ional divided 3,161
pounds 19s. 3d., and the directors credited each unadvanced share with
profit at the rate of 10 pounds 16s. 8d. per cent. per annum. We only
add, as a still further explanation of the societies in general, that
they are all conducted on the most perfectly democratic principles. Vote
by ballot and universal suffrage are the rule with them. The members
elect their own officers. In all the societies, also, provision is made
for casualties, such as sickness or death. In case of death, the
subscriber's widow or heirs take his place. If he be unable, from
sickness or poverty, to continue his subscription, he is not fined, but
is allowed to wait for better times. If he wishes his money back, he can
have it returned, with a slight reduction for the working expenses of the
Society. Juniors may be members. Actually these societies so far
practically admit woman's rights as to offer to the ladies the same
desirable investments they offer to the sterner sex. In short, the
Freehold Land Movement appeals to all ranks and conditions of the
community. It may be said of a Freehold Land Society what has often been
said of the London Tavern, that it is open to all--who can pay.

II. ORIGIN AND PRESENT POSITION OF THE MOVEMENT.

Primarily the movement was political, and was established for the purpose
of giving the people of this country the political power which they at
present lack. Originally the forty-shilling freehold was established to
put down universal suffrage. As a part and parcel of the British
constitution it has been religiously preserved to the present time, and
threatens to be an excellent substitute for what it was originally
intended to destroy. During the Anti-Corn-Law agitation Mr. Cobden had
put the free-traders up to the idea of purchasing forty-shilling
freeholds, but it was reserved to Mr. James Taylor, of Birmingham, to
give to the idea of Mr. Cobden a universality of which the latter never
dreamed; Mr. Taylor had been a purchaser of land more than once, and with
the purchase he got an abstract, a legal document, which when he came to
understand it, showed him that he had paid to the vendor much more than
it cost him. The idea then struck him that as the wholesale price of
land was much greater than the retail, if the working men could be got to
subscribe together a large sum for the purchase of land, they could thus
have, at a wholesale price, a stake in the country and a v