illness which might prevent him from keeping up his payments.

The form of life insurance best suited to these operations is a very interesting question and has received a great deal of careful study. It has been somewhat common to utilize what is known as term insurance. Low premiums commend it, but as a great majority will live beyond the fifteen or twenty years, it seems unfortunate that they cannot get back any part of their premiums in paid-up insurance or cash. Then, too, after the age of forty, this kind of insurance approaches relatively the standard of an ordinary life rate. The idea of term insurance did not,

per cent. interest could be collected in the mean time, and the premium payments with interest would amount to less than the combination of the ordinary life premium with a monthly installment payment sufficient to liquidate the principal in fifteen or twenty years, as the case may be, with interest at 6 per cent. upon deferred payments. But one objection to endowment insurance is that no part of the principal comes back to the company until the end of the endowment period, when it is paid in a lump sum. Business contingencies which might arise with any life insurance company during so long a period would therefore have to be considered. Besides, the City and Suburban Homes Company would prefer to have its capital turned over continually for the extension of its work. This is possible when part of it is being repaid month by month.

Participating insurance is too expensive to combine with repayment by installments. A nonparticipating ordinary life policy with the twentyyear settlement period presents on the whole the greatest advantages. The paid-up insurance and

cash surrender or loan values, available in any year after the third, in case of failure to pay, can be stated in the policy and made a part of the contract. The premium rate is not too high to combine with the regular monthly installment of principal and interest. Premiums are paid by the company annually in advance and the amount collected each month with the regular installment.

The City and Suburban Homes Company has made a contract with the United States Life Insurance Company to receive its risks. Its tender seemed on the whole to be the most advantageous and to present absolutely safe guarantees.

As soon as 100 houses are ordered, a contract is

made for their erection. In this way important economies are effected. The company in buying a large tract of land and building at wholesale saves very considerable sums. After a fair allowance for expenses of management the entire saving reverts to the purchaser. The company's profit consists in six per cent. interest on deferred payments. Five per cent. of this is distributed to stockholders and one per cent. is carried over to surplus. Residence in a desirable neighborhood, durable construction and the offer of such favorable terms combine to make the

BED ROOM

SECOND FLOOR.

(See plans on this page.)

scheme exceedingly popular. There is an immense constituency in Greater New York who are desirous of acquiring homes on a fair basis. The rare opportunities offered by the City and Suburban Homes Company, when once known, will attract large sums of capital to be invested through it for this purpose. Still, its aim will not be to secure a monopoly of business, but to fix a standard.

The company is perfectly secure. It builds upon order and has its clients' lives insured before the order is executed. If one of them

should die even before the house was completed, the face value of the policy would pay for the house, and the family would be provided for. All policies are assigned to the City and Suburban Homes Company, and in case of death later the sum owed would be deducted and the balance handed over to the estate.

The contract between the company and its clients stipulates a monthly payment during ten, fifteen or twenty years, at the choice of the purchaser. This sum includes an installment on account of principal, six per cent. interest on deferred payments, and the life insurance premium. Taxes and repairs are paid by the purchaser. Clients are advised to obligate themselves for a twentyyear period rather than ten or fifteen, because in so doing they are the better able to provide against contingencies arising from

non-employment, sickness or other unexpected events. That is, a man need not mortgage his income beyond a safe point. The company gives him the privilege of paying sooner if he wishes. Either the whole or a part of his indebtedness is receivable at any time, and his interest account properly adjusted. This plan permits a man to provide for lean" years. There is also the encouragement to save, and thus get the home more quickly. Both are important considerations, because habits of thrift thus engendered are likely to become fixed. Payments made in advance are a

The title is not passed until the property is entirely paid for. Were it otherwise speculation would result, and speculators rather than purchasers would reap the benefit. Considering the character and cheapness of the property, speculators could well afford to offer purchasers

a generous bonus for their interests. The only way to avoid this is to sell on contract and withhold the title until full payment. Of course, if a m a n the e n chooses to part with his home the company cannot prevent it, but it will be very careful not to repeat the operation for such persons unless there has been good reason for the sale. The prime work of the company is home-building, and it desires to use its resources solely for the benefit of genuine home-seekers. Renting and sub-letting can only be done with the company's consent. In case a man loses his

most effective guarantee against dispossession. The life insurance policy has also a loan value in any year after the third. Purchasers of suburban homes under this scheme are in every respect most favorably placed as regards crises, sickness and other ordinary economic misfortune.

