from such an exercise of their rights, even if an
occasional nomination emanated from the Black
Bear, and resulted in a Tory candidate
nominated in vestry?

We believe, then, that such an alteration as
should make the rural poor careful of the
expenditure of the rate, accompanied by the
knowledge that they are already paying into the
"sharing-out" clubs sufficient to provide them
with means adequate to their requirements,
would call forth the efforts of respectable farm
labourers, not debarred by age or infirmity, to
achieve their independence.

One other step in the advance movement of
sound benefit societies would be gained by a rule
that no questions should be asked of an applicant,
by the board of guardians, about the relief he
has from his club. The members would find it
to be in the interest of their society to prevent
members who endeavoured to unite, dishonestly,
sickness pay and union relief. A beneficial
alteration would be introduced into the society's
rules of a nature and for a purpose similar to that
which at present is in force, and is to the following
effect: "That no member of this society shall
belong to any other benefit society on pain of
exclusion." The object of this is to prevent
persons who can earn, when strong and hearty,
fourteen or eighteen shillings a week, from
receiving twenty or twenty-four shillings a week
when so ill as to declare "on" the funds of the
club.

The provision applied to the rate would run
thus, with a necessary and proper exception:

"That no member of this society shall receive
union relief when 'on the funds,' unless, in the
opinion of a majority of members at the
fortnightly meeting, his circumstances are considered
such as entitle him to the same."

The recipient of relief under these
circumstances would lose nothing of his respectability
by being so reduced by distress as to be thus
recommended by his club to the guardians; no
person of right feeling would brand such an
applicant with the term, pauper. Let us be
permitted, then, to urge on the attention of the
select committee appointed to report on the
poor-law, the good that might come of such a
reform.

Something might also be done on behalf
of the friendly society by direct legislation. A
central power, appointee by parliament, is
required for the purpose of systematising and
exercising supervision over societies now
struggling alone. A central board appointed by
parliament would strengthen the hands of every
society it recognised. It would inform societies
of their exact financial condition, and point out
the steps necessary to guard against insolvency,
or to recover from a position of insolvency not
hopeless. It would dissociate from its care all
societies whose rules and management were not
trustworthy. It would have powers, by means
of official trustees, to fund the property or place
it in safe hands, in conformity with present
provisions of the Law of Friendly Societies. The
rural poor would have every public encouragement
which could fairly be given to their
societies, and, if this were made concurrent with
the change in the popular belief that the rate is
their substantial though mean provision, which
must not be injured by the friendly society, we
should find safe and well-managed societies, or
branches of them, becoming the rule instead of
the exception.

A DIRGE.

WILL the dead Hours come again,
From the arms of the buried Years
Though we call, we call in vain,
And they will not heed our tears.
Why, why were they slain
By thy fears?

Will the dead Love e'er return,
For all thy late desire?
Can thy grief unclose Love's urn,
Or make of the ashes fire;
Though the cinders yet may barn
Round the pyre?

Alas and alas for the Gone!
We mourn and we mourn in vain,
Like a ghost, or the dreamy tone
Of some long-forgotten strain,
Their memory haunts the Lone
But with pain.

AUNT BELLA.

AUNT BELLA, had been the eldest of a large
family of brothers and sisters, all, except herself,
remarkable for good looks; dark-eyed, chesnut-
haired girls and boys, with clear cut features
and summery cheeks and lips. Their parents
dying early, she had fallen into the troublous
inheritance of the mother's cares without her
blessings, and had so soon dropped her own
little comforts and preferences, and left them
behind so far out of sight in tending and caring
for her troublesome orood, that she totally
forgot to look back for them, and so came to
live in other folks' life far more than in her
own.

She had passed all her maiden life in London,
and could speak as an eye witness of strange
things I had read of, and people whom I took
to be pretty nearly as mythical as my well-
beloved Sindbad and Aladdin. She remembered
Lord George Gordon's No Popery riots, and
her brothers' rushing in with scared faces and
the stifling scent of fire about them, from the
place where Lord Mansfield's noble library and
rich furniture were a-blaze. She had curtseyed
to George the Third pottering about his gardens
at Kew, and she had once, by what chance I
utterly forget, been in the mysterious penetralia
of the palace itself, where she had enjoyed
a glimpse of the "sweet Queen," of Madame
d'Arblay's adoration just returned from morning
service, and sitting weazened and grotesque,
with a sallow visage and a grand point-lace fly-
cap, amidst a group of florid Princess-daughters
in lilac taffety with green top-knots on their
powdered curls, and looking like a bunch of