 
 UNITY FIRE INSURANCE ASSOCIATION. 
 
 STATEMENTS OP THE a INSURANCE 
 
 monitor.” — ( Continued .) 
 you had better cast your eye over the 
 following list : — 
 
 Fire Insurance Companies which, during the 
 last twenty years , have proved failures , and 
 no longer exist. 
 
 ’’Aberdeen Mutual 
 Albion 
 
 Alliance, Irish 
 Rath, Old 
 Bath, Sun 
 Beacon 
 
 *Brewers & Distillers 
 Benevolent 
 Berks and Gloucester 
 Bon Accord 
 Brighton 
 Bristol 
 
 Bristol, Crown 
 Bristol Union 
 ^British 
 
 British Commercial 
 Canterbury &E ast K en t 
 Coventry and War- 
 wickshire 
 Devizes 
 Devon, South 
 Dublin 
 Dundee 
 Eagle 
 
 ^English & Cambrian 
 English & Scotch Law 
 Fife 
 
 Finchingfield 
 Friendly 
 Glasgow 
 Gloucestershire 
 Hercules 
 
 Hertford and Cam- 
 bridge County 
 Hibernian 
 Hope 
 
 Independent West 
 Middlesex 
 
 * Companies established under the Act 7 & 8 
 Viet., cap. 110: under which the Unity is 
 formed.” — (p. 10.) 
 
 XVII. “ Even this very week the 
 Star Fire Insurance Company, brought 
 out with every hope of success, from 
 being associated with a life office of 
 the same name of high character, has 
 been compelled by its heavy losses to 
 transfer its remaining business to the 
 Manchester : and not long ago the 
 National Mercantile, similarly associ- 
 ated, having lost half its capital, 
 adopted the only course left open for 
 saving for the shareholders the other 
 half, namely, in merging its business 
 into that of one of the great offices, 
 the Sun. Take again the Preston and 
 North Lancashire, which between Au- 
 gust, 1845, and June, 1848, lost every 
 shilling of its capital (£20,000), and 
 had to make a further call upon the 
 shareholders to meet remaining liabi- 
 lities.” — (pp. 10, 11.) 
 
 REPLIES OP THE DIRECTORS OF THE 
 
 “ unity.” — ( Continued.) 
 where the interest is circumscribed, or 
 they were an appendage to an existing 
 Life Assurance Company. That they 
 should have had to resign business is 
 no marvel. It is a result which could 
 have been prophesied, and might with 
 safety be predicted of any such Office 
 which should be now essayed. Expe- 
 rience has shown that a “ little ” Fire 
 Insurance business cannot yield a 
 profit. But if the Editor of the 
 Monitor know anything about Fire 
 Insurance business he will have been 
 aware that Companies which have suc- 
 ceeded in establishing a Fire business, 
 although not sufficient to be carried on 
 at a profit, find no difficulty in dis- 
 posing of it to other more flourishing 
 Companies. 
 
 Even supposing these Offices to 
 have been absolute failures, how does 
 their failure affect the Unity ? How 
 could the failure of five hundred local 
 or sectarian Offices in any way apply 
 to a scheme so universal, so unsecta- 
 rian, so cosmopolitan, as is the Unity, 
 in its intention, constitution, and pre- 
 sent position ? At the present time 
 the Unity possesses p, constituency of 
 nearly 5,000 Shareholders, several 
 local boards in provincial cities and 
 towns, hundreds of zealous and ener- 
 getic agents, and an amount of co- 
 operative machinery to advance its 
 interests, such as has never before 
 been secured, though the Institution 
 is yet but in its infancy. 
 
 XVII. The Star Fire Insurance 
 Company was one of the sectarian 
 offices already referred to. According 
 to the deed in the Registration Office, 
 there were only 512 shareholders. 
 The shares were 20,000, at £25, with 
 deposit of 2s. 6d. on allotment, and 
 17s. 6d. on complete registration. 
 The whole paid-up capital was, there- 
 fore, only £20,000. The risks were 
 limited to First Class, 10,000 ; Second 
 Class, 6,000 ; Third Class, 3,000 ; 
 Fourth Class, 2,000 ; Fifth Class, 
 1,000. It will thus be perceived 
 that its capital and business were 
 of the most limited character, and 
 that it was precisely one of those 
 “little” Fire Insurance Offices which 
 it has been before observed could 
 not hope to succeed. The National 
 Mercantile was also a class office, 
 being promoted by one particular 
 trade. According to the registered 
 Report, it had only 334 shareholders, 
 not one half of the shares were sold. 
 
 Insurance Company o l 
 Scotland 
 
 Irish Commercial 
 
 Leicestershire 
 
 Metellus 
 
 *National, English 
 *National, Mercantile 
 Newcastle and North 
 of England 
 Norwich 
 
 Norwich Equitable, 
 Old 
 
 Palladium 
 
 Perth, County and 
 City 
 
 Plicenix, Irish 
 Preston and North 
 Lancashire 
 ^Protector 
 Reading 
 Royal Irish 
 Salamander 
 Sceptre 
 
 ^Shields, North and 
 South 
 
 *Suffolk, Amicable 
 Suffolk, East 
 Suffolk, West 
 Surrey and Sussex 
 W estern 
 
 West of Scotland 
 Winchester and South 
 of England 
 Worcester 
 
 York and North of 
 England. 
 
17 
 
 ADDRESS TO TIIE SHAREHOLDERS. 
 
 STATEMENTS OF THE il INSURANCE 
 
 monitor.” — ( Continued .) 
 
 XVIII. ‘“Fire Offices never fail !’ 
 Don’t they ? Then why did the 
 Brewers’ Company lose all its capital ; 
 and its shareholders contribute £2 per 
 share besides ? Why did the Sceptre 
 close its doors with a loss of £3,000, 
 the Irish Alliance, £20,000, the Bath, 
 £18,000, the Beacon upwards of 
 £40,000 ? Sir Peter Laurie, who had 
 to pay £7,000 for his share of the 
 losses of the last-named Company, 
 should wait on the Secretary of the 
 Unity in order to be fully satisfied 
 that he paid this large sum in error. 
 These heavy responsibilities on par- 
 ticular individuals accrue from the 
 circumstance that in large proprie- 
 tories, where the shares are of small 
 amount, a great number of persons 
 belonging to them have not a sixpence 
 in the world beyond the few pounds 
 they had saved up and have been in- 
 duced to part with in order to assume 
 the important position of being a 
 Shareholder in a Public Company. 
 The name of a female servant at 
 Norwich could be mentioned, who, 
 poor simple soul, has been induced, at 
 the recommendation of an agent of the 
 Unity, to sell out the few pounds she 
 had in the savings’ bank and invest it 
 in the shares of that association.” 
 
 XIX. “The shilling -commission 
 canvassers for disposing of shares 
 endeavour to persuade parties that no 
 liability is incurred beyond the amount 
 they subscribe for. If so, how is it 
 that at the present moment Mr. Win- 
 thorp, instead of occupying his seat at 
 the Professional Board is, unhappily, 
 wnthin the walls of the Queen’s Bench 
 Prison, for liabilities to the extent of 
 £40,000, from having been incautiously 
 induced to take 10 shares in one of 
 Collingridge’s Companies ? Read the 
 newspapers of the past week, Mr. 
 Baylis, and you will see under the 
 head of Insolvent Debtor’s Court , a 
 gentleman appealing for protection 
 whose chief debt is a claim against 
 him of £2,300 for his share of the lia- 
 bilities of the defunct Counties Union’’ 
 
 -(p. u.) 
 
 REPLIES OF THE DIRECTORS OF THE 
 “ unity.” — ( Continued .) 
 its capital and business also were 
 of the most limited character, and, 
 naturally enough, it was absorbed 
 by the “ Sun,” in April, 1853. As to 
 the Preston and North Lancashire, it 
 was, by the Monitor’s own showing, 
 too small to need further remark. 
 
 XVIII. The Monitor not being able 
 to afford any proof of failure of a 
 Metropolitan Fire Insurance Company 
 established on general principles, and 
 yet desiring to cast a general gloom 
 over the business of Fire Insurance, in 
 order to create doubts in the minds of 
 the Shareholders in the Unity as to its 
 being remunerative, has been obliged 
 to resort to very poor and feeble 
 illustrations. The Brewers’ Company 
 is one of these. Its very name specially 
 designates it as a class office. It was 
 registered on the 26th of April, 1852. 
 It had 182 Shareholders, and its pro- 
 posed capital was only £125,000. It 
 scarcely transacted any business, and 
 it proposed so many branches in Life 
 business that, as a Fire Insurance 
 Office, it bears no analogy whatever 
 to the Unity. The Sceptre was in a 
 still more inchoate position. It is 
 believed that it never transacted a 
 Policy on its own risk, "while, like 
 every other undertaking, it had its 
 preliminary expenses. As to the Irish 
 Alliance , the Bath , and Beacon , they 
 were all local affairs which had no 
 chance of becoming established. Thus 
 none of the cases cited bear any com- 
 parison whatever with the Unity. As 
 to the story of the “female servant, ’ 
 we refer our readers to the letter of 
 the Norwich local manager, at p. 22:.. 
 
 XIX. The implication of the Pro- 
 fessional board having no relation to 
 the Unity Association maybe fairly left 
 for disposal to the Directors of the Pro- 
 fessional, who have already replied tp 
 many articles of a similar character. 
 The case of Mr.Winthorp, “unhappily” 
 has nothing to do with either the Unity 
 or Professional Board. The Directors 
 of the Unity know nothing of Colling- 
 ridge’s Companies; and as to the Coun- 
 ties Union , it does not appear by any 
 return to the Registrar’s office that 
 any business was ever transacted. 
 
 The “ shilling-commission ” having 
 been disposed of in a previous reply, 
 we now come to the question of liabi- 
 lity, and beg to place before our Share- 
 holders the following case, which has 
 been submitted for the opinion of 
 counsel ; — 
 
 B 
 
18 UNITY FIRE INSURANCE ASSOCIATION. 
 
 “CASE FOR THE OPINION OF COUNSEL. 
 
 “ The 228th clause of the Deed of Settlement provides, ‘ That every pro- 
 prietor of the Company, his or her executors, administrators, or assigns, as 
 between him, her, or them, and all or any of the other proprietors of the Com- 
 pany, and their respective heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns, shall be 
 answerable and liable for, or in respect of, the calls, debts, losses, and demands 
 of or upon the Company in proportion to his or her share and interest for the 
 time being in the funds or property, but not further or otherwise.’ 
 
 “The 83rd clause provides, ‘That the Board of Directors shall cause to be 
 inserted in every policy issued by the Company, or to be endorsed thereon 
 respectively, a declaration that the capital stock and funds of the Company 
 shall alone be liable to answer and make good all claims in respect of any such 
 policy, and that no Director or Proprietor of the Company shall in any manner 
 be personally liable or subject to any such claims or demands, or be in anywise 
 charged by reason of such policy beyond the amount of his or her share or 
 shares of such capital stock or funds.’ 
 
 “ In every policy issued by the Association is inserted the following proviso. 
 ‘ That the capital stock of one million pounds sterling or so much thereof as for 
 the time being shall have been subscribed, and the stocks, funds, securities, and 
 property of the said Association remaining at the time of any claim or demand 
 made, unapplied and undisposed of and inapplicable to prior claims and demands 
 in pursuance of the trusts, powers, and authorities contained in the deed or deeds 
 of settlement of the said Association, shall alone be liable to answer and make 
 good all claims and demands upon the said Association, under or by virtue or 
 in respect of this policy, and all other policies effected with or granted by the 
 said Association, and that no director, proprietor, or member of the said Asso- 
 ciation, his or her heirs, executors, or administrators, shall by reason of any 
 policy of insurance or of the whole of the policies of insurances together, which 
 any director has signed or may sign, be in anywise individually or personally 
 liable or subject to any claims or demands against the said Association, beyond 
 the amount of the unpaid part of his or her particular share or shares in the 
 said capital stock of one million pounds, or such part of the said capital stock 
 as for the time being shall have been subscribed.’ 
 
