OLD-AGE PENSIONS.
[To THE EDITOR Or THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—In the Spectator of August 31st Mr. Burgess asks the amount of the pension which can be secured by a payment of a penny a week during school years, and the age at which the pension would begin. It is calculated that a payment of not much more than £9 at the age of twenty-one will secure an old-age pension of five shillings a week to commence at the age of sixty-five (Spectator of September• 7th, p. 313). A sub- scription of threepence-halfpenny a week paid for a child from the age of five to that of fourteen, invested at com- pound interest at 3i per cent., will produce £7 16s. 4d., which would purchase the same pension as could be purchased at the age of twenty-one for• £9 7s. 7d. A subscription of a penny a week similarly invested would purchase a pension of one shilling and sixpence to commence at the age of sixty-five. A parent who had secured this for his child would have given that child considerable encouragement to make the pension substantial by further• contributions during the first years of his working
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