99 



funds, and purchasing land ; if they continue lo do so, 

 the number of small fund holders will be increased, and in 

 that number it is likely there will be many that have been 

 working bees, but who, from the effects of their industry 

 and prudence, are enabled to become drones, and thus be 

 useful members of the community, their dependence being 

 on the welfare and stability of the state. 



ON BENEFIT CLUBS & SAVINGS' BANKS. The 



carelessness of the young men, for many years past, of 

 cluing any tiling to provide for iheir future wants, has 

 arisen from their ideas of right of claim on their parishes ; 

 and knowing that if they had any property, or were in a 

 Benefit Club, parish rc-lief would, in all probability, be 

 withheld from them, when, from ill-health, they were 

 incapable of work. Few, therefore, of the agricultural 

 labourers have, of late years, entered into these Clubs, or 

 saved any thing to provide against future wants. Benefit 

 Clubs are good institutions, and ought to be encouraged. 

 Parishes ought to allow a weekly sum, half, at least, that 

 they would have allowed, if not in a Club, to every one 

 belonging- to the parish, so long as he shall be receiving the 

 sick allowance from the Club.' 



Savings' Banks are admitted by all, to be excellent 

 institutions. Before they were talked of in England, an 

 intelligent person, then residing in Northampton, with 

 whom 1 used to have much conversation, told me that 

 he thought it would be productive of much good if there 

 were banks established to receive small deposits from 

 servants and the working classes. I immediately entered 

 most warmly into the idea, having at that time known of 

 several cruel losses sustained by some persons, through 

 their lending, on interest, the whole of their savings to 

 small tradesmen, who afterwards failed. We were in- 

 formed by an active and intelligent Physician, who then 

 resided in Northampton, that a Savings' Bank was about to 

 be formed in Scotland. We three therefore set to work 

 and framed rules and regulations for one at Northampton 

 before we asked any other person to join us : and few men 

 ever gratuitously fagged much harder, night after night, 

 (for neither of us could give up our time in the day), till 



