If a member dies, the club makes great capital
of his funeral. The amount subscribed for the
funeral depends on the number of members.
Notwithstanding that enough is obtained to
defray the expenses, the family will often apply to
the relieving officer for the ordinary cost of a
pauper funeral, varying from a pound to five-and-
twenty shillings, which is not always refused.
The club, especially if the deceased were popular,
attends the burial, and brings honour to itself
by the decent regard it shows for such last
offices.

There is one redeeming feature of the
Brummagem club—its promotion of social and
neighbourly good will. It seizes on the popular love
of a holiday, and turns it to account. On the
first Monday in May, there is the procession to
the village church, where the sermon is duly
preached, for which the rector is invited to
dinner. His fee is offered him, which he is, of
course, expected to return. With the "parson's
sermon and company," the society in the eyes
of the peasantry receives the approval of the
Church—no slight help to the club. After dinner,
come beer, tobacco, music, and dancing.

There is, perhaps, nothing more wearisome to
the poor than our model gatherings, at which a
lecture to folks who want unrestrained freedom,
is substituted for the mirth and excitement of
the club-day afternoon. Many friends of the
poor appear to be afraid of trusting them with
their wives and children at a holiday gathering,
unless they can themselves be present to regulate
the proceedings. But if we would expect
real moral improvement and social mirth not
degraded by brutal amusements, we must look
elsewhere for aid to get them than to the
impertinence of middle or upper class supervision.
That Gospel, which was given with special reference
to the poor, contains the best means of
success. This may and can be brought to bear on the
rural poor, with results as beneficial to them as
it has proved to the upper classes within the
compass of a century, and with the accumulated
force with which the good example of the rich
cannot fail to influence the poor. The "higher
orders" will contribute to the successful issue of
the struggle for the social and moral elevation of
the poor, in proportion as their example carries
weight with it. But the work cannot be done
by interfering with their holidays, and attempting
to secure among the poor good order by the
presence of the rich.

The Brummagem club has another peculiarity
on which we need not long dwell. It is the
best friend of the alehouse. An examination of
the rules and articles above cited will show
how especially adapted to create and keep
together his "connexion" a society of this kind is
to the publican. The clasp of the "Black Bear"
and the insidious grip of the "Green Man,"
prove alike fatal to the farm labourer. From
these, he can be best guarded by the means
already indicated. The brewers need not be
apprehensive that the withdrawal of such clubs
from their houses would lessen the demand for
beer. The independence and bettered condition
of the peasant, would not debar him from the
enjoyment of many blessings: and good beer is
a blessing to a hard-working man, let who will
say that it is not. At the same time there
exists no reason, so far as we know, why club
accounts should not be audited in the public-
house, which is a house open for public use and
business as well as for pleasure. But there is
excellent reason why the landlord should not
be suffered to meddle with the conduct of the
club.

Very many members of Brummagem clubs
are men as intelligent and respectable as can
be found in any class of life; but the
influences to retain them in such insecure
refuges, are too powerful to be counteracted by
any known available means. The attractions are
too great, the power is too firmly rooted, for
institutions which would raise the peasantry in the
social scale to drive them out of the field. Such
is the disastrous action of the poor-law relief on
the friendly society. We have the misshapen
machinery of Brummagem contrivance, so
ingeniously adapted to the lowest requirements of the
poor, that it withholds its aid at the moment when
the member can make good his claim for help
from his parish, and resigns him either to
half-a-crown a week out-door relief, or (if he has no
home and is crippled and broken down) leaves
him to spend the remainder of his days in the
district union. Yet from the help of legalised
provident societies, in time of sickness or age,
may be obtained to an amount larger than
poor-rate allowance, or than the sharing out club-pay.

A man of average health engaged in heavy
labour, aged thirty-one years (and this is much
higher than the average age of the rural poor in
joining clubs), may secure (1) a sick allowance of
ten shillings a week up to sixty-five years, the
contribution and benefit then to cease; (2) an
annuity of a pound a month, commencing at
the age of sixty-live and payable until death:
money returnable in case of death before
sixty-five; and (3) a sum of five pounds at death; for
the following payments. For (1) the sick pay,
one shilling and threepence-halfpenny a month,
which is between threepence and fourpence
a week; for (2) the annuity, two and ninepence
a month, which is between sevenpence and
eightpence a week; and for (3) the five pounds
at death, twopence-halfpenny a month. If four
shillings a year be added for medical attendance,
the subscriber will be found to pay in round
numbers for the whole of these advantages, one
shilling and one penny a week.

They who are conversant with the trials of
the rural poor, know the difficulty with which
in times of pressure the farm labourer would
pay one shilling and a penny out of his weekly
earnings. The struggle is particularly heavy:
not at the outset, nor usually after fifteen or
sixteen years of married life, but when there are
half a dozen young children depending on a man's
work for bread and clothes and shoes—when
employment is uncertain, and not one of the
family is able to earn fourpence a day as scarecrow
on a farm.  But as a general rule, our