and t/ie Poor Law. 
103 
■withdrawing support from such institutions, and encouraging 
and influencing labourers to form or join safe and solvent 
societies, the clergyman and squire may render valuable help to 
many of their poor and deserving neighbours.* 
The sharing-out club, then, is the offspring of the beer-house 
and the union, and is nourished and maintained by those who, 
in the long run, whether landowners or labourers, have small 
cause for congratulation. Diverted by the provisions of the 
Poor Law from attempts to save, where they can save, the 
labourers have thus resorted to the ingenious contrivance by 
which their presumed rights to relief are not brought into 
jeopardy, while, at the same time, all the advantages of social 
and kindly influences arising from friendly co-operation are pre- 
served to them. The benefit society of the farm labourer is thus 
adapted to his requirements. Alter the conditions on which it 
is based, and he will soon begin to re-model, or else, if he cannot 
improve it, he Avill forsake it for a better. In order to make 
him begin, he must, whether willingly or not, be emancipated 
from the shackles of the Poor Law, and be taught to leave the 
pittance of the rate to his weaker brethren, whom no friendly 
society can take, and who are the maimed, or lame, or blind, or 
otherwise infirm, and those who are starving in rags and squalid 
■wretchedness in and about the towns and cities of this country. 
As an instance of what may be done by all classes in a paro- 
chial friendly society, attention may be called to the " Wicken 
Club," which was formed in 1838; "the object of it being not 
only to make provision for sick members, for superannuated 
members, and to insure a payment at death, but to encourage 
amongst the villagers a spirit of self-reliance, and a desire to 
render themselves independent, except under really unavoidable 
circumstances, of parochial relief." The population of Wicken 
is under 500, and the club, "including juniors," numbers 280 
members. "Almost every man, woman, and child, of the 
labouring class in the parish is a member." Being in a small 
area, it is able to offer the additional benefit of medical attend- 
ance,! and, indeed, it engrafts on the friendly society proper, 
* "The clergy and the landowners have a great deal to answer for in this 
respect. On the annual feast-day of a club the proceedings commence by the 
members going in procession to church. The clergyman of the parish is asked to 
preach a sermon, and is threatened in the event of his refusal with the transfer of 
the place of worship to the Dissenting chapel. In very few cases he is firm enough 
to resist this pressure, and generally he not only preaches but in the absence of 
the chief landowner presides at the dinner. Neither of them, although they sub- 
scribe to the funds, know anything, except what they are told, of the state of the 
funds of the club, or of its real security ; but the apparent sanction which they 
give to its proceedings induces many men to become members without any 
further enquiry." — Hon. E. Stanhope, Commission . . . in Agriculture. 
t Mr. Tidd Pratt recommends medical attendance as one of the benefits to be 
