n of 1898
submitted to the referendum a plan for a national system. The defeat of
this proposal was chiefly due to the feeling that it was inadvisable to
pay the same amount in small towns and cities where wages were low as in
the larger cities.

[Footnote 136: The Society of Carpenters, founded at Halifax, Nova
Scotia, February 18, 1798, provided in its constitution that all members
of twelve months' standing, if sick and confined to bed, should receive
two shillings per week; if able to walk about but unable to work, they
should receive such a sum as the Society thought wise (Constitution,
1798, [MS.]).]

[Footnote 137: Proceedings of the Sixth General Convention, Chicago,
1890 (Philadelphia, 1890).]

[Footnote 138: The Carpenter, Vol. 16, October, 1896; Vol. 18, October,
1898, p. 8.]

The Typographical Union, prior to 1892, had manifested little interest
in the establishment of a national sick benefit. At the national
conventions of 1893, 1894 and 1898 President Prescott urged the adoption
of a national system.[139] In 1898 he succeeded in securing a favorable
report from the Committee on Laws, but the convention defeated the
proposal.[140] Although the Union has not up to the present established
a national sick benefit, the Union Printers' Home maintained by the
Union has among its inmates not only aged printers but a large number of
those afflicted with disabling diseases. The Home also serves as a
sanitarium for tuberculosis patients.[141]

[Footnote 139: Proceedings of the Forty-second Convention, Louisville,
1894, p. 3.]

[Footnote 140: Proceedings of the Forty-fourth Convention, 1898, in
Supplement to The Typographical Journal, November, 1898, p. 99.]

[Footnote 141: See below, p. 104.]

The table on page 78 shows the chief characteristics of the sick benefit
as it has developed in several of the more important unions.

SICK BENEFIT.
=========================================================================
| Originally. | 1905.
|------------------------------------------------
Name of Organization | |Maximum | |Maximum
| Rate |No. of | Rate |No. of
| Per |Weeks in| Per |Weeks in
| Week |a Year. | Week. |a Year.
----------------------------------------------------