CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



remembered that the benefit is conferred upon a 

 class who might otherwise be entirely dependent 

 in this respect. Lord Osborne considers it a great 

 matter that the poor are induced to contribute the 

 larger share of the funds : their spirit of self- 

 dependence is encouraged to that extent. In the 

 large towns coal-clubs are extremely common. 

 The great loss to the working-class consumers 

 arises from their having to purchase the coal in 

 small quantities, thereby causing its price to them 

 to become increased at least 50 per cent To avoid 

 this, a number of workmen subscribe together for 

 the purchase of a ton or upwards of coals, which is 

 purchased direct from the wholesale dealer, and 

 divided among the members according to the 

 amount of their subscriptions. Many of the co- 

 operative associations have turned their attention 

 to the supply of coal, less for the purpose of profit, 

 than of furnishing assistance to the members. 

 One London firm is stated to have supplied 1050 

 tons of coal in a single year to members of coal- 

 clubs and co-operative societies. 



Clothing Funds. 



Among the institutions started by Lord Osborne 

 was a Penny Clothing Fund. In this, however, 

 the proportion of charitable contribution is greater 

 than in any other of Lord Osborne's schemes. The 

 object is to encourage the poor to exert themselves 

 to furnish decent clothing to their children. A 

 benevolent person pitches upon some child belong- 

 ing to a poor neighbour : the patron and the child 

 each pay id. weekly into the fund that is, 8s. 8d. 

 annually. Some persons take two, three, or more 

 children under their care. Lord Osborne speaks of 

 150 in all his parish being clothed by these means 

 in one year. 



Female Societies. 



The Wife's Friendly Society is designed by Lord 

 Osborne to enable married women of the poorest 

 class to have a small fund which they can draw 

 upon, to defray the expense of a proper medical 

 attendant at their confinements, and furnish some 

 of the comforts required on those occasions. 

 Generally, this class of persons have no provision 

 for such occasions, and the consequences are, that 

 they depend on charity, and sometimes suffer 

 from the indifference which the midwives in that 

 case employed are apt to feel where their care is 

 not to be remunerated. A poor woman recom- 

 mended to the Wife's Friendly Society pays 2d. 

 weekly for a year to the treasurer the vicar's wife 

 making 8s. 8d. in all. To this the society, from 

 charitable contributions, adds 2s. lod., making 

 us. 6d. If she is confined that year, she gets an 

 order for ios., which serves as payment for her 

 medical attendant. The remaining is. 6d. serves 

 to furnish gruel and other little comforts a small 

 sum for such a purpose, but better than nothing. 

 The person who recommended the member 

 guarantees that, after this payment is made, she 

 will continue to pay her weekly twopences till the 

 end of the year. Should no confinement take 

 place, the money is spent on clothes. Female 

 Provident Societies are numerous in the manu- 

 facturing districts. 



The principle of self-help appears to have 



B'2: 



made wonderful strides in this country in modern 

 times, and although the tendency to accept 

 charitable aid, to rely upon the assistance of 

 others rather than upon one's self, yet largely 

 prevails, even to a most deplorable extent, yet no 

 reflective person who has watched the growth of 

 habits of self-reliance among the labouring-classes 

 during the last forty years, can fail to note their 

 influence in evoking feelings of a more manly and 

 independent character among those to whom such 

 sentiments were frequently unknown. This is as 

 it should be. That community thrives the best 

 in which the various members learn to rely on 

 themselves, for, politically, socially, or morally, a 

 man can be said to fulfil his proper function only 

 when he trusts to his own right arm for the 

 support of himself and family, and leans upon no 

 one save in the general sense in which mankind 

 are all mutually dependent. 



Since the date of the foregoing, progress has 

 been made in almost every department with which 

 it deals. Many of the societies mentioned have 

 been the subject of fresh legislation since this was 

 written. In 1887 the amount standing at the 

 credit of depositors in savings-banks amounted 

 to little short of 100 millions of money. In 1880, 

 when the new Savings-bank Act came into force, 

 the rate of interest to depositors was reduced to 

 ;2, 153. per cent. ; the average rate of interest in 

 1887 being 2, 145. 5d. The number of accounts 

 in connection with Trustee Banks in 1885 was 

 1,592,997 ; the total amount due to depositors was 

 ^46,355,908. At the same date the Post-office 

 savings-bank had 3,535,650 open accounts, repre- 

 senting a sum of ,47,697,838 : total capital of 

 Trustee and Post-office savings-banks at that 

 date, ^94,053,846. This did not include nearly 

 .2,500,000 separately invested in government 

 stock, for which facilities now exist for investment 

 in consols, reduced, or new 3 per cents. The 

 sums invested in this way must not be less than 

 .10, and must not exceed .100 in any one year ; 

 the total sum for any one investor being limited 

 to .300. A novel extension of the Post-office 

 savings-bank system was introduced in 1880 in 

 the shape of blank forms, with twelve ruled spaces, 

 which are issued to intending depositors, who 

 might wish to secure their penny savings by affix- 

 ing ordinary postage-stamps to the form. Postal 

 orders are also issued from the post-office for 

 sums varying from is. to 205. at a charge of a 

 halfpenny upwards, which are payable at any 

 office in Great Britain. The number of postal 

 orders issued in 1885-6 amounted to 25,790,316, 

 the value of which amounted to ,10,788,946. 



The growth of co-operative and building societies 

 has also been very remarkable. The share capital 

 invested in co-operative societies, which was 

 ,425,oooin 1862, exceeded .9,000,000 in 1887. The 

 co-operative societies in England and Wales in 

 1885 numbered 974, the number of members 

 681,482 ; sale of goods amounted to ^24,723,285, 

 yielding a profit of ,2,357,635. In Scotland, 305 ; 

 members, 121,386; sale of goods, ,5,134,640; and 

 profit, ^523,823 : Ireland had 9 ; members, 879 ; 

 goods sold, ,24,754 ; profit, ,2008. From 637 in 

 1887, building societies had risen to over 20,000 

 in 1884, or more than threefold ; the assets exceed- 

 ing .50,000,000. 



