The Express.
London, England, 1855-02-16 00:00:00

THE NEW RETURN OF NEWSPAPER
STAMPS.

bound so far to defend his reputation—the verification
and adoption by Aot of Parliament of all his statistics,
all his " expo:isms," and all his tables, or their entire
repudiation, and the total erasure of himself and his
staff from the list of public burdens.
While this journal pressed for the treesseify of
something like control for the benefit of ' the
honest but uninformed working clams', we find
that, far from attempting to introduce order and
system, Mr. Barniackx has only made " confusion
worse confounded." Hie bill carefully admits any
ten persons to form an association, and register it or
not as they please. Such associations, however
may grant insurances of amounts preposterous
in comparison with their means ; and they are
empowered to fuse several aseociatious into one
without any provision as to similarity of objects or
concord of tables. They may receive donations, but
for the application of these there is no provision.
A very salutary regulation wee required that
offiarbearers and members of societies should not be,
directly or indirectly, interested in contracts or deal-
ings with these bodies ; but this is not to be found in
it' proper *co.
It is proposed to be enacted that, in the case of
bankrupt or insolvent officers (a sadly frequent cam),
the societies shall have the first claim on the estate,
and shall be paid before every other creditor. This
is surely inconsistent with the well-known pre-
cedence of the Crown, which, in a recent
owe, stepped in for a considerable debt,
leaving a large friendly society in the lurch.
There is no suggestion of any check upon the Ws-
appropriation of the funds, in the purchase of paw
phernalias, banners, &o.,in entertainments and pro-
amnions; and there is no provision that the fair
expenses of a Friendly Society shall be borne by a
separate land or rate, collected with, but distinct
from, those chargeable with the legitimate payments
of the institution; or that expenditure in excess of
such fond shall be at the risk of, and chargeable to,
the officers who have improperly sanctioned it.
The above are someof the grave omissions and errors
found in the draft of a Bill most imposingly ushered
in by its preamble as a text-book : but while pointing
them out, it is right to say we are not taxing the

The return of newspaper stamp just issued gives
the lellowiag malts :
First Quarter. Bseend Quarter.
Daily News • 319,191 348,044
Morales Herald . 303.000 299,000
Morales Post . . 206,000 226,000
Morales Maraud& . 162,600 186,000
Express . . 177,133 198,389
Globe . . . 175,000 196,000
Boa . . . . 168,000 192.000

Standard . .

. 103,000 106,000

the erpreoo*

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• RIOR WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Tais DaT—llarulag, 111. 210......Aftersoas, lb. Pm
To-atossow—Mormag, L. Ilis 41..

LONDON, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18.

LATEST
NEWS FROM ABROAD

(SY CONTIJIMITAL Talasaare.]
PARIS, Tamar.
The Mallon. of this day costa= the following,
vim.:

The foreign journals have been pablishing in-
jurious repxts regarding the discipline of the army.
" These reports Sr. without foundation, and the
discipline of the army hss never been interrupted.
14 The troops have, on the contrary, oa all coca•
sions shown their obedience and attachment to their
chiefs."

Intelligence from the Crimea haa been received up
to the 6th of February. Nothiog of importance had
orenned.—Daily News.

INS BILL FOR FRIENDLY
SOCIETIES.

Wa mentioned some time mince that a Bill for
Friendly Societies" was in preparation by Mr.
Sotnisoo, and ventured to express a hope that it
might be a final measure of a character worthy of
the interesting subject. We now find that the
creek has spoken, the brain of the Wiltshire ;ore
hen produced its Minerva, but what a goddess!
With the first wave of her lance she sweeps away no
less than 13 entire Acts of Parliament, not to men-
tion fractions—i.e., repeals them, except where they
an in use ; and thus, having cleared the way,
Ifilentiee, by encumbering it with ruin, peacoats to
build a new structure out of the rubbish. The Bill
has been drawn as a Pesticcio. It appears that the Be.
gistrar-General must have had a hand in the skeleton ;
then it found its way to counsel's &imbue in the
usual manner; after which the head cook and
his co-endorsers we presume, flavoured it to their
taste. A spice or two of quite parliamentary bad
English betrays the a 'prentice hand," saves the eon-
veyanstr's credit, and lends a charm to some of the
more ingenuous of the proposed clauses. The most
striking feature of the new Bill is the proposal to
appoint three real unpaid Commiseionere—literally
weld ; and some very curious work is also planned
for them; they are, of course, to have no responsi-
bility—it is not in the nature of a gratuitous servant
to be responsible—but unlimited power. They are
to have offices, clerks, calculators, stationery, and so
on, and their first function is to give their opinion and
advice to everybody who may ask it ; to order any-
thing to be done by anybody and everybody; to admit
Socialist under the wide shadow of their wing
which have been, are, or may be, out of all
law and order according to this or any other Act; and
to authorise and require the responsible paid pub-
lic otiose to make such admissions and give such
certificates as he may previously have refused on his
own judgment. They may originate or sanction
roles ; may permit these or any others to be set at
nought, giving indemnity to the offender; and may
dispense generally with the operation of the law of
the land.