 “ You are requested to advise the Shareholders of the Unity Fire Insurance 
 Association — ■ 
 
 “ 1st. Whether they are liable to the Policy holders for more than the amount 
 of the unpaid part of their Share or Shares in the Stock of the Association, for 
 which they have subscribed the Deed of Settlement respectively. 
 
 “2ndly. To advise the Shareholders generally as to their liability.” 
 
 OPINION. 
 
 “ 1st. Assuming that the restrictive Declaration, required by the 83rd clause 
 of the Deed of Settlement, is inserted in or endorsed on every Policy issued by 
 the Association, and is in the form above stated, I am of opinion, that a Share- 
 holder in the Unity Fire Insurance Association is not liable to the Policy holders 
 for more than the amount of the unpaid part of his or her particular Share in the 
 Capital Stock of the Association. The restrictive proviso being inserted in, or 
 endorsed on, the Policy, forms part of the contract between the Association and 
 the Policy holder, stipulates for, and affects him with, notice of the limited lia- 
 bility of the Shareholders, and precludes him from charging them with an unli- 
 mited liability See Hallet v. The Merchant Traders’ Ship, Loan, and Insurance 
 
 Association, 14 Jurist, 220 & 19, L. J. Q. B. 29. Hassell v. the same, 4 Exche- 
 quer Reports, 525. Hallet and others v. Dowdall, 16 Jurist, 462. In re, The 
 Worcester Corn Exchange Company, Haskew’s Case, 17 Jurist, 721. 
 
 “2ndly. As to the liability of a shareholder generally, I am of opinion, that, in 
 contracts made by the directors of the Association, authorised by and in accord- 
 ance with their deed of settlement, without the restrictive proviso and with third 
 parties, who have no notice of the terms of the deed of settlement, a shareholder 
 is liable to the same extent as a partner in an ordinary partnership, subject, 
 however, to the proviso in 7 and 8 Vic., c. 110, s. 66, for cesser of liability, 
 after the expiration of three years, from the time he shall have ceased to be a 
 shareholder, and subject also to this, that before such third parties can proceed 
 against a shareholder individually, they must obtain judgment against the Asso- 
 ciation and use due diligence to obtain satisfaction of such judgment by exe- 
 cution against the property of the Association. They must, in effect, before 
 proceeding against a shareholder individually, first seek payment out of and 
 exhaust the assets of the Association, 7 and 8 Vic., c. 110, s. 66* 
 
 “ 11, New Square, Lincoln’s Inn, Oct. 31,1853.” “ Wm. Wellington Co opes. 
 
ADDRESS TO THE SHAREHOLDERS. 
 
 19 
 
 Having thus shown the mendacious character of the Insurance Monitor, and 
 disproved the statements made for the purpose of injuring the Unity, we are 
 content to leave its editor dangling on the gibbet of his own untruth. We feel 
 it, however, somewhat necessary to offer a few words of explanation to our 
 Shareholders as to the reasons which have induced us to notice this ignorant and 
 badly-written production. Our attention had been drawn to it on its first 
 appearance, but a glance at its pages showed it to be so full of untruth, 
 malice, and personality, as to render it unworthy even of the expression of our 
 contempt. The Monitor and its editor would have been left to the common 
 sense of the public. But when it was found that rival offices were descending 
 so low as to adopt this paltry print, sending it by thousands to our shareholders 
 and presenting it both at their own counters, and, through their agents, to 
 insurers in every part of the country, we felt it our duty to unmask the hireling, 
 and to bring the case to the bar of public opinion, which is not to be hoodwinked 
 by shallow sophistry, nor led away by vulgar maliciousness. 
 
 Mr. Hartnoll’s Bow-street experience would appear to have made him so 
 familiar with the dark parts of human nature as to enable him, unhappily, to 
 calculate but too securely on the means of disseminating elaborate puffs of 
 himself, by wrapping them up in envenomed slanders upon his betters. 
 
 Mr. Thomas H. Baylis had, as Mr. Hartnoll states (for once truly), declared, 
 at a public meeting held in Birmingham, that “ if the list of names published by 
 the Unity were made use of by their opponents to injure them ; if they tried to 
 oppose their career of success— -for it was by no means difficult to write a penny 
 pamphlet to traduce them — the slanderers might, ere long, have bitter occasion 
 to rue the insane course they had thought proper to adopt. Sooner or later, it 
 would recoil upon themselves.” The cap which Mr. Baylis there and thus threw 
 down upon the general floor, good Mr. Hartnoll now picks up, as fitting his 
 head so precisely and peculiarly — and thus, self- condemned, he casts about 
 for personal revenge. Then, like honest Xago, he devises plans to put 
 money in his purse, while he aims at gratifying his own personal spleen. 
 By assailing the Unity he hopes to enlist in his support those offices most 
 sure to suffer by the spread .of its superior principles and its superior 
 success. And he succeeds, for the nonce, with certain unscrupulous Insurance 
 Agents or Managers, who have not learned the simple, world-wide truth, that 
 honesty is, in the end, always the best policy. That Mr. J. Hooper Hartnoll, 
 familiarly known at Bow-street Police-office, having utterly failed in the attempt 
 to bolster up his “little ” periodical by a general attack upon all offices that con- 
 formed to the provisions of the Joint-Stock Companies’ Registration Act, finding 
 himself snuffed out by the Report of the Parliamentary Committee, on the result 
 of whose labours he had staked his small pretensions to sagacity (and which 
 Report we earnestly entreat every Shareholder to read for himself ), that he, in 
 this sorry plight, should, with a fount of type at his command, enter upon 
 a new career of calumny, can occasion no surprise to any one of sense and 
 knowledge. Metropolitan men know full well how to estimate him and his puny 
 slander. Its motives and its meaning are alike transparent. But that the 
 officers and agents of Companies well known to be respectable, should lend 
 themselves to so disgraceful a proceeding as to buy up thousands of copies 
 of this twopenny trash, in order to circulate it in the provinces — at a safe 
 distance from the place where Mr. J. Hooper Hartnoll is so well known and so 
 accurately appreciated — this does indeed occasion to us, as it needs must to all 
 high-minded, honourable men, both pain and indignation. 
 
 There is, however, some consolation to be derived even from this unprincipled 
 conduct. If the progress of the Unity had not been so extraordinary, so rapid, 
 so unexpected, so unprecedented, not one of the old offices would have gone 
 out of its way to attack it. Personal and petty malice might have led an 
 individual to gratify his spleen by attacking the Institution in his “ little ” 
 periodical, but the really great, the leviathan corporations would never have 
 aroused themselves to interfere with the progress of the Unity had not its 
 progress broken in upon their long-standing monopolies, and its success been 
 felt by them so keenly. Which among the sixty-four Fire Offices that appeared 
 like meteors and passed away as soon — which of these excited the opposition of 
 the old companies ? When had they such a machinery set in motion as that 
 which has now been most disgracefully devised for the purpose of injuring the 
 Unity ? They were suffered to pursue their course, to do their business in any 
 way they chose. The lions — the old monopolists— knew that these were 
 
 B 2 
 
UNITY FIRE INSURANCE ASSOCIATION. 
 
 20 
 
 only jackals — and that all the business which they provided would ere long 
 fall to their share. But the Unity stands on new principles, and on a broad 
 foundation. It is known to have resources within itself which places it in 
 favourable contrast with those offices by which it has been preceded. It is 
 not struggling upon the ground, out of the sight of men, but it soars 
 aloft, and is therefore a mark for all. The Unity Fire Insurance Association 
 must expect to pay the penalty of greatness. Envy is excited by the rich 
 man, not by the beggar. Men are jealous of the great and powerful, 
 not of the mean or puny. If we were not prosperous, depend upon it we should 
 be left to fall in good time into the mouths of the leviathans. But having 
 achieved unprecedented success, we must expect that efforts will be made to 
 arrest our progress. We cannot expect immunity from the common law of 
 human affairs. Every new idea, every new principle, every new scheme having 
 for its aim the amelioration and benefit of mankind, and the civilisation of the 
 world, necessarily disturbs existing interests, and promotes opposition in the 
 minds of the minority. In like manner the Unity, which brings advantages 
 never before contemplated in the business of fire insurance, and seeks to popu- 
 larise it in this country, brings down upon itself, from those with whose interests 
 it interferes, the same spirit of opposition which has ever attended the inaugura- 
 tion of every new and great undertaking. 
 
 It is in vain, however, that the enemies of the Unity hope to make anything 
 but an ephemeral impression. Real principles like truth are eternal. The hold 
 which the Unity has taken upon the public mind is not to be rooted out by a few 
 old corporate monopolies because it may interfere with their peculiar views and 
 interests. They cannot reverse the fact, that we have nearly 5,000 shareholders, 
 and have established important, wealthy, and unimpeachable relations through- 
 out the length and breadth of this country. They cannot set aside the truth 
 that we have associated with us those whose zeal, energy, and persevering 
 determination will carry out successfully the great principles of our Institution. 
 The business already effected in the very infancy of the Unity is an earnest and 
 a pledge of the extraordinary success which, when fairly at work, it will accom- 
 plish. In twelve months there have been issued 6,117 Policies, insuring 
 property to the extent of £3,648,156 sterling. Let the opponents of the 
 Unity couple this fact with the letters from various parts of the country, here- 
 after appended, and they must confess that they cannot shake an institution so 
 established in the hearts of the people, at least with those weapons of abuse 
 which every right-minded man would, on reflection, be ashamed to adopt. 
 
 In concluding our remarks, we would earnestly impress upon the Share- 
 holders the necessity of a fearless unity in carrying out and maturing the 
 great principles of the association — Progress, Mutuality, and Diffusion : 
 that by the first, we may accomplish cheap insurance ; by the second, unity of 
 interest, and mutual support ; and by the third, the spreading of the roots of the 
 institution deep into the powerful resources of the country. We therefore, 
 with confidence, recommend to the Shareholders to increase the capital 
 of the Company upon the terms explained in the circular of the 18th instant. 
 The Unity will then have to boast not of 5,000, but of 20,000 Shareholders, 
 bound together under the flag of union ; determined, perseveringly and 
 unflinchingly, to march forward on the principles of mutuality and self-reliance. 
 
 We have now performed what we have considered a duty at once to our Share- 
 holders and ourselves. Our proceedings, and those of our manager, Mr. Thomas 
 H. Baylis, have been, and are always, and everywhere, above board ; and 
 they shall, despite fifty “ little ” Monitors , continue to be so. We have now to 
 take our leave, with the assurance that, as on our parts, the important material 
 interests confided to us by 5,000 Shareholders, ought to, and shall, absorb our 
 exclusive and best attention ; so do we believe that on your parts, should any 
 further paltry attacks be made upon this institution (by whatever malice or 
 money they may be instigated or supported), you will rest satisfied until you 
 receive at your ordinary Annual General Meetings such weighty answers to 
 them from your Directors in the shape of realised profits, as shall be consistent 
 with truth and fidelity to your interests. 
 
 Signed on behalf of the Board of Directors , 
 
 JAMES ANDREW DURHAM, Chairman. 
 
 HENRY STONES, Deputy Chairman. 
 
 Chief Offices, 40, Pall Mall, London, October 31, 1853. 
 
ADDRESS TO THE SHAREHOLDERS. 
 
 21 
 
 The Board rejoice to be able to point with entire satisfaction to the support 
 they have received from the Local Boards of Directors , Local Managers , and. 
 Agents, whose Resolutions and Letters are here given , and to which the attention 
 of the Shareholders is earnestly directed : — 
 
 LETTER FROM THE BIRMINGHAM BOARD. 
 
 “Unity Fire Insurance Association, Temporary Offices, Birmingham Branch, 
 “ 43, Temple Street, 29th October, 1853. 
 
