Front matter
Reading edition
ANNALS, ANECDOTES, AND LEGENDS OF LIFE ASSURANCE.
London: Spottiswoodes and Shaw, New-street-Square.
ANNALS, ANECDOTES AND LEGENDS: A Chronicle OF LIFE ASSURANCE.
BY JOHN FRANCIS,
AUTHOR OF “THE HISTORY OF THE BANK OF ENGLAND,” ETC.
“Tragedy never quits the world—it surrounds us everywhere. We have but to look, wakeful and vigilant, abroad; and, from the age of Pelops to that of Borgia, the same crimes, though under different garbs, will stalk in our paths.”—Sir E. Bulwer Lytton.
“Murder?” “Murder most foul, as in the best it is; But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.”—Shakspeare.
LONDON: LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS. 1853.
Dedicated, by Permission,
TO
THE MOST NOBLE
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE.
THIS NARRATIVE, RECORDING THE PROGRESS OF LIFE ASSURANCE, AND RELATING THE SERVICES OF SIR WILLIAM PETTY, THE FATHER OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, IN THE CAUSE OF VITAL STATISTICS, IS, BY PERMISSION, RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO HIS DESCENDANT, THE MOST NOBLE HENRY PETTY, THIRD MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE, BY HIS LORDSHIP’S MOST OBEDIENT AND VERY DEVOTED SERVANT, JOHN FRANCIS.
Shooter’s Hill, May 23. 1853.