686 Transactions. — Misceilaneoxts. 



them in the least degree. The records of the different bene- 

 volent societies show this, for there are many families in every 

 town where employment is so irregular and the weekly earnings 

 so small that the household expenses cannot be met even by 

 the exercise of the strictest economy. To go into debt is the 

 natural course of such families, and even when times are brisk 

 the debts that have to be repaid keep them one and all on the 

 verge of absolute poverty. Provision for sickness, for old age, 

 and for families in case of the premature death of the bread- 

 winners cannot be made under such conditions. Hence it will 

 be found that what is kept back under our present conditions 

 from a large proportion of the poor has to be paid again in the 

 course of time in the form of doles, whilst self-reliance, manli- 

 ness, and self-respect are crushed by the process. 



To engender habits of thrift and foresight among the poorer 

 classes benefit societies were established, and perhaps no form 

 of governmental control ever had so many possibilities of good 

 as these self-reliant institutions. Friendly and benefit societies 

 appear to have been an outgrowth of the old craft guilds which 

 flourished in England for several hundred years, where mutual 

 help, mutual responsibility, and mutual protection were their 

 leading characteristics. Those who belonged to the craft 

 guilds were allowed special privileges by the order. They 

 were able to obtain loans without interest in case of need, and 

 help was always rendered to the widows of members who had 

 died. Thus we find Mr. John Hughes, Provincial Grand 

 Master of the Manchester Unity of Oddfellows, in his evi- 

 dence before the committee of the English House of Com- 

 mons to inquire into the question of old-age pensions, 

 expressing himself with respect to friendly societies in about 

 the same way as a member of the ancient guilds would have 

 expressed himself during the period of medieeval England. 

 "They look," says Mr. Hughes, "upon a member of a 

 friendly society as having done something to ameliorate the 

 lot of his fellow-men, and make sacrifices. They do not 

 expect to get their money back ; they have no claim to get it 

 back ; they may pay for twenty or thirty years, and unless 

 they fall sick thsy do not get anything." 



Here we have the kernel, as it were, of Oddfellowship, and 

 of all friendly societies now established. The abolition of the 

 guilds and the confiscation of their funds by Henry VIII. and 

 Edward VI. destroyed the exclusiveness of the various trades ; 

 but workmen thence became companions in a common aim 

 and effort, and self-reliance manifested itself by the formation 

 of friendly societies that recognised mutual help and mutual 

 responsibilities under specified conditions. And any one who 

 has watched and studied the growth of friendly societies 

 throughout the world must have felt that they have been 