 “Gentlemen, — We, 'the undersigned members of the Birmingham Board of the Unity Fire 
 Insurance Association, have much pleasure in forwarding you the following statement, showing 
 the great progress made by our Institution in this locality up to the present period. The best proof 
 that can be given of the estimation and confidence in which it is held by the public being, that 
 the number of shares allotted among 741 proprietors is 32,334, on the whole of which the deposit 
 of five shillings per share has been paid. 
 
 “ The number of policies issued is 876, insuring property to the extent of £434,582, and this 
 during the first year of its existence, notwithstanding the great competition and misrepresentation 
 with which it has had to contend. 
 
 “We take this opportunity of stating our firm conviction that when the broad and compre- 
 hensive principles of the Unity are more fully known, a vast extent of business will be the result, 
 and that this Association will ere long rank with the most prosperous of Fire Insurance Companies. 
 
 “ We are, Gentlemen, your obedient Servants, 
 
 “(Signed,) “James Collins, Chairman. 
 
 “Charles Dollman, Deputy Chairman. 
 “John Foster, 
 
 “John Welch, 
 
 “Henry Simons. 
 
 “To the Directors Of the Unity Fire Insurance Association.” 
 
 RESOLUTION OF THE SOUTHAMPTON BOARD OF THE UNITY FIRE INSURANCE 
 ASSOCIATION. 
 
 Extract from the Minutes of Proceedings of a Meeting of the Local Board of Management for the 
 Hampshire District , held at the Office, No. 2, High Street , Southampton , on Saturday , 29fft 
 October, 1853. 
 
 “ The attention of this Board having been drawn to a penny publication called the Insurance 
 Monitor , containing malicious statements, misrepresenting the position and prospects of the Unity 
 Fire Insurance Association, and copies of which publication, the members of this Board have proof, 
 have been forwarded by some of the old Fire Insurance offices to their Agents in this District for 
 circulation, indicating a combination to prejudice the minds of the Shareholders and the insuring 
 public against this Association : this Board deprecates such a mode of attack as unworthy the 
 character and position of the old established companies ; and to shew the estimation in which the 
 Institution is held in this District, the Board points with pleasure to the facts, that in a period of a 
 little more than six months, 28,700 shares of £2 each have been subscribed for by some of the most 
 wealthy and influential persons in this town and neighbourhood; that in the same brief period, up 
 to this day, the Local Manager for this District has received orders for 378 Policies, insuring 
 property to the value of £257,705 ; and that this Board has every reason to believe, that within one 
 year from its establishment in this District, the insurances will exceed half a million sterling. 
 This Board also fully approves of the proposed issue of new shares, and is of opinion, from the 
 anxiety evinced by the insuring public to obtain shares, that such new issue will be readily sub- 
 scribed for, and, in that case, the number of Shareholders in this District will be considerably 
 increased, and the insurances will very far exceed the first year’s estimate. 
 
 “Joseph Lankester, Mayor, Chairman. 
 “George Borrett, Dep. Chairman, 
 
 “ Thomas Hill, 
 
 SZIC*’ | local Directors.” 
 
 “Edwin Hearne. ) 
 
 LETTER FROM THE LEEDS BOARD. 
 
 “ Unity Fire Insurance Association, 
 
 “ Branch Office, Leeds, 5, South Parade, Oct. 29, 1853. 
 
 “ To the Directors of the London Board of the Unity Fire Insurance Association. 
 
 “ Gentlemen,— In reply to your letter of the 27th instant, we are sorry that having so very 
 recently commenced our duties as Directors, we are not able to afford as much information as will 
 most probably be given by some of the Local Boards who have been longer established. 
 
 “ We find that there are about 250 shareholders in Leeds, not taking families into account — 
 that ,250 policies, insuring £148,045, and producing in premiums £253 5s. lid., duty, £235 Id., 
 total, £488 Is., have actually been delivered, and that 52 proposals for £44,690 are now under 
 consideration, and the greater number of which are certain to be completed, and are expected 
 from the London office very shortly, which will increase the income about— on premiums, £124 
 3s. 5d., duty, £54 17s.; total, £179 5d. 
 
 “ Our promises for the Christmas quarter are already, we hope, good for insurances for about 
 £130,000; besides which we have reason to expect a good business in the interim. 
 
 “ With regard to old offices, of course we must expect to meet with great opposition. One of 
 the means used by a very large and respectable company to thwart us, where they have found our 
 shareholders about to remove their policies when unfortunately there is a mortgage on the 
 property, is to call on the mortgagee, and either get him to call in the amount, or to insist on the 
 insurance being renewed. One of the greatest difficulties we have to contend with, is the very low 
 rates of this same office, which often loses us a policy. 
 
 “We have the honour to be, gentlemen, your most obedient servants, 
 
 “ James Dixon, 
 
 “John Wilson, 
 
 “ Jossrn Richardson, Chairman ." 
 
22 UNIT Y FIRE INSURANCE ASSOCIATION. 
 
 LETTER FROM MR. H. HUDSTON, LOCAL MANAGER AT NOTTINGHAM. 
 
 “ Branch Offices, Wheeler Gate, Nottingham, 
 27th October, 1853. 
 
 “ Mr Dear Sir,— By to-night’s post I forward you copies of two local papers, the Nottingham 
 Journal and Nottinghamshire Guardian , with their remarks upon the scurrilous pamphlet, entitled 
 the Insurance Monitor , which has been forwarded to most of the ‘Unity’ Shareholders in this 
 district, and supplied to some parties in the town for gratuitous distribution ; facts which make it 
 evident that the writer is only a paid tool, and a very clumsy one, too; for anything more calcu- 
 lated to defeat its own object, with every right-minded, honourable man, than the Insurance 
 Monitor was never put before the public. 
 
 “ From great press of business, I have been unable to forward the usual accounts during the past 
 week. It gives me great pleasure to furnish you with a summary of the actual progress and prospects 
 of the ‘ Unity ’ here, since its establishment, as examined and passed by the Local Finance Committee 
 on Friday last, who are pleased to express their great gratification at the present prosperous state of 
 our affairs in Nottingham, and at the certainty of greatly increasing prosperity for the time to come. 
 
 “ In the first place, our actual Shareholders number 450, holding 58,000 shares. 
 
 “ The insurances effected (with one or two trivial exceptions) in Nottingham alone, since the 29th 
 September, 1852, number 440 Policies, insuring £412,970 sterling; and that you may judge 
 somewhat of our future prospects by the progress of the past, I give you the business done in each 
 
 quarter, commencing 29th September, 1852, viz. : — 
 
 Quarter ending 25th December, 1852, 30 Policies, insuring . . £ 20,970 
 
 Do. do. 25th March, 1853, 30 do. do. . . 32,980 
 
 Do. do. 24th June, 1853, 72 do. do. . . 73,130 
 
 Do. do. 29th September, 1853, 140 do. do. . . 114,740 
 
 And in this present quarter already 168 do. do. , . 171,150 
 
 Total, 440 Policies, insuring . . £412,970 
 
 This business has been effected at remunerative and established rates. It might have been 
 very much increased had the Local Directors chosen to accept business at lower rates than other 
 offices, but happily the 4 Unity ’ need not stoop to that. Is not this already unprecedented success ? 
 if not, what can be ? 
 
 “It must be remembered that this is Nottingham alone, and that my district comprises 
 Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, and Leicestershire. What will be the results when 
 the influence of our present connections have been brought to bear upon these counties? Every 
 day opens up to us fresh connections and largely-increasing business, while the promises for the 
 quarter next ensuing are nearly equal in amount to the business already done ; and we can even 
 look beyond this. The ‘ Unity ’ is established, is flourishing, and taking deeper root hourly, under 
 the guidance of its able founder and manager; and so long as the principles he has laid down for 
 It are observed, so long will the ‘Unity’ be a gathering of strength and wealth. 
 
 “ Yours very truly, “ Henry Hudston, Local Manager . 
 
 “ P.S. — I have been informed on good authority that the 4 Phoenix ’ office has supplied its agent 
 here with a shoal of the Insurance Monitor for gratuitous distribution. The 'agent for the 
 ‘ County ’lias also been very active in handing them about to his friends. 
 
 “ Thos. H. Baylis, Esq., Unity Fire Offices, 40, Pall Mall, London.” 
 
 LETTERS FROM MR. A. W. RAY, LOCAL MANAGER AT NORWICH. 
 
 “Unity Fire Insurance Association, Branch Offices, 
 Norwich, 27th Oct., 1853. 
 
 “ Mv dear Sir, — As you are expected to make some reply to the pamphlet which the Agents for 
 the Old Insurance Offices are so industriously circulating throughout the country, I have thought 
 you would like some information as to what has been doing in my district. 
 
 From 17th March, 1853, to 17th Sept., I have taken 470 Policies, insuring... £192,382 
 Whilst from 19th Sept, to 25th Oct, I have taken ... 440 „ „ ... 250,446 
 
 Making a Total, since 17th March, of.... 910 „ „ £442,828 
 
 And of these 910 Policies, I may say nearly all are transfers from old Offices; clearly showing that,, 
 in this district at least, a large portion of Insurers prefer the Unity. Some remark is made, I believe, 
 as to the Deposit on the Capital not being paid up. Now, if any Shares are not paid upon, you know 
 you have a great quantity of applications from me that are not allotted at this moment. 
 
 “ I have 550 Shareholders in this district, holding 40,120 Shares, whilst you have now 161 appli- 
 cations from this district for 8,960 Shares, which I should be glad to have allotted as speedily as 
 possible ; or, if the Shares are all allotted, and you should have any offered for sale by the present 
 Shareholders, I shall feel obliged by your purchasing them, and transferring them to my applicants. 
 
 “In Norwich the agent for the ‘Phoenix’ Office is not only industriously circulating these 
 pamphlets, but is also calling on the shareholders to add his own unbiassed (?) comments thereon. 
 Other agents here are also hard at work to injure us. 
 
 “From Ilford my agent writes, that from the head office of the 4 Sun’ a large number of 
 the pamphlets were sent to their agent for distribution among his clients. I have received letters 
 from nearly all our agents, stating that the agents for the old offices are circulating ‘The 
 Pamphlet’ throughout their respective localities. I know myself that parties in Norwich have 
 received by post fifty or sixty of these pamphlets, without knowing who sent them. 
 
 “I wish now, in conclusion, to call your attention to a remark about a servant at Norwich, who 
 was induced by an agent of the 4 Unity ’ to sell out in the savings' bank and buy 4 Unity ’ shares . 
 This came under my own notice. One day a respectable-looking lady called at our office and 
 made application for 400 shares, but was informed she could not have so many. She then wished 
 for 200, and offered to pay the whole amount of the shares, i.e. £400. This of course could not be 
 taken, and she paid the £50 deposit on the 200 shares. 
 
 44 She certainly had money in the savings’ bank, and left her book with me that I might apply 
 for the money; but how came this fact known to the writer of the pamphlet ? It was not spread 
 abroad by us, and the party who took the shares does not live in Norwich. This does not appear 
 much like a poor servant parting with her money at a pressing request Of an ‘agent of the Unity,’ 
 for I asked her ff any agent had seen her on the subject : and her reply was in the negative. She said 
 she had heard it talked of, and preferred our five per cent, to the £1 7s. 8d. of the savings’ bank. 
 
 441 am > dear sir > yours truly, “ A. W. Ray, Local Manager and Secretary . 
 
 W T. H. Baylis, Esq., London.” 
 
ADDRESS TO THE SHAREHOLDERS. 23 
 
 “ Norwich, 29th October, 3853. 
 
 “ Dear Sir, — I have just heard that two of the head clerks of the ‘Norwich Union ’ are actively 
 engaged amongst our Shareholders in giving circulation to the pamphlet. They say, ‘ Oh , I am 
 very sorry you have Shares in the Unity ; allow me to lend you this paper to read ,’ producing the 
 Insurance Monitor from their pockets. I have this fact from one of the persons they gave the 
 pamphlet to. 
 
