The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-11-30 00:00:00

TILE STOrIII3I-11DGE ORSON/T.

gross of the Bill through parliament; and to
take such steps, including all requisite profes-
sional advice and assistance in reference to the
matters referral to in the said notices as far as
they affect the public interests as the Committee
may consider necessary, and report from time to
time for this Board."
Proposed by Mr. Newnatu and seconded by
Mr. Perkins :—" That the Improvement Com-
mittee be, and are hereby requested, to enter into
an arrangement with the owner of the property
in Upper High.street, occupied by Messrs. Oates,
Perrens, and Wooldriuge, for the giving up to
the public the piece of laud referred to in the
1 Committee's report (described in the plans at-
tached thereto, and adopted at this meeting), on
the terms referred to in the said report.

Carried unanimously.
Proposed by Mr. Billingham and seconded by
Mr. Kelly: "That the Improvement Committee
be requested to agree with the owner of the pro-
perty in Upper High-street, occupied by Mr.
Henry Sinuus, that, provided the portion of land
referred to in the Improvement Committee's Re-
port, and adopted at this meeting, be given up
to the pnblio, the said Commissioners do remove
and re-fit the iron fencing and gate, in the
straight line referred to in the plan, at a cost of

£4 18s."
Carried unanimously.
Mr. Stanley was of opinion thaqno:alteration
was required on that side of the street ; that if
there was an alteration made the owners of the
property should do it, and not let the cost rest
on the ratepayers. Mr. Stanley moved as an
amendment, "That the matter be not enter-

_
tamed."
Mr. Young seconded the amendment.
Mr. Billinghaut said he had been looked at the
plans, and he considered it would be an improve-
ment to the town, especially as they were going
to have the railway brought into Foster-street.
H.) thought if they could get the work done for
£4 18s they would never regret the bargain.
Mr. Perkins said if the town would be improved
. , .

by the alteration, he should be glad to support

the motion.
Mr. Edwards said it appeared to him that from
the plan they should gain 1 foot 18 square inches
added to the footpath. He thought that now they
had the chance they had better seize it, and not
let the opportunity slip through their hands.
Mr. Perkins scid he could not see why the
Commissioners should have allowed Mr. Led-
bury to bring his shop out so far.
Mr. Billingham was of opinion that Mr. Per.
kius had forgotten that Mr. Ledbury had put his
window back 12 or 14 inches for the convenience
of the inhabitants of the town.
The amendment was then put to the meeting,
when four voted for it, and seven for the origi-
nal motion, which was cairied.
The Clerk then read the
GENERAL PURPOSES COMMITTEE'S REPORT.
" Your Committee report that your officer has
reported the following nuisances: Brought for-
ward from last report, 7; reported during the
month, 27; removed—old, 7; new, 21; total,
28; carried forward, 6. There have been three
fresh cases of small-pox during the month, two
of which are recovered, leaving one person under
treatmmt.

"Your officer has reported the slaughter-
houses to be in proper order and condition.
" Applications had been made by Mr. George
Whitwell, High-street and Market-street, and
Mr. George Nicholls, for a renewal of their pe-
troleum licenses. Your Committee recommend
that the applications be granted.
" Your Committee advise that the Market Hall
front gates be not let for the purpose of exhibit-
ting tradesmen's bills, and other notices after the
current year.
"The Local Government Board have issued
their regulations with regard to the qualifications,
appointment, duties, salary, and tenure of office
of officers of sanitary authorities, any portion of
whose salary is paid out of monies voted by
Parliament. Your Committee, considering that
your Board should have the entire control of all
your officers, advise that the offer made by the
Local Government Board in their circular of
August 19 to pay one half of the salary of the
medical officer of health and inspector of nal;
sances, provided such officers are appointed in
accordance with the regulations issued by the
Local Government Board, be not accepted, and
that your Board do appoint a medical officer of
health for the township of Stourbridge.
"With regard to a cape or cloak for the use of
the Town Officer, your Committee advise that a
new suit of clothes be provided for him in lieu
of the cape or cloak.
'Your Committee, in compliance with your
instructions, have examined the lamps in Mar.
ket-street, with the view of its removal from its
present position to the pillars nearly opposite the
hack entrance to St. Thomas's Parsonage. Your
Committee cannot recommend the removal of
the lamp in question."
Mr. Allsop said, as Chairman of the Commit-
tee, he would move the adoption of the report,
and in doing so referred to the parts respecting
the appointment of medical officer of health.
He should think it would be better to keep the
control of the officer in the.: own hands.
The Chairman said it was a very important
subject for them to deal with, end he should
think it would be better for them to keep their
offices in their own hands, and not let the Local
Government Board have any control over them,
and he would propose to them that they adver-
tise for a meoical officer ut a salary they must
agree upon, and suggested £6O per year should
be paid, that being the amount their last medical
officer received.
Mr. kiillingham was of opinion that £5O would
be a fair amount to give the medical officer. He
had had a great deal to do with the Poor Law
Board, and he should advise them to keep out of
the power of that Board.
Mr. Edwards thought it was quite right that
they should have their own officers and pay them,
and not be kept under by the London people.
Mr. Watkins wished to know what were the
duties of the medical officer.
The Clerk read the duties over.
Mr. Newnam proposed that the further discus-
sion be adjourned until the next meeting of the
Board for the purpose of ascertaining what
salaries were given to medical officers in other
towns similar in size to Stourbridge.
This was seconded by Mr. Young, and carried.
A letter was read from Mr. Downes, fruiterer, I
asking the Board to erect some screen by his
stall to protect him from the weather.
Mr. Allsop moved that a screen be erected,
which was seconded by Mr. Kelly.
Mr. Perkins moved man amendment that Mr.
Dunn erect his own screen, and at his own cost,
as he considered that he held the best situation
in the town.
This was seconded, and, upon the Chairman
putting it to the meeting, was c.trried by seven
votet to two.
Mr. Taylor said that according to Dr. Camp-
belie Parish Book of Practice there had been
from the 23rd October to the 23rd November 38
Cases of sicknes, no fever, two cases of small-
pox, no deaths.
There was no other business.

