BENEFIT SOCIETIES.
general conception of these institutions may be shortly expressed. A number of individuals as sociate together, and, by payments made at stated times, create a fund, out of which they receive cer tain specific sums on certain specific occasions.
The people, whose course of life is most apt to present to them occasions where sums of money, de rived from other than their ordinary resources, are of 'peat importance to them, are those of whom the ordinary resources are the most scanty ; in other words, the whole mass of the people employed in the ordinary and worst paid species of labour.
The occasions on which sums of money, derived from other than their ordinary resources, are of most importance to these classes of the people, are those Au which the ordinary sources are diminlihed or dried up,—those of sickness, disablement, and old • age.
• Benefit Clubs are, accordingly} , associationls of per sons of the rank thus described, who agree to make certain payments, in general so much a-month ; in consequence of which, they receive certain sums, proportioned to the money which they pay, in times of sickness, of disablement, and in old age.
Sir F. M. Eden, in his work on the Poor, refers to Iiickes's Thesaurus for a proof that Benefit Clubs are of very ancient date, as the Gilds of our ances tors were nothing but associations of the same de scription. A Saxon MS. in the Cottonian Library contains the constitution of a Gild, or Sodalitas, as it ill rendered by Hickes, a Friendly or Benefit Club, established at Cambridge.
" It was first of all," says the MS. " agreed, that all members shall, with their hands upon the sacred relics, swear that they will be faithful to one an other, as well in those things which relate to God as those which relate to the world ; and that the whole society will always help him who has the better cause. If any member dies, the whole Society shall attend his funeral to whatever burying-place he him self may have chosen ; they shall defray one half of the expence which is incurred by the funeral enter tainment ; and each member shall further pay two pence, under the name of alms. If any member kill another, he shall pay not more than eight pounds, in tip way of satisfaction. But if he who has commit ted the murder refuses to satisfy, the whole club shall revenge their brother, and all shall contribute to the expence. If any member, who is poor, shall kill a man, and have satisfaction to make; and if the person_ killed was worth one thousand two hundred shillings, every member shall contribute half a mark, audio in proportion. If any member shall address another with coarse and uncivil language, let him pay a sextarius of honey," &c.
From the same source we have the formula of an other Club or Gild, formed at Exeter. After the • religious services which the members were to perform . for themselves, and for one another, it is ordained, " that when any member shall go abroad, each of the other members shall contribute fivepence ; when the house of any one is burnt, each shall contribute one penny. If any one neglects the appointed times of meeting, he shall be fined ; for the first offence, the price of three masses ; for the second, the price of five ; if, after admonition, he is absent a third time, without substantial ground, of sickness, or other cause, he shall not be excuseable. If any member shall use towards another gross and uncivil language, he shall make compensation by thirty pence." • Gilds, we are told, did not confine themselves to cities, though it is only in cities that the vestiges of them remain. Little Gilds, it appears, were esta blished in every parish. And of all those unions, the object was to entitle each of the members indivi dually, on certain occasions, on which it was most apt to be required, to receive pecuniary or (Ahem. specified aid from each of the rest.
Sir F. M. Eden speaks of Clubs which had exist ed in the north of England, for the purposes above describe, sil, above one hundred years ; and there is a treatise on the poor laws by Mr Alcock, printed in. 1752, which represents a number of them as existing at that time in the west of England. From that time to the present, they have been gradually and have grown so numerous, within . the last fifty, years,, as to have become an object of great import ance in our national economy, and one of the most . striking, manifestations of virtue that ever was made by any For persons merged in poverty, and totally de prived of education, as the English population here tofore have so generally been, it is not easy or com mon to have much of foresight, or much of that self command which is necessary to draw upon the gra tifications of the present for those of a distant day. When a people this situated have a provision made for them, to which they can with certainty have re course, as often as they themselves are deprived of the means of earning their own subsistence; and yet, notwithstanding this security, choose to form them selves almost universally into Benefit Societies, ib order that, by taking something from the means of their present scanty enjoyments, they may in sick ness, disablement, and old age, be saved froni the necessity of having recourse to public charity, and .