 “ I understand that one of our newspapers has been applied to by an old office emissary, to 
 publish the Insurance Monitor ‘in toto’ in their columns. “ Yours, truly, 
 
 “ T. H. Baylis, Esq., 40, Pall Mall, London.” “ A. W. Rat. 
 
 RESOLUTION OF THE EASTERN COUNTIES BOARD. 
 
 “At a special meeting of the directors of the Eastern Counties Local Board — present, Henry 
 Miller, Esq., Chairman , Richard White, Esq., William Hall, Esq., J. W. Clarke, Esq. Resolved, — 
 That this board approve of and hereby confirm the letter written to Mr. Baylis by the local secre- 
 tary on the 27th October, and that they desire to express their deep disgust at the course pursued 
 by the older offices on this, and other occasions, to injure the ‘Unity.’ They desire also to express 
 to the shareholders in their district their entire confidence in the management of the office, and 
 their satisfaction at the large amount of business already transacted. 
 
 “ (Signed) Henry Miller, Chairman” 
 
 LETTER FROM MR. HENRY BACH, AGENT AT SHEFFIELD. 
 
 “ Sheffield, October 28, 1853. 
 
 “Dear Sir, — Now that the ‘Unity’ Shares are entirely sold, I have summed up the amount of 
 business which I have had much pleasure in obtaining for the ‘Unity’ since I took up the agency, 
 a little more than twelve months past. In spite of the strong opposition of one or two old 
 companies’ agents, I have secured about one hundred and ten Shareholders, holding fifteen 
 thousand five hundred and seventy shares, representing capital stock to the extent of thirty-one 
 thousand pounds, notwithstanding the influence also of two respectable local companies. 
 I have orders for shares on hand which cannot be granted from the original' stock. The amount 
 of insurances will, of necessity, much increase, as many of our Shareholders have to transfer their 
 business in December and March— one Shareholder alone to the extent of £40,000 on different 
 properties. At present, we have completed ninety-one policies, insuring seventy-three thousand 
 seven hundred pounds. 
 
 “ I feel grateful to my friends who have taken up the ‘ Unity ’ here, which is, I am confident, 
 every way Avorthy of their support and confidence, and have no doubt, should we determine to 
 carry out the proposed new issue of shares, they will cordially co-operate to do so, to secure the 
 best results for the Company. 
 
 “ An agent for a Fire and Life Office, resident in Rotherham, I had occasion to put into my 
 lawyer’s hands the other day, as much for laying false charges against the ‘ Unity ’ as for attempting 
 to defame my character. The agent for the ‘Sun’ is also active, in a quiet way, to defame our 
 noble reputation. When men have to resort to such low* means to secure business, it proves at 
 once the weakness of their cause. 
 
 “I am, dear sir, yours very truly, 
 
 “ T. H. Baylis, Esq.” - “ Henry Bach. 
 
 LETTER FROM MR. F. W. MILES, AGENT AT GREENWICH. 
 
 “9, Morden Place, Greenwich, Oct. 29, 1853. 
 
 “ Dear Sir, — A pamphlet, 'bearing the name of the Insurance Monitor, having been for- 
 warded tome from some unknown source, I perused its pages, expecting to be made practically 
 acquainted with Life and Fire Insurance Companies; but judge my surprise, when, instead of 
 anything useful or even argumentative, I found it contained nothing but personal scurrility and 
 abuse, and that of yourself, and the ‘ Unity,’ of which you are the honoured Secretary and Manager. 
 
 “ Being personally interested in the ‘ Unity,’ not only as an Agent, but also as a Shareholder, 
 I have taken the opportunity to express my sympathy with you, while exposed to the unwarrantable 
 attacks of the Editor of the Post Magazine and ‘ Dwopenny Pamphleteer.’ This gentleman states 
 that it is hopeless to expect persons to relinquish the security of the ‘old offices,’ as they have 
 possession of the field, and there is no driving them from it. Now, Sir, I have been appointed 
 fifteen weeks, and during that time I have forwarded to you eighty-eight proposals, of which 
 sixty-four were from the ‘ old offices,’ the remaining twenty-four being new insurances, making in 
 all £36,800 Avorth of property insured by my agency. Now, if sixty-four policies out of eighty- 
 eight are from persons who have relinquished the ‘old offices,’ (which this ‘Sob n’ says is hopeless,) 
 I think Ave have great cause of hope for the future, I alone having the promises of 200 policies 
 besides those already mentioned. 
 
 I have also introduced 150 Shareholders, holding 8,800 shares, who will bring into the ‘ Unity ’ 
 property exceeding £100,000. With these statements of facts, I think Ave are not the petty cha- 
 racters this ‘ Scribe' Avould make us appear. It needs no ghost to tell Avhy all this outcry against 
 the ‘Unity,’ Avhen I inform you that a gentleman of my acquaintance went to pay his insurance 
 to an ‘ old office,’ and Avas presented with the Insurance Magazine . One of our Shareholders 
 stated, that when application Avas made for his annual payment by an ‘old office,’ the ‘ Insurance 
 Monitor ’ Avas sent as an appendage. I could add more, but after this, comment is useless, as the 
 ‘ old offices’ have made the discovery that the ‘ Unity ’ is a great fact, and hence their opposition. 
 
 “ In conclusion, I Avould suggest, could 1 gain the attention of my brother agents, that avc 
 redouble our energies, thereby demonstrating that Ave are a ‘Unity’ of persons, determined to 
 carry out the sound, just, and liberal principles which you have enunciated. 
 
 “ I remain, dear sir, yours very truly, 
 
 “Frederick W. Miles, 
 
 “T. H. Baylis, Esq. “Agent for Greenwich. 
 
 “ P.S — The office I refer to is the Phoenix who handed the Insurance Monitor to the gentleman, 
 when paying his insurance. 
 
 “F. W. Miles.” 
 
24 
 
 UNITY FIRE INSURANCE ASSOCIATION. 
 
 LETTER FROM MR. J. E. TAYLOR, LOCAL MANAGER AT BRADFORD. 
 
 “Branch Office, No. 12, Darley Street, Bradford, 
 October 27, 1853. 
 
 “Dear Sir,— The first three months of our operations in this town, I think, have far exceeded 
 the most sanguine expectations of all interested in the success of this gigantic Institution. 
 Previous to that time, the name of the Unity was comparatively known to a few individuals; 
 but thanks to the new and peculiar principles upon which this Association is based, the 
 name is now as familiar as household words. The public are also appreciating the appropria- 
 tion of two-thirds of the profits of the Institution, which must alone guarantee the success of the 
 Company. During our first quarter I have secured a valuable and influential proprietary of 120 
 shareholders, holding in the aggregate 12,995 shares; together with eighty-four proposals, insuring 
 property to the extent of £149,792; and with reference to our prospects for next quarter, I have 
 promises for insurances on the books for above £200,000, independent of any other source of busi- 
 ness. Giving these facts, I leave you and the public to judge as to the probability of our success 
 in this locality. “ I am, dear sir, yours most truly, 
 
 “ Joshua Edward Taylor, Local Manager. 
 
 “ Thomas H. Baylis, Esq., 40, Pall Mall, London.” 
 
 LETTER FROM MR. J. SAMS, LOCAL MANAGER AT BRISTOL. 
 
 “Unity Fire Insurance Association, Branch Office, 
 
 “ Albion Chambers, Bristol, 10th Mo. 27th, 1853. 
 
 “Respected Friend, — In reply to your favour of 26th inst., the following appears to be the 
 amount and particulars of business transacted through my agency : — 
 
 “1st. Number of Shareholders 64 
 
 “2nd. Number of Shares taken 6,145 
 
 “3rd, Amount insured by 31 Bristol Policies £21,110 
 
 “Ditto Ditto 76 Somerton ditto £22,505 
 
 “ Obtained through my influence and insured by 107 Policies £43,615 
 
 “4th. As regards the future prospects of this Branch, I am happy to be able to state that 
 the foundation has been laid for doing a solid and satisfactory business in this city. The share- 
 holders I have obtained are of such respectability and sterling character, that they would do honour 
 to any Company who could number them among its constituents. 
 
 “I shall be glad to furnish any further particulars, if required, 
 
 “ To T. H. Baylis, Esq. “ And remain, yours respectfully, “ Joseph Sams. 
 
 “P.S — The above statement does not include the particulars of 50 policies received for 
 Somerton District, in August last, but which I hope to be able to forward on 29th inst.” 
 
 LETTER FROM MR. G. THORNE, AGENT AT BISHOP STORTFORD. 
 
 “ Bishop Stortford, October 29, 1853. 
 
 “Dear Sir, — I beg to inform you that the venerable papas of insurance offices have had of late 
 some very strong paternal feelings for the well being of the thumping, sprawling, kicking brat of 
 a child — the Unity; and this solicitude lias manifested itself in scattering abroad, far and near, and 
 at their own expense too, a pamphlet, calling itself the Insurance Monitor, thus making known to 
 many the fact of the existence of the Unity; and I have thought, sir, that you would for this 
 manifested kindness like to furnish our dear papas with a few facts concerning ourselves which 
 cannot fail to interest them. 
 
 “ On the 27th of May last, I was entrusted with the agency of this little branch of your extensive 
 territory; from that time I have secured 30 shareholders (besides those secured by others), the 
 amount of whose capital stock exceeds £300,000, and I have completed 35 policies, amounting 
 to £22,140, and I have five in my possession for next Christmas. 
 
 “I trust, sir, that the above facts will prove to our dear papas that their dear child lives, and is 
 in robust health. “ I am, dear sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 “ Geo. Thorne, Agent. 
 
 “ Thomas H. Baylis, Esq., 
 
 “40, Pall Mall, London.” 
 
 LETTER FROM MR. S. WIMPENNY, AGENT AT HOLMFIRTH. 
 
 “ Holmfirth, October 29th, 1853. 
 
 “Dear Sir, — A few days ago one of the members of our Local Board of Directors of the Unity 
 Fire Insurance Association put into my hands a penny publication entitled, the Insurance Monitor. 
 containing a most disgraceful attack upon the Unity Fire Insurance Association, consisting of 
 unfounded charges and malicious insinuations. Having read it carefully over, I feel it to be a 
 duty to the shareholders in our district to forward you the following statement of facts, to be 
 used by you in any manner you may think necessary to expose the falsehoods put forth by Mr. 
 Hartnoll. 
 
 “ The Unity was first introduced into this district in the month of July last. From that time to 
 the 12th of September I have sold shares to 57 individuals, all of whom are engaged in manu- 
 facturing or trading, with four exceptions, and those four have insurances to give, and have pro- 
 mised to give them as soon as they can. These have paid the deposit, and many others have 
 sent their deposits, but have had them returned in consequence of there being no more shares to 
 allocate. We have not issued many policies here in consequence of its recent introduction, but from 
 promises already given I have no doubt we shall secure a larger number than any two offices in 
 the district. 
 
 “ Our local board consists of several of the wealthiest capitalists and manufacturers in the 
 district, and all our shareholders stand high in their respective occupations, including many of 
 the most cautious calculating business men we have in the locality. 
 
 “ Any person wishful to test the truthfulness of these statements may easily do so by addressing 
 a line to any resident here. 
 
 “I have met our local board this evening, and they express their confidence in the Unity as 
 strongly as ever, and they authorise me to state that they have no doubt of its ultimate success, so 
 long as the directors do their duty. “I am, dear sir, yours truly, 
 
 “ Thos. H. Baylis, Esq.” “ S. Wimpenny. 
 
ADDRESS TO THE SHAREHOLDERS. 
 
 25 
 
 LETTER FROM MR. G. HINDE, LOCAL MANAGER AT MANCHESTER. 
 
 “ Ailelphi Buildings, Piccadilly, Manchester. 
 
 “October 23, 1853. 
 
 ‘•'Dear Sir, — You have, I doubt not, read the first number of a little publication, the Insur- 
 ance Monitor , the whole of which appears to be a personal attack upon the manager of the 
 Unity; and a more unjust display of enmity was never sent forth by man. Did not the Unity 
 enjoy the confidence of the public to an unparalleled extent — had not its prosperity been so 
 manifest and gratifying — such a publication as the Insurance Monitor would never have existed. 
 