(See plans below.)

position and finds work in another city, or in case his wife dies and he is obliged to break up housekeeping, the company will make an equitable arrangement with him. Naturally, it would encourage a purchaser who for some good reason found it inconvenient to carry out his contract to find an acceptable party who would take the property off his hands.

What is the cost of all this? Obviously the insurance feature introduces an element of variation. A young man pays less than one well advanced in years, but for one in middle life who purchases a property costing say $2,500 and pays 10 per cent. down, the monthly installment about equals 25 per cent. of an annual income of $1,000. Taxes and repairs are additional, still, he would be an extraordinary person who did not feel that he could safely go a little beyond 25 per cent. of his income when he was paying for his own home instead of renting another's house.

A forecast of the extent and usefulness of such work is not difficult to make. There is no doubt that thousands upon thousands of honest, self-respecting, ambitious men would gladly escape with their families from the unhealthfulness, uncomfortableness and moral contamination of congested tenement life. Especially in the earlier years of marriage would they gladly avail themselves of fair opportunities. More have refrained from becoming owners because of the comparative costliness sometimes also of the unfairness of the schemes presented. Excessive cost and hard dealing have characterized so many schemes that wage-earners are naturally suspicious. Still, many, at great expense and more or less inconvenience, have embraced opportunities to purchase homes. If

the home-getting, home-loving instinct is ever eliminated from the Anglo-Saxon temperament,

social politics will assume an entirely new aspect. There are few American, English or German born workingmen who will lightly cast aside the opportunity to become the owner of a small home under a sound, practical and reasonable plan.

Why should the operations of the City and Suburban Homes Company not be heartily supported? The patronage exists. It does not have to be created. The investment, though yielding a fair return, is among the most secure. Who would not feel safer with 100 mortgages of $1,000 each than one mortgage of $100,000? Then, too, the life insurance is a further security. What the City and Suburban Homes Company really has back of its loans is property worth fully 15 per cent. more than it is sold for, upon which also 10 per cent. has been paid or secured as an evidence of good faith, backed by a life insurance policy representing the full amount of the indebtedness. Furthermore, it must be remembered that a beneficent control is exercised over an entire suburb, and values not only are secure, but are certain to enhance. Building is done upon order, so that there is no loop-hole for loss of interest or possibility of waiting for hypothetical purchasers to take the houses. The indebtedness of every home-getter is decreasing from year to year. When one thinks of all these things besides other and minor considerations, one cannot help feeling that an unusually safe investment is offered to shareholders of the company. Indeed, in comparison with nearly all other safe investments, it can without impropriety be characterized as "giltedged." If demands are to be met, millions of capital can be placed by the City and Suburban Homes Company in this way. The work is one of fundamental social importance and promises substantial economic gain.

Tow

OWARD the close of last year the Hon. James B. Eustis, United States Ambassador to France, received an invitation to attend the " Inaugural Festival of the University of Paris," that was to be held in the central amphitheatre of the Sorbonne, and at which the President of the French Republic had promised to be present. Readers may feel surprised at the idea that the University of Paris needed still to be inaugurated after so many centuries of a busy and even restless life. What! the old Sorbonne still awaiting baptism? Paris, where the handsome and enthusiastic Abelard had taught his daring and simple philosophy; Paris, that was invested with an immense, attractive power, and considered almost the capital of human thought, when Bologna and Padua were still in infancy, Paris was not entitled to be numbered among the universities of the world? This is queer news, indeed! The ambassadors to the Court of St. James should inquire if there is no probability of their being invited soon to a similar ceremony by the Lord High Chancellor of Oxford or the C'ambridge Senate; in which case the trustees of the College of New Jersey might get proud at their

having set forth so good an example in assuming the name of Princeton University after one hundred and fifty years of existence only, and in asking President Cleveland to be their guest on this occasion. I take it for granted that Ambassador Eustis was well acquainted with the true state of things, and felt no surprise whatever in receiving the invitation. He therefore drove through the Paris streets toward the Latin Quarter," and at two o'clock took his seat on the platform dressed with red velvet and golden lace, between M. Hanotaux, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Count Tornielli, the Italian Ambassador. A few minutes later President Faure entered the room amid a great burst of applause and the singing of the Marseillaise. Then rose the rector of the university, M. Gréard, who told a few facts from the university's history.

THE GLORIOUS PAST.

It was in the first year of the thirteenth century that the School of Paris, as it has been called from its foundation, was granted a charter by King Philip Augustus. Thenceforth the word university was used in place of the word school..