1903-4. ] THE PRINCIPLES OF INSURANCE. 87 
To plunge in medias res, let me give a sample table of one of these 
fraternal societies :— 
Contributions to be paid for sick and funeral benefits, viz:—$100 at death of member, 
$50 at death of member’s wife; $4 per week for first twenty-six weeks’ sickness; $3 
for the next twenty-six weeks, and $1.50 for continuation of illness. 
To To To Total 
Age last Birthday. Sick Funeral Management| Monthly 
Fund. Fund, und. Payments. 
MEMEO DIV CATS. secs slaehe ses, ic neeheler so ° s $o.31 $0.09 $0.25 $0 65 
DDO) CY GR Ae ORIEL ME OPER .32 ait .25 o 68 
DRE COME oN EM pel etesoia, aueertstcs )a).6) Mej.sy sees ay 13 Dic, On72 
ROME SIT Lone, Mle reiAse steve ssn ctavofaierendtsl erations 226 15 .25 oO 76 
35) 09 (ao) OSA CEU Ae HG eo el bee paso mnlbd es AI .16 725 oO 82 
(ny OE ER. VISES TN yt Ge ese ORVICRONG ta wo OhahcreT C .48 .18 25 O gI 
JS a I 02 
SOW ae AN Kisii nec ele Meer aetepate 2S 0 7 .20 .25 
In the society using these figures the central lodge receives the funeral 
fund and is liable for the death claims, while the subordinate lodges ad- 
minister the sick funds. Thus the central body may be solvent and the 
local ones insolvent. But we need not criticise the method of organization 
now. It will be seen at once that these contributions do not approach in 
magnitude, severally considered, the sums paid to life insurance companies 
by the wealthier classes, but when it is remembered that there were 673,394 
members of the Manchester Unity at the date of the report last mentioned, 
not to speak of other orders, the importance of the subject to the poorer 
classes in England becomes manifest, and it may soon become of importance 
-here also. For there is an increasing desire, born of increasing need, among 
our wage-earners, to render themselves and their families as much as possible 
independent of the expenses of sickness and burial, which are really crushing 
to those who have to live from hand to mouth, as the majority must. They 
feel that provision against both temporary and permanently disabling illness 
and against the cost of burials, which are ridiculously and extravagantly 
expensive, must be made in some way. All methods are reducible to one 
of three. The first is voluntary payment to fraternal or other benevolent 
societies, the beneficiaries contributing the funds by small instalments, 
the societies acting as trustees. The collections and disbursements are in 
such cases often made through subordinate societies, affiliated more or less 
strictly with a central body. Allied to this mode is the entrusting of the 
contributions to incorporated stock companies, which undertake all the 
responsibility of management. The second consists in a guarantee by the 
state, and as all plans involving it require that payments should be made 
to everyone on reaching a certain age, the whole method is popularly called 
the Old Age Pension system. Those who have not studied this arrangement 
as carried out in Germany and some other European countries, generally 