 “From the commencement of the Unity, I have been officially connected with it, and I can 
 bear my fearless testimony, that I have never witnessed any other than the most honourable 
 conduct on the part of the Directors and its Manager; and had I not the most perfect confidence 
 in the honour of its Directors and Manager, coupled with the soundness of its principles, I should 
 never have united with them as a shareholder, and undertaken the office of a local manager. To 
 prove that I believe the Association to be safe and good, I have induced fifty-five of my friends to 
 take shares, the amount of capital stock held by them being £23,530. Not one of the whole 
 number have been made nervous by the attack contained in the Insurance Monitor. And 
 beside this, many of them have insured their property, they and their friends, to the amount of 
 £81,720; and I believe if the question were put to them, ‘Have you any doubt relative to the 
 safety and solvency of the Company ? ’ they would answer, none whatever. In conclusion, 
 allow me to say, that you personally, and the Company generally, have nothing to fear from 
 such attacks as that contained in the above publication; let us go on and be encouraged, for 
 success is sure. The very elements of the Unity excite the ill-will of our rivals ; they are too 
 popular for them to be agreeable, forgetful that these very principles ensure its safety and support. 
 
 “ I am, dear sir, yours truly, 
 
 “ T. H. Baylis, Esq. “ G. Hinde. 
 
 “P.S.— We have issued one hundred and thirty Policies from this Office alone.” 
 
 LETTER FROM MR. J. GAITSKELL, AGENT FOR OLDHAM. 
 
 “Oldham, 29th October, 1853.” 
 
 “Dear Sir, — A publication by Hartnoll of the Post Magazine, entitled the Insurance Monitor , 
 I find has been forwarded by post to the ‘ Unity’ Shareholders in the town. A copy was put into 
 my hands the other evening by the brother of an agent here, and from his observation, on my 
 offering to return it, ‘ that I need not, as they had lots of them,’ it would appear to have been 
 sent down for general distribution. You will excuse my calling your attention to it; which I do, 
 not from any fear of its doing much mischief, for the ‘ cloven foot’ is too glaringly exposed to 
 effect that, but merely to apprise you of the very unmanly and dishonourable line of opposition 
 the opponents of the ‘ Unity’ are pursuing. The aim of the publication is to damage the ‘ Unity’ 
 and the ‘Professional’ in public estimation ; but the animus of the writer is so apparent, his motives 
 and mis-statements so obvious, that I firmly believe it will produce a contrary effect. Having 
 called a meeting of the Oldham Unity Shareholders, in reference to the alteration of the capital of 
 the Company, they not only unanimously approved of the steps the Directors were taking, but as 
 unanimously disapproved and condemned the aspersions and misrepresentations of Hartnoll, and 
 the disreputable conduct of his supporters, and seemed more resolved and determined to encourage 
 and uphold the ‘Unity.’ They have acquired wealth, and risen to respectability by their talents 
 and perseverance, and still feel competent to manage their own affairs, and guard their own 
 interests, without the interference and sympathy of hireling penny pamphleteers. The Oldham 
 people are ‘too far North’ to need such guardians. I believe the small amount of support that 
 I have hitherto been enabled to render you, may be attributed to their caution and distrust of new 
 schemes; for though, as you are aware, I have held the Agency for this town ever since the 
 ‘ Unity’ commenced its career of usefulness, I find that I have only procured twelve shareholders 
 holding £1,200 Capital Stock, and fourteen Policies insuring £4,250, all obtained within the last 
 few months ; but from the promises I have received, I feel convinced that the people of Oldham, 
 now that they are satisfied of the stability and advantages of the Association, will not fall behind 
 other towns in their support of the ‘Unity.’ The tool of the old Offices would have us believe 
 that they ‘ have got possession of the field, and there is no driving them from it,’ and that it is 
 hopeless to expect people, in the insurance of their property, to relinquish the security afforded 
 by such Offices.’ Indeed ! Why out of the fourteen proposals that I have sent you, half have 
 relinquished this boasted security; for two are transfers from the ‘West of England,’ one from the 
 ‘Royal Exchange,’ one from the ‘County,’ one from the ‘Leeds and Yorkshire,’ and one from the 
 ‘ Defender.’ 
 
 “ So much for the value of the assertion with respect to this agency. The fact that they are losing 
 their connection cannot be concealed. They know and feel this — are naturally sour on the subject, 
 and, like all in similar desperate extremities, catch at any penny trumpet to sound their superiority, 
 support their declining interests, and to asperse and endeavour to put down every new association 
 that dares to attempt to pursue a more liberal line of action, or to offer the public superior advan- 
 tages. Mr. Hartnoll’s purity of motive, disinterestedness, and care for the public, may be very sin- 
 cere — which is very questionable— and, so long as he confines himself to exposing and crushing 
 really bubble schemes, he may deserve the gratitude of the public ; but is he, because the Morning 
 Chronicle ( par nobile fratrum ) encourages and assists him, to continue to attack and slander such 
 institutions as the Unity and ‘ Professional,’ merely because they touch the monopoly of his 
 employers, offer the public advantages till now withheld, and have a tendency to free them from 
 the chain of antiquated and narrow-minded dealing in which they have hitherto been bound ? 
 
 “Verily, Mr. Hartnoll has succeeded in discovering the ‘soft place’ in these directors, and his 
 course of action may, in some measure be excusable, for ‘ it is a life and death business with him 
 so, perhaps, it may be with some of them. 
 
 “The Unity has now nothing to fear from either. There is one statement in the Monitor which 
 I should, for one, feel particularly grateful to Mr Hartnoll if he could verify — viz., that we agents 
 were allowed one shilling per share commission. I am afraid that this, like most of his other 
 statements, will prove a miss. You are aware that I was not one of the shilling canvassers. 1 should 
 most certainly be obliged if you would raise me to Mr. Hartnoll’s rate, and favour me with a draft 
 for the difference ! 
 
 “ With best wishes for the success of the Unity, and a hope that you will excuse me for occupying 
 your attention with this matter at all, “ I am, dear Sir, very truly, 
 
 “ Thos. H. Baylis, Esq.” “ J. Gaitskell. 
 
26 UNITY FIRE INSURANCE ASSOCIATION. 
 
 LETTER FROM MR. C. BROWNING, OF THE WARE AND HERTFORD BANK, AGENT 
 
 AT HERTFORD. 
 
 “ Hertford Bank, 28th October, 1853. 
 
 “My dear Sib,— I n answer to yours of yesterday, I have to say that I received my letter of 
 appointment as Agent to the Unity on 7th ult., between which date and the loth I secured seven- 
 teen Shareholders of the highest respectability in this town, representing £4,000 of the Capital 
 Stock of the Company. I could readily have disposed of from 15,000 to 20,000 Shares had I 
 entered the field earlier, and thus have secured a first-rate agency for myself. On the 15th Sep- 
 tember, the last above-mentioned date, the Share List closed, and so numerous were the applicants 
 for Shares after this date that I was subject to some annoyance in consequence. 
 
 “It was not until the 25th of September that I sent up my first proposal for Insurance in the 
 Society, but from that date to the present I have completed sixteen Insurances covering £13,900 ; 
 this is at the rate of one Insurance for every two days, a rate I am well satisfied with, and one I 
 think I shall be able to keep up for some time to come, if I may judge from the general good feeling 
 evinced towards the Association in the neighbourhood ; indeed, there is but one opinion here, and 
 a very popular one it is, viz. — that the principles of the Unity are such as to ensure success. 
 
 “ Mr. Hartnoll’s Monitor is being, circulated most extensively amongst us, but many of his 
 arguments are so manifestly absurd that the most ordinary mind can upset them, and I regret to 
 see he has not confined himself to the truth in many instances to my own individual knowledge. 
 Our Shareholders here, as far as I am able to judge from conversation with them upon the subject 
 of the pamphlet, agreed with me, that, from the spirit in which it is written, it is calculated to do 
 us more good than harm. “I am, dear sir, yours very truly, 
 
 “T. H. Baylis, Esq.” “C. Browning.” 
 
 LETTER FROM MR. W. SPEERMAN, AGENT AT PLYMOUTH. 
 
 1 “ Plymouth, October 28, 1853. 
 
 “ Dear Sir, — I beg to inform you I have had the agency for nine weeks. During that time 
 I have secured thirty- seven shareholders, who hold capital stock in the ‘Unity,’ amounting to 
 £5,720. 
 
 “ The number of policies completed is seventeen. The amount of property insured is £19,070, 
 and I have promises of policies to be transferred in the course of the year, amounting to above 
 £20,000. This was done without an advertisement or sign, and prior to the advertisements which 
 appeared in the Times and Daily News. 
 
 “Iam, dear sir, yours faithfully, W. Speerman. 
 
 “ Thos. H. Baylis, Esq., Manager of the Unity Fire Insurance Association.” 
 
 LETTER FROM MR. PETER DERBY, AGENT AT NORTHAMPTON. 
 
 “Northampton, October 28th, 1853. 
 
 T “Dear Sir, — In reply to your inquiry, I beg to state, I have held the agency for the Unity, 
 about five months, and have secured two hundred shareholders (highly respectable) in this town 
 and district. Number of shares, 14,275; the amount of capital stock held by the shareholders, 
 £28 550 ; number of Policies obtained, 81 ; insuring property to the amount of fifty thousand 
 sterling, and a prospect of a very large amount of additional business in the future. I would add 
 that a number of the agents connected with the old offices in this town are doing all they can to 
 injure the Unity Association among our shareholders and also the public. I believe the 
 Insurance Monitor will do us good ultimately. 
 
 “ I am, dear sir, yours respectfully, 
 
 “To H. Baylis, Esq., London.” “P. Derby. 
 
 LETTER FROM MR. C. SMITH, AGENT AT AYARE. 
 
 “ Ware, October 28, 1853. 
 
 “ Dear Sir, — I have much pleasure in complying with your request of the 27th instant, by 
 transmitting particulars of the business effected through my agency for the ‘Unity Fire Asso- 
 ciation.’ I was appointed agent for Ware the beginning of August, 1853. I have secured thirty 
 shareholders with 3,590 shares. 
 
 “The amount of capital stock held by such shareholders is £7,180. 
 
 “ The number of policies completed is 54, amounting to £72,907. I have had many applica- 
 tions for shares since the share list has been closed ; in fact some have refused to insure their 
 property until more shares are allotted. I am happy to add, the system of the Unity works well, 
 and is duly appreciated by a discerning public. 
 
 “ I am, dear sir, yours very truly, 
 
 “ C. "Smith. 
 
 “T. H. Baylis. Esq.” 
 
 LETTER FROM MR. ALFRED E. M‘MULLEN, AGENT AT HERTFORD. 
 
 “ Sir, — I suppose you are aware that certain persons have very determinedly endavoured to 
 write the Unity down, As it appears to me, by most contemptible means. Nearly all those share- 
 holders whom I have the honour to know have had a pamphlet, a little ‘Tomtit’ publication 
 called the Monitor. It should be called the minion , as the person who writes it appears to be 
 some ‘hireling tool,’ which we shall soon see the ‘bygone Aristocratic Assurance Companies’ 
 have employed. I have taken some pains to know what effect it has had upon the minds of the 
 public. I am sure it has done no harm, but, on the contrary, has tended to advance the 
 importance of so valuable an Institution as the Unity. There is but one opinion among the 
 shareholders here, that it is a foul calumny; that, in fact, the enemies can see that the 
 Unity will soar up and rise pre-eminent over most Insurance offices of the day. Who is this 
 Mr. Hartnoll, that he should set himself up as a Monitor ? We should like to know his pedigree, 
 where he came from, and all about him. The ‘introduction’ to the pamphlet, his complaint to 
 the police magistrates, shows the man. I am still receiving insurances for large amounts of 
 property, which falls little short in my agency this quarter of £60,000. 
 
 “Yours truly, “Alfred E. M‘Mullen. 
 
