ness, who employ assistants to do their club and union practice. By the former, the reepectab club patient is hailed as likely to bring the more profitable accession of his family connexions; by the latter, the question of profit or loss is swamped in the generalities of a large income. To the established practitioner, with but a small or moderate practice, this question of profit and loss is a very different matter; to him, every private patient, who can pay his accounts, is a matter of

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... ence and calculation, and his withdrawal into the club ranks is a loss to be felt. Yet how difficult is the position of the medical man! If he resists what he knows and feels is an imposition and a wrong, he almost certainly risks the loss, not only of the one patient, but of the family. Need we feel surprised that, making up his mind that the first loss is the least, he succumbs to the force of circumstances, and certificates his feapectaIle patient as a fit member for semi-gratuitous attendance I We cannot blame poor men who act thus-men who feel they cannot afford to lose even an inch of ground in the battle of life; but we do blame the indifferent or aggrandising spirit of the independent men -the men of large practices and visiting assistants-who might rectify the -evil, who might, without hurt to themselves, or rather to those dependent upon them, take an independent course, but who prefer permitting, and even aiding, the victimisation of their less fortunately placed brethren. To those who are in easy circumstances we appeal for co-operation in our attempts to remedy an evil which, though it may not affect their pecuniary interests, does affect their position as medical men, and originates calamities which press with severity upon others. Charity begins at home. Every medical practitioner, be his position what it may, is bound to see that, in exercising his vocation for the good of the public, he inflict not injury upon his own profession. Is it not the abuse of gratuitous advice, and of semi-gratuitous advice, which renders our Benevolent Fund and our Benevolent College so necessary? WHERE OUGHT I TO INSURE MY LIFE? WHEnRE ought I to insure my life I is a question which is daily addressed to medical men by some of their patients; and we fear that, too often, an answer is inconsiderately given. It does not follow that, because an iusurance company promises to remunerate the medical profession, it is a safe and respectable concern ; and as some seem to act as if this were the case, we think it our duty to caution our readers against too easily lending their names and influence to new and plausible speculations. In our number for the 9th current, we inserted a letter from Mr. Ilenry Terry, jun., of Northampton, regarding a society which we find has been extensively advertised, especially in the provincial newspapers, under the name of the "New Economic Life Assurance and Loan Association". The advertisements represent the following gentlemen as trustees: Matthew Faber, Esq.; Alexander Peter Fletcher, Esq.; Ambrose Lockett, Esq.; William Pincher, Esq. We have made diligent inquiry among our City friends; and we find that these trustees are wholly unknown in the commercial world. As their addresses are not given in the prospectuses and advertisements of the company, we much fear that their standing as monied men is no better than that of the dis of a moro coelebutes aderotaking-the Glen Mutchkin Railway. If we ae spaking wrongfully of these gentlemen, they have themselves only to blame; i uch as "William Deacon", their Secretary, who signs their prospectuses "by order of the board"', has evaporated from the offices, 12, Took's Court, Chancery lane, and has left neither man, woman, boy, nor placard behind, to tell of his own habitat or of that of the trustees. The affair is, or is not, a swindle; and we call upon MIr. Deacon and his friends to come forth from their hiding places, to gratify our curiosity on this subject. It is not Mr. Terry's patient alone who has suffered; we are in possession of other cases of the same description. Mr. John Salusbury, of Conway, North Wales, informs us of a friend of his, who was treated exactly in the same way. The lady, who lives near Conway, in reply to inquirien which she instituted in London regarding the company,