THE SCEPTRE LIFE ASSURANCE

sllghtest interest; and as he had neither the
satire of the one nor the eloquence of the other
they would, doubtless, think him guilty of great
hardihood in requesting them to listen to his
discourse that evening. His only apology for
having done so must be that if his subject was
not a very interesting one, it was, at least, a
highly important one; and, that being so, he
hoped they would bear with him while he tried
to show them some of the advantages of Life
' Assurance. The speaker then went ‘l.l to relate
several amusing anecdotes illustrating the mis-
takes which ignorant people sometimes fell into
respecting the meaning of " Life Assurance ;"
some thinking that by joining one of these so-
cieties their lives would be prolonged for an in-
definite period, and others having a superstitious
feeling that having become insured preserved
them from all manner of accidents and disasters.
Some of these anecdotes were drawn from the
speaker's own experience, and he related them
with so much point and humour as to elicit roars
of laughter from his audience. He, however,
told them that strange as it might seem, it was
nevertheless true, that having insured one's life
. .

frequently did prMong that lire. And the reason
of this was that anxiety was often the cause of
premature death ; and when an affectionate hus-
band and father could look round with confidence
on his wife and family, and say to himself that
in case it should be his lot to fall a victim to

disease, accident, or any of the numerous "ills.
that flesh is heir to," his familly would be pro-

v—id.ed for, that fact Would remove a load of inx-
iety from hia heart; and as the copy-books at
school used to say "A contented mind is a con-
tinual feast," the contentment which that would

produce would doubtless prolong his days beyond
the time he would have lived had there been no

such provision in case of emergency. He argued
that no man had a right to take a young girl
from the bosom of her family unless he was
prepared to work hard to make provision for her
not only while he lived, but also so as not to leave
her destitute to the mercy of the world. Some
were very careful to provide for their own wants
iu case illness should Mal them by joining Odd
. . . .

Follows:, Foresters', or other sick -14nefit •S'oeie-

ties, but when asked to make provision for their
wives and children they said they would leave
them to Providence, as they had the Scripture
promise that God would take care of the widow
and orphan. This was simply.a.meau suhter-
. .

fug fOr shifting the respollability from their
own shoulders; for those who were so ready to
_