 “To Thos. H. Baylis, Esq.” 
 
27 
 
 ADDRESS TO THE SHAREHOLDERS. 
 
 LETTERS FROM MR. J. WALKER, OF THE BANK, AGENT AT NEWARK. 
 
 “Newark, 21st October, 1853. 
 
 “My dear Sir, — I hare this morning received ‘The Old Companies’ Twopenny’ in due form 
 from -Mr Hartnoll, and I presume he has sent one to every Shareholder in the ‘Unity.’ He does 
 not, of course, represent himself as the Stalking Horse of the old Companies; but would wish us to 
 believe that he is quite disinterested in being at the enormous trouble and expense of sending his 
 circular to 5,000 persons. What a model of a philanthropist he would be if our credulity were 
 but equal to his impudence. But men are greater dunces than I take them to be, if every one of 
 our Shareholders does not see quite through such a flimsy attempt to damage us. No argument 
 can affect the fact and importance of 5,000 people associated together for mutual advantage, and 
 knowing personally the character and position of their co-partners as a guarantee for confidence. 
 I have just received an order for a Policy for £4,000, from a party quite unconnected with us, 
 but who, on reading our list in the Times, said he felt so convinced of the respectability of the 
 Association, and the great principle of mutual trade and benefit we have within ourselves, that he 
 did not hesitate a moment to remove his insurance from an old office, and hand it over to us. 
 
 “I shall not fail to be with you on the 8th proximo, to sanction the arrangement for new Shares 
 which I have not the least doubt will be taken up at 2s. Gd. premium in less than six months. 
 
 “ I am, my dear Sir, yours, very truly, 
 
 “T. H. Baylis, Esq.” “ J. Walker. 
 
 “Newark, 28th October, 1833. 
 
 “My Dear Sir, — A scurrilous pamphlet against the Unity Fire Insurance Association having 
 been extensively sent to the Shareholders and others in this district, I beg to forward to you for 
 the satisfaction of our Shareholders generally, the following facts as my answer to such miserable 
 trash. 
 
 m “I have held the agency of the above Company since its commencement, and the result is a 
 constituency which I defy any one to disparage. 
 
 “ The number of Shareholders is fifty-eight. 
 
 “ The amount of Capital Stock is £25,660, on which the whole of the deposit is paid. 
 
 “ The number of Policies completed is forty-six, and 
 
 “ The amount insured is £46,410. 
 
 “ The Agents of the principal Fire Insurance Companies here are all respectable men, and I 
 have not the least suspicion of any objectionable conduct on their part. On the contrary, they 
 have testified their respect for the undoubted wealth and influence they see united in our Company. 
 
 “ I am, my dear sir, yours truly, 
 
 “T. H. Baylis, Esq.” “John Walker. 
 
 LETTER FROM MR. JOHN SMITH, DIRECTOR AND LOCAL MANAGER OF THE 
 LIVERPOOL BOARD. 
 
 “ 11, Lord Street, Liverpool, 29th October, 1853. 
 
 “My dear Sir, — The gratifying progress of the Unity Fire Insurance Association in this town may 
 be thus stated. In twelve months 150 Shareholders have subscribed for about 18,000 Shares. 
 With respect to business, I may mention, that in the preceding year, the second of my agency for a 
 highly respectable well-conducted office, which advertised as liberally as the Unity has since 
 done, in promoting the obtainment of business, I effected 12 Policies, insuring the amount of 
 £7,550. I resigned this agency, and accepted that of the Unity instead, since which, in the single 
 year that has elapsed, I have effected 101 Policies, insuring property amounting to £87,124; and 
 already, in the first month of the present quarter, I have received orders for 19 Policies, to the 
 amount of £24,600, so that the numbers are accelerating, and average values are augmenting. 
 This return is exclusive of several Policies sent you by Mr. Wilson, Mr. Postlethwaite, Miss Mauger, 
 Mr. Levi, and some other agents. 
 
 “The broad and solid basis of the Association (yet, I trust, to be extended), and the mutuality 
 of interest which is established by its principles between the Assurers and the Assured, is, in my 
 opinion, certain to command an enormous business here and throughout the kingdom. 
 
 “I remain, my dear Sir, yours, faithfully, 
 
 “Thos. H. Baylis, Esq.” “John Smith. 
 
 THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE APPEARED IN THE NOTTINGHAM- 
 SHIRE GUARDIAN, OF THURSDAY, OCTOBER, THE *27th. 
 
 “SCANDALOUS ATTACK ON THE UNITY FIRE INSURANCE OFFICE. 
 
 “Of the late Lord Durham it was once said in Parliament that his/orte consisted chiefly in 
 detraction. This forte appears to be a very common forte; and not a few people in the world 
 having little else in the shape of talent appear to live upon it. Of course, amongst the numerous 
 dodges of those living on their wits in London a medium so universal is not neglected. And 
 we are sorry to find that even the press can be prostituted to the venal motives that generally 
 actuate those who exercise this gift of detraction. Under the name of the ‘ Insurance Monitor,’ a 
 penny publication has been issued in slioals from the office of the ‘ Post Magazine,’ a rather 
 nondescript sheet of letter press and letter paper, which has busied itself of late in setting the 
 public right on matters of insurance. And had this * Insurance Monitor’ confined itself to what 
 we are quite prepared to regard as the useful vocation of the ‘ Post Magazine,’ we should not have 
 felt called upon to notice its attacks on a large and most respectable body of shareholders in the 
 Unity Fire Office, so many of whom move in the highest estimation amongst ourselves, and throughout 
 the whole of the midland counties. This penny trumpet which has been sounded against a body 
 of nearly five thousand shareholders, who were none of them afraid to show their names in the 
 columns of the London morning papers (in an advertisement which our readers may remember 
 our having pointed out as one of ‘ the signs of the times’), is announced as being * the result 
 
28 UNITY FIRE INSURANCE ASSOCIATION. 
 
 of sudden determination,’ leaving over in fact ‘all necessary explanations respecting its plan 
 and purpose.’ On perusal of the pamphlet which has been sent to alarm every one of the 
 Unity shareholders, it appears to us that a really candid explanation of this kind would 
 lead to acknowledgments of malevolence of intention, personality of feeling, and an unfair 
 and intolerable endeavour to impede the progress of a large amount of insurance business 
 all over the country. And in the meantime, calculating the mischief that may accrue less 
 by their importance than by the pertinacity with which these penny missiles are projected, 
 and anxious to save a vexatious degree and extent of annoyance to the many private 
 persons and families around us who have embarked in this widely spread Insurance Association, 
 we feel bound to advert to the allegations here brought forward against the Unity Fire Insurance 
 — unfounded and unfair as they are. We must, however, premise that we have no connection 
 whatever with the institution : and no desire or motive in vindicating it from these unwarrantable 
 aspersions, beyond that love of justice and of truth which we trust will always continue to 
 characterise the legitimate press of this country, let upstarts or interlopers abuse its privileges 
 as they may. 
 
 “As a specimen of the fair dealing of the pamphleteer who has addressed the Unity 
 Shareholders through the medium of the ‘Insurance Monitor,’ we may mention that he 
 contrives to introduce himself to their notice, through the medium of a scene in the Bow 
 Street Police Office, where he appears as a complainant, but without a charge to prefer 
 against a variety of bubble offices. The heading over his introduction runs thus: — ‘New 
 Fire Insurance Companies — Unity Fire Insurance Association.’ Yet, will it be believed 
 the Unity Fire Insurance Association, and Fire Insurance Offices generally have no more to do 
 with the matter, with Bow Street, or Mr. Jardine, or Mr. J. Hooper Hartnoll’s charges of 
 swindling, than the man in the moon ! This we say is scandalous conduct, and well calcu- 
 lated to attest the spirit and the purpose with which so disgraceful and unprincipled an attack 
 is put forth. The above gentleman appears to hold amongst the bubble schemes the office of 
 scavenger; and proud he is of being permitted to sweep the insurance swindlers off. :But 
 what would any of our Nottingham friends think if the man who sweeps out our capacious 
 Market Place, after duly disposing of the dirt and the debris, the garbage, the filth, and the 
 refuse, began to shovel away the bale goods from the doors of the merchants on the South 
 Parade ? Such is the course which the sweeper-out of the London Insurance offices would 
 pursue in dashing his mop in the faces of the Unity Shareholders. But it is these very 
 shareholders with whom he affects at the same time to sympathise, prefacing the attack 
 upon them, (or at least upon their shares) with a sort of apology for ‘stepping out of his 
 way in pointing out ’ to them ‘ the costly and hazardous struggle in which they have embarked.* 
 Now that is just the whole question. With the astounding array of subscribers which they 
 possess in every county in England, the Unitt shareholders may be justified in concluding, 
 on the contrary, that they are instituting for themselves, and for the public, a cheap and safe 
 insurance. Such has always been, and such continues to be our belief; and our readers are 
 aware that we have not been indifferent spectators of the development of the insurance principle 
 in this country, or heedless of the grand social benefits, and strong domestic security, it is 
 calculated to confer. Five thousand subscribers, holding something like an average of a 
 hundred shares a piece, may calculate securely on being required to contribute of paid-up capital 
 only 5s. a share, where other and lesser unions might find it essential to advance a pound. 
 The overwhelming security afforded by the phalanx of subscribers on whom the office could 
 fall back, the vast amount of funds that would be forthcoming, in response to a trivial call, 
 even the mere prestige of the names of known persons, firms, and families, in all parts 
 of the country, justifies completely the notion of disembarrassing the office of the large 
 amount of paid-up capital in which the fancied security of many old offices consists, but which 
 also is a source of weakness and of difficulties, should the amount of business transacted not 
 suffice to employ the gigantic fund so as to afford its contributors a fair and beneficial re- 
 turn. Mr. Hartnoll, however, appears to think otherwise. He looks upon the Unity 
 with all its columns upon columns of advertised shareholders — most of whom in this district we 
 know to be persons in the most responsible position, and we best judge of the others at a distance 
 by that satisfactory test — as an affair which originated in ‘a large gathering at Birmingham, 
 of the lovers of good eating and drinking;’ ‘as a mere corner stone of a building that is to 
 cost £10,000;’ ‘as an advertisement in the Morning Post ,’ (forgetting the Herald, Advertiser , 
 Chronicle , Daily News, &c., &c.,) ‘ as a page of the Illustrated Neios, with a fine engraving ’ — 
 ‘as 18 columns of the Times' — as in short some myth which has made, by some mysterious 
 means, a great figure in the world, Mr. Hooper Hartnoll, knows not how. This ignorance on 
 his part is even more singular and mysterious, however, than the myth in question ; for, in a 
 foot note, he continues to cite no fewer than three offices which are flourishing under pre- 
 cisely similar, but what we must term, minor circumstances, to those in which we find the 
 Unity. The Law Insurance is one of these : and its secret of success is explained away by 
 its being supported by solicitors and conveyancers, a class of persons who have a very com- 
 manding influence in the management of house property; the Manchester is another — but it is 
 an office, of thirty years standing — ‘brought under the Registration Act, from circumstances 
 attending the division of an enormously large amount of accumulated profits,’ (some slight 
 encouragement for prosecuting insurance business, surely!) and the third is the Royal — (the 
 Royal Liverpool, it should have been called), and, mark the insolence with which our whole five 
 thousand friends of the Unity are beggared, for the small charge of one penny— it ‘was formed 
 some years ago by rich Liverpool merchants, many of whom have, in a single warehouse, insurable 
 property greater in value than the dwellings and furniture of five hundred Unity shareholders in 
 a lump.’ Now, we dare say that our leading manufacturers, aldermen, and people of wealth and 
 station, who have joined the Unity, can afford to smile at this stupid and senseless imputation; 
 and that it is quite unnecessary for us to add that a shareholder in the Unity has obtained for 
 us a note of the insurance business already done in Nottingham, in which we find that upwards 
 of £400,000 sterling has been insured in the last twelve months, and even in the present quarter 
 alone, commencing 29th September, insurances to the amount of £150,000 have been effected — and 
 are told that the business promised at Christmas will exceed that already done. But we cannot 
 help deeming it deplorable that any man should lend himself to destroy the credit of respect- 
 able persons in this wholesale manner. ‘Dwellings’ and ‘ furniture,’ we venture to assure this 
 bitter Monitor , are not the leading objects of insurance risks ranging from £10,000 down to 
 £4,000, £3,000 and £1,000, effected by the best names connected with the trade of Nottingham ; 
 
