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by uniting with others, so that each man may subject himself to a small deprivation in order that no man may be subjected to a great loss. The individual depositor, not the contributor to a common fund, is really the speculator. If no sickness attacks him during his years of strength and activity, and he dies before he is past labour, he has been successful in his speculation; but if he fall sick at an early period or if he live to old age, he is a great loser, for his savings, with their accumulations will support him but a short time in sickness; or even if he retain something in old age, after having provided for his occasional illness, the annuity which he can then purchase will be very inferior to that which he could have obtained if he had entitled himself to the benefit of the accumulated savings of all those who, having contributed for many years to a superannuation fund, had never reached an age to require it [Or, as was the case of some members, even when out of health, had no need to demand it. The present writer, himself a secretary to a Benefit Society, has known two or three cases of persons becoming ordinary members who, even in sickness, never demanded what was their due, but continued their contribution for the benefit of others]. I don’t know much about Building Societies (continued Mr. Hume) and I should be very sorry to depreciate Savings Banks, but of this I am quite sure, that for the particular purposes for which Friendly Societies are formed, the other two are entirely inefficient. I will only add, in conclusion that in the part which I have taken in the present movement, my object has been not to break up any existing society for the sake of forming a new one, but to find or to form a society in all respects calculated to secure to the members the benefits for which they pay, and in which other classes may be allowed to take a hearty and hopeful interest. But this is just what some gentlemen told us at the preliminary meeting we must not think of doing. We are not to take an interest in what concerns principally another class than our own. Caste is too strong in England to make this practicable. Something was said about English liberty and a noble spirit of independence which would make the working-men resist all our efforts and offers of help as impertinent and patronizing. We might give them a guinea a year if we liked and they would say ‘Thank you’; but if we offered them our friendship, they would reject it. The only possible point of contact was to be that of pecuniary advantage. We must be weighed by our payments and valued like the cus-