Note 237b-3 — Chapter III

A Prussian fire insurance regulation, as far back as 1720, expressly says: "everybody scruples to make the least loan on pledged houses in towns." "Every care shall be taken to make the least possible amount of loans in cities." (Jacobi, in Engel's Zeitschr., 1862, 122.) Leib, Dritte Periode, etc., 1708, cites a proverb to the effect that, in Hamburg, "no house takes fire;" that is, at a time that its fire-fund-system (Brandkassenwesen) had as yet found few imitators, v. Justi's proposition to combine the insurance of houses against fire with a loaning-bank for houses. (Polizeiwissenschaft, 1756, I, § 7, 8 ff.) In Russia, in 1815, the loaning bank was the only fire insurance company, which however assumed risks only on stone houses at three-fourths of their value in consideration of 15 per 1,000 annual premium. (Rau, Lehrbuch, I, 229.)