ADDRESS TO THE SHAREHOLDERS. 29 
 
 and, rich as Liverpool merchants may he, we believe that there are some of our ‘five hundred’ 
 who could buy and sell any man on their roll of copartnery. We all know what cotton broking 
 is ; and that it is difficult enough for the cotton-broker at times to say whether he is worth 
 anything or nothing, when a shade of difference on the pound of ‘fair middling’ or ‘middling 
 fair” will either enrich him or leave him without a penny in the world. Under such circum- 
 stances it is, in our estimation, most scandalous that the penny Monitor , which upholds a Liver- 
 pool Office with all its might on account of a Capital of £200,000, should be suffered to assail the 
 vested interests of the Unity with its Capital of £125,000, every fraction of which, we have 
 ascertained, is paid up ; for, with characteristic fallacy and unfairness, the list of paid and unpaid 
 Shares given in this Monitor refers to the state in which matters stood at the outset, when 
 certain Shares were merely paid upon to qualify the Directors. As it is, the Monitor itself is 
 forced to acknowledge that there is no disputing the extent and importance of such a Capital 
 ‘if’ it were all paid up. And it is so. There is, therefore, an answer to all that. That answer 
 carries, however, more than ordinary condemnation; for, prior to throwing out a doubt ‘if’ this 
 Capital were all paid up, we perceive that it is announced in this very pamphlet, that the hundred 
 and twenty-five thousand pounds had been transmitted by the Shareholders to No. 40, Pall-mall. 
 This is crooked dishonesty. 
 
 “ The argument which is principally employed'to destroy this new and important undertaking 
 is chiefly based, however, on the nature and extent of the risks encountered. In order to strike 
 home terror to the Unity Shareholders, their assailant is driven to the most humiliating shifts. 
 To overwhelm them with dread, he points out that they must have assumed risks exceeding Four 
 Millions sterling (which we believe to be near about the mark) ; but for their comfort they 
 are instantly shown the impossibility of reaching any such consummation ! Such is the charac- 
 teristic disingenuousness of this attack that it peers out at every pore. The Unity, however, 
 seems calculated by every element of popularity to keep up to the Four Millions of business. 
 Mr. Hartnoll thinks it must all go to the Sun, the Phoenix, the Royal Exchange, the County, 
 the Imperial, the Alliance, the Atlas, the Norwich Union, the West of England, the Globe, 
 Guardian, London Union, Hand-in-Hand, Westminster; and, in addition to these, amongst 
 existing offices of high standing, he enumerates the Law, Manchester, and Royal (Liverpool) 
 previously named, and the Liverpool and London, Yorkshire, Leeds and Yorkshire, Birmingham, 
 Birmingham District and Lancashire; besides the Kent, the Nottinghamshire, the Essex Economic, 
 and several other provincial companies. The clients of these old offices, it is said, will not 
 relinquish them for the Unity. We should be very sorry to think they would. We hold that 
 these offices must flourish as they have done, and that there is room for the Unity and them 
 both. But the effect of numbers and influence must not be miscalculated. The Unity has given 
 a new impulse to insurance business by the principle of diffusion on which it is founded. That 
 principle has literally cheapened shareholding, extended the proprietary relations, and as a 
 necessary consequence brought to bear upon the matter a new, an enlarged, and, let us add, 
 enthusiastic influence, the effect of which is already seen in its results— for, despite Mr. Hartnoll’s 
 predictions, its four millions of risks have already been attained— its shares are rising in the 
 market, and are in such request that an expansion of the capital we believe will be rendered 
 imperative, and has already been resolved upon, as a means of supplying the demand for shares — 
 almost every one making it a condition of insuring with the office that they shall obtain an interest 
 in it as shareholders. Still the Monitor cautions them against the very cause of all this prosperity 
 and success. — ‘The Unity shareholders may possibly say, Oh! but we intend to become our 
 own customers. Bigger fools they.’ Then there is no mutual principle recognised in insurance ! 
 Underwriters of vessels who frequently succeed in insuring their ships year after year at little or 
 no cost, are to be deterred from the attempt because an Insurance Monitor , thinks the step in 
 direct opposition to their own interest and security ! The fallacy is outrageous, and no man 
 should attempt to write upon insurance subjects who would hold up his face to 4t. All insurance, 
 and fire insurance more particularly, allows such a latitude betwixt the extent of casualties and 
 the amount of risks as to enable ‘enormous profits,’ (as in the case of the Manchester office 
 above mentioned) to be realised. And are the public as a body to be cut off from realising such 
 profits for themselves in every possible way, or is the trade to be confined to Millocrats and 
 Moneycrats in Manchester and Liverpool ? 
 
 “ The secret of this whole affair comes out in the sequel — from personal pique towards the 
 Messrs. Baylis, one of whom originated this novel and momentous feature in fire institutions — 
 the writer has been led into a libellous attack on the whole of a most valuable and important 
 office. We regret extremely to see vile passions thus indulged in, and shall not cease to do 
 our utmost to counteract the evils and uneasiness thus occasioned. We need only add, that so far 
 from the absorption of the business of minor offices, such as the ‘Star’ and ‘National Mercan- 
 tile,’ by the larger organisations, being an argument against the Unity, it is one of the strongest 
 that could possibly be urged in its favour, as showing on what class of institutions the enlightened 
 public of our day are disposed to place their faith. The office whose cause we have thus endea- 
 voured to vindicate may not, perhaps, thank us for noticing anything so low and scurrilous as 
 this Monitor at all; but we do so to calm the apprehensions of our readers who may be interested 
 in the Unity, and who, we are persuaded, have nothing to fear from a single statement advanced. 
 The personal portion of the attack the Messrs. Baylis are, we dare say, perfectly prepared to 
 answer for themselves. The matter is ingeniously complicated by the writer not having 
 been able to finish his ‘sudden determination’ apparently in time for press, and having evi- 
 dently been forced to stuff into it a portion of an epistle he once addressed to Mr. Cardwell. 
 ‘For your convenience, sir,’ &c., has no relation to the rest of the Monitor , any more than 
 the balance sheets of the ‘Professional’ have with the gist of the writer’s attack. The mode, 
 however, in which he has handled these balance-sheets, shows distinctly the unfairness of the 
 treatment he is disposed to give to any office; for, on the face of them, it appears that the 
 ‘Professional’ is an office^ which in six years has nearly doubled its capital, besides paying 
 upwards of £3,000 of dividends in the same time to shareholders. As for office expenditure, 
 does Mr. Hartnoll think that the employment of tradesmen — that the expenditure of official 
 salaries, &c., do no good ? The public, that part at least which depends upon business, concludes 
 otherwise ; and we may safely leave this part of the assault to work its own cure. We trust we 
 have disarmed the Unity shareholders amongst our readers of any possible misapprehension s 
 they could entertain on this subject.” 
 
SO UNITY FIRE . INSURANCE ASSOCIATION. 
 
 THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE APPEARED IN THE NOTTINGHAM 
 JOURNAL ON SATURDAY THE 29th OF OCTOBER. 
 
 THE UNITY FIRE INSURANCE COMPANY. 
 
 We have been favoured with a copy of a new publication (No. 1 of the Insurance Monitor ), 
 which devotes the whole of its sixteen pages to the disinterested anrl philanthropic object of demon- 
 strating to the 5,000 shareholders in the Unity Fire Office that they are all on the high road to 
 ruin. The conductor of this newly -born periodical, we are informed, is Mr. J. Hooper Hartnoll 
 editor of the Post Magazine — a small instrument, by the aid of which, like David’s smooth stone 
 from the brook, lie has slain many a giant of joint-stock imposture and fraud. But it is chiefly 
 in the slaughter of bubble insurance companies that the editor of the Post Magazine , as he informs 
 us delights to revel. The monsters of this class that he has slain surpass the bounds of reasonable 
 belief. He has now doomed the “Unity” to destruction ; and to make sure of his victim he has 
 manufactured a spick and span new weapon— the Insurance Monitor — of such keen edge and pene- 
 trating power, that destruction must follow at once from its thrust or blow. The “magazine” 
 was not of sufficient weight to despatch the newly-created giant, which, however, must fall beneath 
 the trenchant strokes of this new blade, when handled by so expert and practised a brandisher of 
 deadly weapons. We are informed by Mr. Hartnoll that this dangerous co-partnership of 5,000 
 shareholders has been originated by Mr. Thomas IT. Baylis, and that this gentleman calculates 
 upon reaping some personal benefit himself, as the manager of the institution which he has been 
 instrumental in founding. This is a strange and unpardonable piece of selfishness on the part 
 of Mr. Baylis, who ought, as a matter of course, to have given up all connection with the office 
 the moment he discovered it was likely to prove successful. How different is the conduct of the 
 editor of the Post Magazine : he works entirely from pure philanthropy. “ He has no personal 
 objects to serve,” to quote his own words, “ but has entered upon and continued in the course 
 he had laid out for himself, from a sincere desire to be useful to his fellow-men.” We could not, 
 therefore, for a moment suppose that he had any interest or advantage in upholding the monopoly 
 of the old offices; nor that the thousands of copies of the Insurance Monitor , No. 1, price 2d., 
 that had been gratuitously distributed by those offices, had been productive of any benefit to the 
 editor of the Post Magazine . Part 2 of the Insurance Monitor is headed, “How gentlemen live by 
 their wits.” A nice practical comment on this text is afforded by the case before us. The mos r t 
 unpardonable thing done by the ‘Unity’ is, that it has only obtained 5,000 shareholders, 
 embracing a wealthy and respectable constituency in almost every part of the kingdom, and has 
 a paid-up capital of £125,000; but the directors have had the temerity— unexampled in the 
 history of insurance companies— to publish the names and addresses of all their proprietary, to 
 show that they are not mere dummies, but real living men and women. How is it possible, says 
 the editor of the Post Magazine , to tolerate such impudence as this. I pronounce you a bubble, 
 and I decree that you shall immediately burst. Live after that if you dare. But we are 
 informed, in emphatic Italic, ‘that the dividends of the shareholders can arise from no other source 
 than the hazards of the office' Awful announcement ! But we thought that insurance offices 
 lived entirely upon hazard — that it was their meat and drink, their board and lodging, their house, 
 their horse and gig, their clothing, food, and all ! Is there an insurance office that is too old 
 and wary, or too young and handsome to make love to that ugly witch, hazard ? They are all 
 looking out for hazards, and the more they get the happier they are. The hazards ‘of all are 
 infinitely beyond their paid-up or invested capital ; and the Unity, juvenile as it is, has already 
 obtained hazards to the extent of Four Millions Sterling, and the amount is daily increasing. 
 The motto of insurance offices is, “No hazard, no profit; the more hazard, the more profit.” 
 Nobody knows the truth of this better than the editor of the Post Magazine. It was naturally to 
 be expected that-the writer, who was sharp enough to find out that hazard was a hazardous thing 
 for insurance companies, would also have intellect sufficient to discover that the man who 
 insured in a fire-office in which he was a shareholder, was a fool; and, accordingly, the editor of 
 the Post Magazine pronounces that shareholders in the Unity who take out policies in their own 
 office, are fools of extraordinary dimensions. We think we may safely leave it in the hands of 
 our readers to decide which has the greater claim to the sapient title, the editor in question or the 
 insurer. It appears, according to our author, that more than sixty fire insurance offices, which he 
 enumerates, have been started and closed within the last twenty years; and the editor of the Post 
 Magazine would have us draw the conclusion that therefore the Unity must fail. The offices to 
 which he alludes were chiefly local institutions, all of them of small business and connections, and 
 deficient in all the elements necessary to success. But notwithstanding they discontinued their 
 business, we believe that with scarcely an exception insurers were no losers by any op 
 them. We should be glad to be informed how many and which of them had, like the Unity, 
 5,000 shareholders, a paid-up capital of £125,000, and insurances effected during the first year 
 to the extent of four millions of pounds ? If the Unity be a bubble, it is a bubble on a large 
 scale, and is composed of more substantial materials than bubbles generally are. People are still 
 rushing on, desirous of increasing its dimensions, and before long it will be double its present 
 size. The editor of the Post Magazine takes delight in bursting bubbles, but he may spare himself 
 any trouble about the Unity — no lance of his is long enough or strong enough to puncture it; 
 bis blasting breath may increase its size by somewhat, but it will run its course and have 
 its way in spite, or perhaps because of opposition. It is a waste of strength and energy in him 
 to try to put it down ; and we are astonished that a man of such gigantic powers should apply 
 them with as little judgment as the blacksmith who, as he himself says, might use a sledge 
 hammer for the purpose of crushing an egg shell. 
 
