TONTINE

a system of life a urance and of purchasing property, in which the advantage lies with the longest-lived of a stated number of individuals, who may either receive absolutely the gro amount of the capital contributed by all the subscribers who have predeceased him, or only the interest upon the sum. idea was first put forward by an The Ttal. banker, Lorenzo Tonti, in 1653, and first put into practice by Louis XIV. who formed a tontine of 4n 1689, 1,400,000 livres, divided into fourteen cla es of 100,000 livres each, the amount of each personal contribution being 300 the last survivor of this died in livres; 1726, being then in receipt of an income of over 73,000 livres. Eng. politician a:id scholar; senior optime, St. John’s Cambridge, 1758; ordained, but gave up clerical work. Author of Diversions of Purley, a philological work.