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 who are less well equipped for selecting securities.

That there is no objection to their doing so is shown by the fact that some of them do it. The balance-sheet of the Clerical, Medical and General Life Assurance Society, for example, gives every investment in detail, and a very interesting study they make, and will repay careful examination by investors who want to see how this successful company succeeds in earning a net yield of £4 15s. 4d. per cent., after deduction of income tax, on its invested funds. Points that strike one are the small amounts held in Home Railway prior charge stocks (£19,000) and home municipal securities (£10,000), though the loans on parochial and other rates come to a handsome sum (£298,000). The outstanding features, however, are the imposing figures of the mortgages (£2,013,000) and the British Government securities and guarantees (£2,180,000), which with the various loans (£1,106,000) make up well over five millions out of a total of £8,881,000 of assets.

As to the complications of insurance accounts and the high proportion of net revenue that the companies put to reserve, both will best be exemplified by the following extracts from the first article in the Economist's Insurance