Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/881

 NOTES AND ABSTRACTS 867

with scientific truths ; they are only the efforts of the human mind to bring into order the real political and economic conditions. From this point of view it is quite evident how pernicious must be the transfer of political and economic conceptions from one region into another quite different one." F. SIGEL, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Stience, March, 1898.

Industrial Insurance. There are over eight millions of industrial policies in force in the United States, amounting to over a thousand millions of dollars, as the result of the experience of twenty years. There is evidently a popular demand for small insurances. In England a single company, the Prudential, has fairly met this demand. In this country the conditions are somewhat different, due to greater terri- torial extent, smaller comparative population, and the division into states with sepa- rate legislative bodies. As a result there have been innumerable cooperative and assessment and fraternal societies, most of them short-lived. " Industrial insurance is an effort to provide safe, small insurances on scientific principles for the great mass of the people." Its application involves many difficulties and intricate details which are being worked out by the companies. Weekly payments of premiums, though an expensive method, have been found to be a necessity. I, The mortality question. Industrial mortality is considerably higher than the general mortality, due to the fact that industrial insurance in this country reaches only the working people in cities, among whom the rate of mortality is high. This accounts for the expensiveness of industrial insurance. II, The question of child insurance. The evidence shows that "the mortality of insured children is less than the general child mortality." Child insurance does no harm to the children. " The system is a family insurance system, purely burial insurance at the earlier ages, life and even investment insurance at the later ages." Ill, The expense ratio of industrial insurance is necessarily high on account of the very nature of the business, dealing as it does with a large number of policies, small premiums, and collections at frequent intervals. IV, Effort is made so to regulate the method of compensation of agents that lapses may be prevented. Lapses are a source of loss rather than gain to the companies. V, "Lapsed policy- holders are treated with the utmost liberality." In case of lapse after five years they may receive a paid-up policy. Within a year after lapse the payment of arrears secures reinstatement. Other methods are also provided to secure the policy-holder from loss through lapse. VI, The surplus no longer goes to the stockholder to any great extent. It is either distributed to the policy-holders in the form of premiums or held for their protection. Cobperation on the part of those working among the poor with the industrial companies would he mutually advantageous, especially in two directions: (i) "If any charitable worker finds an individual case of hardship by reason of the policy-holder having fallen on evil times or been ill-treated by an agent, he will confer a favor on the company by communicating the circumstances." (2) " Much good can be done by an effort to reduce the sick and death expenses of the insured, so as to save for the survivors as much of the death claim paid as possible." H.M i v I-'I-KI.. Charitits AVnVw, March, 1898.

Anthropological Data in Sociology. Gumplowicz finds the origin of society in an hypothesis. Society and social laws are born, he writes, from the struggle of the weak against the strong. The state springs from the subjection of one group to another. He assumes polygenism, humanity composed of an infinite number of hetero- geneous elements or primitive tubes, lie invokes Vogt, Virchow, Kollmann. V. Hoelder, and Passavant to justify his theory; but Virchow and Kollmann are mono- genists, and the others are far from maintaining that different facial or cranial indicate primitive heterogeneous tribes. If the polygenism of Gumplowicz has no natural basic, if it is a fantastic notion not even clear to the author, it can not be the foundation of sociology. He has no clear conception of his polygenism. He does not explain whether by "innumerable primitive tril>es" he means species of one or more animal genera, or whether they are groups that happen to be torn far apart, or races, or peoples produced by mixture of races. The polygenism supported by Morton, Agassiz, and others, though disputable, has a scientific basis in implying a