in the club, together with the money he has
paid. This expedient, which in a small society
is good, saves the demand of a medical
certificate on joining. In some clubs, however, the
practice is different, and a certificate is required:
for which the usual charge is a shilling.

Objection is persistently taken to the uniform
weekly contribution, on the ground that it
causes the insolvency of the club. That it is
unjust for a man of forty-five to pay the same
contribution as a man of half the age, is a matter
of fact on which not a word need be said. But
that the custom causes insolvency, is a statement
much too readily adopted. So far from
being one of the causes of insolvency (which are
in truth numerous enough without any needless
addition), it will be generally found conducive to
the club's prosperity. For, if we take the average
age of the members at commencement,
ascertain the uniform contribution, and compare
it with established tables, we find at once
whether it be insufficient. The average age of
the members of a society at commencement,
quoted by the Registrar, is thirty-one years. On
the same authority we learn that a weekly allowance
of ten shillings in sickness is given on
conditions to males engaged in heavy labour,
ceasing at various ages. Taking the highest,
seventy years of age, this sum can be insured
by a monthly contribution of one shilling and
fivepence-halfpenny, or, omitting an inconsiderable
fraction, fourpence a week.

But by the rule already stated, the amount
which would be paid in a "Brummagem" club,
would be fivepence a week. Of the average
age of persons on joining the Brummagem
clubs we have no returns, and are therefore
compelled to restrict ourselves to facts within
our own experience, and such information as
we could ourselves collect. This, it would
appear that the average age of members on the
formation of a club is considerably below that
quoted by Mr. Tidd Pratt. And when the
club has once been set agoing, the recruits are
generally on the younger side of twenty. The
unfairness of the uniform rate of contribution
in the Brummagem society, exists, but not to
the glaring extent usually supposed. There is
no great injustice in equal payments by persons
in early manhood, whose ages are within the
range of seven or eight years of each other.
And after all, what is the security that the
subscriber in such case gets for his contribution?
In law, none at all. He cannot recover damages
from a club whose rules are not legalised. Even
in custom, there is no security worth naming.
Let us take the rules and regulations of the
Benevolent Society, held at the Blank's Head in
the county of Dash. A threefold object is secured
by the society; 1. The provision for sickness
and burial; 2. The promotion of social
intercourse and neighbourly good feeling; 3. The
interest of the house where the meetings are
held.

1. The first feature in the club is the term of
its existence. This is annual. This Phoenix of
the taproom undergoes the pangs of dissolution
on the first Monday in May, to rise from its
tobacco-ashes with new plumage ready for
another plucking. On that auspicious day it
receives new blood, and the fact is not to be
disguised or suppressed, that it not unfrequently
avails itself of the opportunity of ridding itself
of a member or so who threatens to be
burdensome. Here is a security against insolvency
at the expense only of good faith. But this
proceeding is so managed that it is done by the
unanimous consent of the members. They do
not anticipate that infirmities and increasing
years may bring themselves into a similar
position to that which they rid their hands of.

The second article shows that in point of fact,
twelve months' pay is given for eleven months'
security against the needs of sickness. Including
with the regular yearly expenses, the average
cost of additional levies on the death of a
member's wife or child, the annual payment of each
member to the club is about sixpence a week,
or one pound six shillings a year: irrespective of
the cost of dinners, drink, banners, insignia,
ringers, clerks, and sermons. The full pay in
sickness is eight shillings per week for three
months, minus the weekly premium of
fourpence. If the sick member be at that time on
the club, he is reduced to half-pay, which, less
the weekly premium, is three and eightpence.
This he is entitled to claim for three months
more. If at the end of this second term he be
still on the sick list, he is superannuated on two
shillings a week: which after deduction of the
regular contribution is twentypence: subject to
the doubt whether the superannuated member
may not outlive his club, or whether he can
escape the annual disposition to clear off
encumbrances on the first Monday in May.

The sick member's liberty is also curiously
fettered by conditions in the form of rude
guarantees of bona fide sickness, and due care
to restore health: "No member receiving benefit
from the club," says one of the rules before us,
"shall be allowed to walk more than three
miles from home without being fined one
shilling; if found drunk, to be fined one shilling;
if found working or assisting in anything of the
kind; or if he be out after seven o'clock in the
evening, he shall be fined or excluded, as the
majority think proper."

In practice the sick member is sooner or later
compelled to seek pauper relief, which the club
is far from securing him against the degradation
of receiving. The change from twentypence to
half-a-crown, is too obvious an advantage to be
lost sight of. The end is expressed in the words
of a sick and miserable object, who begged hard
for a little more than five shillings a week for
breaking stones on the road in his old age.
When he was asked about his club, "they sent
me," he replied, "my dinner and a couple of
shillings on the club-day, and said they would have
no more to do with me. I must go to the parish;
tliat would do better for me than they could,
and was better able to pay than they were."
The poor-rate, in fact, is the real superannuation
fund of such societies.