trust to Providence for others were generally
very loth to try the experiment on themselves.
Doubtless, the Scripture promise would be ful-
filled in this country—the widow and orphan
would be fed—‘but he, for one, should not consi-
der he was doing his duty by his wife and chil-
dren if, in the event of his death, he left them
to the tender mercies of the poor-house for
their sustenance. tie then gave a brief history
of the rise and progress of Life Assurance So-
cieties, and showed that the principles upon
which they were based were thoroughly sound
and just. Everything that happened in this
world was regulated by fixed and immutable laws,
nothing was left to chance or fate, and the rea-
son that we could not understand the ways of
God better than we do was that we had not
studied his laws sufficiently. This being the
case, so sure as we were not thrown into this
world in a promiscuous manner, but were placed
here by a beneficent Creator, so sure was it that
we were not allowed to go out of it by chance,
but were each of us called away at the proper
time by the God who had placed us here. It was
on this grand fact that societies like that in whose
behalf he was addressing them was based—it
was on the principle of average on which they
made their calculations which were never known
to fail. It was true that if you asked an actuary
how long a single individual would live he would
not be able to tell you, but place before him a
multitude—say a thousand persons—and he
would be able to give the aggregate number of
years they would live within a year or so. It
was a well known fact that out of every thousand
average healthy persons of '29 years of age ten
weuld die in twelve months. Now if these thou-
sand individuals were to meet together and say
to each other, now ten of us—we do not know
whom—will die before this day twelvemonths,
and we will, therefore, each put down Xl, so that
the friends of the ten who die may have £lOO
left them; that would be doing exactly what these
assurance societies were doing. The society of
which he was the representative would insure any
ordinary healthy person's life, of 29 years of age
for £1 Os 2d, for one year; the 2d being required
to defray the expense of collecting the money, B:c.,
the only remuneration which would accrue to the
society being the interest on the money paid.
Some would ask how it was if the principles were
so good that there were at times such dreadful
smashes made by Assurance Companies. It was
true there had been some great failures in connec-
tion with Assurance Companies. In fact he (the
speaker) had been for years paying in to an As-
surance Office—the European—and although he
had the other day received a flourishing account
and a promise of a large dividend he would wil-
lingly sell his policy to any one for £lO. He did
not, however look upon this money as if it had
been lost, he rather felt that it had enabled him to
rent the sum for which he had been insured for a
number of years; for up to eighteen months ago
the European had faithfully discharged all claims
made upon it, and if he had been fool big enough
to have died before that time his wife and chil-
dren would have had the money, Notwithstand-
ing the failures of which he had been speaking,
he would challenge them to produce an instance
of any great commercial enterprise which had
been in existence as long as companies of this des-
cription, and the transactions in which had been
carried on in a scale of magnitude in any way
comparable to them which had been freer from
chicanery and fraud than they had, and which had
met the numerous claims upon them in the punc-
tual manner which had been done by them. He
thought the fact that a man had belonged to one
of these societies which had failed ought not to
deter him from trying another; on the contrary
he thought he should do so at once to enable him
to repair the loss he had sustained. It was not
like an Englishman to be settled by the first blow.
If he was knocked down once he generally jumped
up and squared his fists for another round; in like
manner when he found that the European had
failed he immediately joined another society, and
he was happy to say that as yet he had had no
cause to regret having done so. He did not claim
for the Sceptre that it was a better associatioon
than many others of a similar kind which were in
existence. If any grocer were to come into that
room and say that he was the only tradesman in
the the town who sold good sugar, they would feel
very much inclined to take such a statement with
a‘• grain of salt." In like manner if he were to
tell them that the Sceptre was the only good As-
surance company they would feel very much in-
clined to doubt it. He, however, did not wish to
mislead them, and he only claimed for the Sceptre
that it could offer them as good an article at the
price as any other society, and that the results
achieved by it, considering that it was a compara-
tively young society, would bear comparison with
any similar association which had only been in ex-
istence a like period. He then pointed out some
special features in the Sceptre Association, such
as that most of their agents were local preachers;
that the bulk of their
,money was invested in
chapel property, which, by the way, was found a
very profitable investment; and that they had a
separate class for total abstainers, for it had been
proved beyond a doubt that the man who did not
drink intoxicating liquors at all lived longer on
the average than the most moderate drinker;
therefore they had a cheaper class for him. Mr.
B, Raylxmld, of Mount-street, who was a man they
could all trust, was the agent for the Sceptre As-
sociation in this town, and he in company with
himself, would canvass the town in the course of
the week. He must inform them, however, that
the society did not give much opportunity to their
agents to act dishonestly; for once a month they
were compelled to forward to the office at London
all monies received, and if only 2d was kept back
the next day the agent would receive a sharp let-
ter demanding his reasons for not having sent it.
He concluded a most eloquent and stirring address
by earnestly appealing to those present who were
not members of Assurance Societies to join at
once, and thereby put by a provision for their
wives and families against that inevitable death
which must sooner or later come to all.
Mr. Newnam, also, at the request of the Chair-
man, briefly addressed those present on the bene-
fits to be derived from " Life Assurance," and said
that although he was agent for another society
he must admit from an examination of some
papers which had come into his hands that the
Sceptre Association appeared to be based on sound
principles; in fact, it was very similar to the one
he represented, and was well worthy of support.
Votes of thanks were proposed to the Lecturer,
the Ladies, and the Chairman, by the Rev. A. C.
Beavington ; which having been responded to
Mr. Lowe announced that on Sunday, December
22nd, Mr. W. E. Bailey (the lecturer), would
preach two sermons, and Mrs. A. C. Beavington
(whom he described as a very eloquent preacher) a
third, in aid of the Chapel Trust Fund.
During the evening a number of anthems and
ott d• sacred pieces were sung in a very creditable
mauner by the choir.