J. GRISWOLD, GENERAL AGENT, AUTHOR OF "A SYSTEM OF CLASSIFICATION OF FIRE HAZARDS AND LOSSES,' INTRODUCTION. BUT few words will be necessary to introduce the "TEXTBOOK" to the fraternity of Fire Underwriters, and others interested, and to ask for it a favorable consideration. The book had its origin in the daily need experienced by the author—in common, doubtless, with all other fire underwriters for some general work upon the subject of FIRE INSURANCE, wherein might be found gathered in available form, its THEORY and PRACTICE, with appropriate laws, rules, and usages deduced from the experience of the forefathers in the profession, which might serve as a beacon to guide the footsteps of the present generation; but, strange as it may seem-while life insurance, a science of comparatively modern origin, abounds in literature, from the canvassing document of a single diminutive folio to the royal octavo tome with hundreds of pages, devoted to the instruction of its votaries, and the elucidation of its principles-fire underwriting, numbering the years of its existence by centuries, and ranking as a science, fails to embrace a single work of the comprehensive general character so urgently needed by the profession; so that what the practical fire underwriter of the present day knows of his business is wholly the result of his own observation and of hard-earned experience, unassisted either by theory or the recorded experience of others, beyond a few elementary treatises and digests of the laws of fire insurance which, unaided by a knowledge of the underlying general principles of the subject, tend rather to mislead than to enlighten. The logical result is apparent in the great diversity of opinion and practice so prevalent, where all should be uniformity and certainty. |