gether,
they have found it practicable thus to provide a fund sufficiently large
to meet their ordinary requirements during sickness.

The means by which this is accomplished are very simple. Each member
contributes to a common fund at the rate of from fourpence to sixpence a
week, and out of this fund the stipulated allowance is paid. Most
benefit societies have also a Widows' and Orphans' Fund, raised in like
manner, out of which a sum is paid to the survivors of members at their
death. It will be obvious that such organizations, however faulty they
may be in detail, cannot fail to exercise a beneficial influence upon
society at large. The fact that one of such associations, the Manchester
Unity of Odd Fellows, numbers about half a million of members; possesses
a funded capital amounting to L3,706,366; and distributes in sick relief
and payments of sums at death above L300,000 a year, illustrates in a
striking light their beneficial action upon the classes for whom and by
whom they have been established. By their means, working men are enabled
to secure the results of economy at a comparatively small cost. For,
mutual assurance is economy in its most economical form; and merely
presents another illustration of that power of co-operation which is
working out such extraordinary results in all departments of society,
and is in fact but another name for Civilization.

Many persons object to Friendly Societies because they are conducted at
public-houses; because many of them are got up by the keepers of
public-houses in order to obtain custom from the members; and because,
in their fortnightly meetings to pay their subscriptions, they acquire
the pernicious habit of drinking, and thus waste quite as much as they
save. The Friendly Societies doubtless rely very much on the social
element. The public-house is everybody's house. The members can there
meet together, talk together, and drink together. It is extremely
probable that had they trusted solely to the sense of duty--the duty of
insuring against sickness--and merely required the members to pay their
weekly contributions to a collector, very few societies of the kind
would have remained in existence. In a large number of cases, there is
practically no choice between the society that meets at a public-house,
and none at all.

It so happens that the world cannot be conducted on superfine
principles. To most men, and especially to the men we are speaking of,
it is a rou