 The following correspondence, which is extracted from the Times of 21st 
 November, 1851, will be read with great interest by the Unity shareholders, 
 since it exhibits the animus of Mr. Ford, the Manager of the “ Sun ” office : — 
 
 “ FIRE ASSURANCE COMPANIES. 
 
 “ The subject to which the following correspondence refers has excited great interest for some 
 days in the metropolis « 
 
ADDRESS TO THE SHAREHOLDERS. 
 
 31 
 
 Correspondence between the 4 Sun Fire Office’ and the ‘Manchester Fire Assurance Company. 1 
 
 tt 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 “ 1 (private and confidential.) 
 
 « 1 Sun Fire Office, Threadneedle-street, 
 Nov. 1. 
 
 « 1 My Dear Sir,— The offers made by many 
 of the newly established companies to insure at 
 reduced rates special risks in general, and also 
 the warehouses in your town, and the mea- 
 sures actually adopted by one of them sending 
 persons into all the manufacturing districts to 
 solicit insurances at rates varying from 25 to 
 30 per cent, less than the tariffs required, 
 have been brought under my notice by other 
 Companies, parties to the tariffs, and by our 
 agents; and it appears to me that the time 
 has arrived when, in order to retain our busi- 
 ness, we must be content to sacrifice some por- 
 tion of our present premiums, to counteract, 
 if possible, such a system of underselling. 
 
 “‘Under these circumstances, and from 
 the fact that this system has already weakened 
 the bond by which the several offices have 
 been long united, and might possibly lead to 
 its total disruption, I am desirous of consult- 
 ing you as to the expediency of a reduction in 
 the tariffs for cotton, woollen, and flax mills, 
 and for Manchester warehouses, so that all 
 offices may act upon as much of an equality as 
 possible; or if the New Companies adopt a 
 still lower scale of rates , they should be such as 
 would not yield any profit , but speedily entail 
 a certain loss upon them. 
 
 “ ‘ Waiting the favour of your reply, I am, 
 my dear sir, yours faithfully, 
 
 “‘Charles B. Ford. 
 
 “ ‘ H. Spring, Esq., Manchester.’ 
 
 REPLY I. 
 
 “ ‘ Manchester Fire Assurance Office, 
 
 98, King-street, Manchester, Nov. 3. 
 
 “‘Dear Sir, — I have this morning received 
 your letter of the first instant, marked ‘Pri- 
 vate and Confidential.’ 
 
 “‘As I have not the pleasure of your per- 
 sonal correspondence, or rather as our corres- 
 pondence is confined to the public business of 
 respective Companies, I write by return of post 
 to say that, while I am unable to entertain your 
 private favour thereon, I shall have pleasure in 
 replying when the ‘Private and Confidential’ 
 is withdrawn. 
 
 “ ‘ Yours faithfully, 
 
 “ ‘ Herbert Spring, Secretary. 
 
 “ ‘ Charles B. Ford, Esq., Sun Fire Office, 
 London. ’ 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 “ ‘ Sun Fire Office, Threadneedle-street, 
 “‘Nov. 4, 1851. 
 
 “ ‘Dear Sir, — I have had the pleasure to re- 
 ceive your letter of the 3rd inst., and I hasten 
 to request, as you are desirous that our corres- 
 pondence should not be considered private 
 (which I of course, could only have intended, 
 until some measures were arranged to submit 
 to the Offices generally), that you will erase the 
 words ‘ Private and Confidential,’ and take the 
 earliest opportunity of submitting my letter to 
 the consideration of your Board. 
 
 “ ‘ My own opinion is that, in order to meet 
 the exigencies of the case, it will be necessary 
 to make a reduction for a time on cotton, 
 woollen, and flax mills, of from 15 to 20 per 
 cent. “ ‘ Yours faithfully, 
 
 “ ‘ Charles B. Ford. 
 
 “ ‘II. Spring, Esq., Manchester.’ 
 
 REPLY II. 
 
 “ ‘Manchester Fire Assurance Office, 98 King- 
 street, Manchester, Nov. 6th. 
 
 “ ‘ Dear Sir, — I am in receipt of your favour 
 of the 4th, and have erased ‘ Private and Confi- 
 dential ’ from your letter of the 1st as requested. 
 I confess that I am at a loss to conceive why 
 you so marked it, seeing that its subject was 
 notoriously public in London and Manchester 
 before it was written. 
 
 “ ‘ In reply, I beg to say I am unable to 
 advise my Board to concur either in the pro- 
 position therein made, or in the principle it 
 involves. The proposition appears to be no 
 less that the older Fire Offices should combine 
 to ruin and break up the younger ones by 
 insuring risks at unremunerating and ruinous 
 rates, depriving (as a consequence) the public 
 of the advantages of competition, a thing simply 
 impossible. 
 
 “ ‘ The principle involved appears still more 
 objectionable, for to attempt to crush and put 
 down the younger offices by forcing them to 
 adopt so low a scale of rates as (to quote from 
 your favour) would not yield any profit, but 
 speedily entail a certain loss upon them, would 
 be manifestly unjust; and the effect of such an 
 injustice (if attempted) would be to secure for 
 them a larger share of public support and 
 sympathy than they would otherwise expect to 
 receive. 
 
 “ ‘ I therefore feel, upon reflection, you will 
 see that the best interests of all the offices 
 will be consulted by the abandonment of an 
 idea that will not bear the test of investiga- 
 tion. Should, however, your own office, or 
 indeed any other respectable Company, be in a 
 position to show the present rates of any class 
 of risks are too high or too low, it will afford 
 this Company great pleasure to investigate the 
 same and readjust the respective tariffs. 
 
 “ ‘Yours faithfully, 
 
 “ ‘ Herbert Spring, Secretary. 
 
 “ ‘ Charles B. Ford, Esq., Sun Fire Office, 
 London,’ 
 
3 0112 061894470 
 
 UNITY FIRE INSURANCE ASSOCIATION. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 “ ‘Sun Fire Office, Threadneedle-street, 
 Nov. 11th. 
 
 i “‘Dear Sir. — Absence from town prevented 
 my earlier acknowledging the receipt of your 
 letter of the 6th inst. I cannot but express my 
 regret that you should have put so erroneous a 
 construction on my letter, and one so unwar- 
 ranted by the context. 
 
 “ ‘ I take the liberty of denying as strongly as 
 courtesy will allow, that it can be inferred from 
 my letter that the older offices intend to ‘ com- 
 bine to ruin and break up,’ or ‘attempt to 
 crush and put down the younger ones,’ as you 
 state. 
 
 “ ‘ The younger Offices have made an attack 
 on the older Companies by a system of under- 
 selling, and I feel inclined to recommend to 
 the latter, in self-defence, so to reduce the rates 
 that they may retain their connexions against 
 every competition, and that if any Office per- 
 sists in underselling, and insuring at lower 
 rates than the older and more experienced 
 Offices may adopt in that case, and in that case 
 only, they will, in my opinion, as stated in my 
 letter, speedily entail loss on those Companies. 
 
 “ ‘ There can be no combination in this step 
 to deprive the public of the advantages of com- 
 petition; on the contrary, the public would 
 derive immediate benefit from the competition 
 which now exists, by a present reduction of 
 rates. 
 
 “ ‘ As I observe, by your letter, that you do 
 not agree in opinion with me, I shall defer for 
 the present to call a meeting of the offices, but 
 I shall be watchful of the course which the new 
 Companies are taking, and shall regulate my 
 proceedings accordingly. 
 
 “‘I request you to submit this letter to your 
 Board. “ ‘ Yours faithfully, 
 
 ‘“Charles B. Ford. 
 
 “‘H. Spring, Esq., Manchester.’ 
 
 REPLY III. 
 
 “ ‘ Manchester, Fire Assurance Office, 9S, 
 street, Manchester, Nov. 13th. 
 “‘Dear Sir, — I am in receipt of yonr 
 of the 1 1th inst. and confirming my respi 
 the 6tli, am glad to find that on reflectic , 
 abandon the untenable proposition referi 
 I am glad more on account of the older 
 than the younger ones, knowing that h' 
 thing been attempted, a public struggle ' 
 have ensued alike objectionable to all cone 1 
 and I am of opinion that the surest and 
 est mode of reducing the excessive compj 
 which has originated this correspondent 1 
 be for those offices who are trading 
 their capital, to reduce at once their ex< 
 pretensions. 
 
 “ ‘Yours faithfully, “ ‘ Herbert Sp 
 “ ‘Charles B. Ford, Esq, Sun Fire Offi< 
 London.’ ” 
 
 The following Resolution and Letter were adopted at the Unity Bo| 
 29th October instant: — 
 
 “ Extract from the Minutes of the Board of Friday , October , 28 ih inst. 
 
 “ Resolved, — That the following letter be sent to the Boards of Directors of the varicj 
 Companies established in London : — 
 
 “ Unity Fire Insurance Association, 
 
 “Chief Offices, 40, Pall Mall, Loni 
 “ 29th October, 1853. 
 
 “ Gentlemen,— Evidence has been placed before us, in the capacity of Directors of thjj 
 Fire Insurance Association, that a pamphlet called the Insurance Monitor , publisj 
 Mr. Hartnoll, Editor of the ‘ Post Magazine,’ containing a tissue of falsehoods, malicioujjj 
 tions, and other matter reflecting upon the honour of this Association, has been ext<| 
 circulated and published by the Agents, &c., of various Fire Companies, both in town and c 
 
 “We beg, therefore, respectfully to request you to inform us whether you have authoij 
 your Agents, the distribution of these statements, as we cannot believe that, occupying t 
 position you do, as Directors of so respectable a Company, you would have been indtf 
 ex parte statements, to adopt and sanction assertions which cannot be sustained by evidefjjj 
 which are utterly and entirely fallacious. 
 
 “We have the honour to be, Gentlemen, 
 
 “Your obedient servants, 
 
 “J. A. Durham, Cliairmarj| 
 “H. Stones, Deputy Chair]! 
 
 “ On behalf of the Board.” 
 
 A copy of the above letter was duly forwarded to the undermentioned 
 Offices: — 
 
 Alliance, Anchor, Atlas, British Empire Mutual, Church of England, ConnL L>jj 
 Era, The General, Globe, Guardian, Hand-in-Hand, Imperial, Kent Mutual, LeA li ancj 
 mercial, Liverpool and London, London Assurance Corporation, Londoy and 
 Monarch, North British, Norwich Equitable, Norwich Union Fire, Phoenix / ire « 
 chauge Fire, Royal Farmers, Scottish National, Scottish Union, Sun Fire, Un^L West { 
 land, Westminster, Yorkshire, British Provident Fire, Equitable Fire, Ess" 1 Economic 
 Fire, Leeds and Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, National Guardian. 
 
 TETTER AND GALFIN, PLAYHOUSE YARD, BLACRFI^ 1 * 9 '