honourable member with the original sin of innova-
tion ; what seems most objectionable in Mr.
BOTHREONII draft is the plentiful lack of novelty.
We have been told that all propositions for the
real elucidation of the subject and for an improved
system are sure to encounter the dogged opposition
of those whom it is intended to serve, and that this
may fairly account for every faltering attempt at
program : bat oar opinion of the mere natural saga-
city, called often " mother wit," of the laboroing
classes, will not permit us to allow any =MU
weight in this argument. Surely Mr. BOTHREON ice
not found, in hie long experience, that there wee a
total disregard by the lower orders of precept When&
by prudence in those above them. He cannot kiime
found that a pleasant word from the squire, the be.
nigdant exhortation of the clergyman, or the prem.
tied lesson on thrift by the village tradesman, have
been utterly fruition where the experiment has bees
made; and it is known that the manufacturing coon
manlike offer some most striking examples of dale
enjoying large prosperity, due to timely and julienne
financial supervision by the employers.
That the state has the right, in in paternal charm,.
ter, to roper= the wolves of knavery and waste which
are found in the sheepfolds of modest providence,
there can be no doubt. The middle classes, whose
enterprises certainly deserve no more attention at the
hands of Government than those of the lower orders,
are amply protected against schemes and schemers by
the very stringent provisions against unauthorised
association contained in the 7 and 8 Vio., asp. 110,
and its sister enactments on the subject of life insur-
ance; and the chief outcry against these enactments
has proceeded from those who have been saved a
blindfold, headlong plunge into difficulties, and than
again whose finances have been nonplussed by the
Registrar's inexorable demand of a few sovereigns is
return for the mystical charm of his autograph.
To prove, though proof is hardly needed, that the
poor are not too well able to take care of themselves
in this matter, the following extract from their "short
and simple annals" may be worth attention :
" The lodge at the Lamb Inn is, I believe, in a
sound state now, but it has been very precarious at
the time the fever raged. Mine is the London
order : it has only the gift fond ; no member has a
claim on it. We have had several benefit clubs, and
most of them broke up in consequence of bad manage-
ment. I have had two at my house about one hun-
dred straw; each, but the young members broke them
op when the old ones began to fall on the box. Others
have been rained by having worthless treasurers.
One invested their capital in their brewer's hands, who

We sketched out on the former occasion the prin-
cipal points which should be dealt with in this
or any other measure en the subject pretending to
be comprehensive, and were hopeful that Mr. So-
=MON would be found the Treboniaa of the eon.
aion ; but it was not so to be. He bee devised& Gunning
pas de trosi for his Xing Logs ; and again he has
made provision that they should seldom be coiled upon
to perform it by holding out a positive premium—at
least we should so consider it—to those who, being
within the mops of the Commissioners' jurisdiction
shall sleet to keep oat of its reach is tote. A neat
form for the summary settlement of disputes is
considerately provided for the recusant Society,
while legal formalities and the right to a Chancery
nit are the boon held out to the virtuous enrolled.

soon broke. One had made a madman their trea-
surer, who also failed, and broke them up. I be-
longed to one supported by the neighbouring gentry,
but extravagenos has made them very poor; we had
several others, but they never stand above two or
three generations; there is one in the town managed
by the Quakers : they are in a flourishing state, and
likely to stand the test of ages." Now, the above
being a sketch by a native hand of what goes on is
one small, well-ordered country town, there an be

no room for doubt there mast be a rut amount of
evil to be rectified and good to be done in this matter
through the length and breadth of England. It has
been the fate of many measures on the subject,
unlike the ponderous trifles which arrest the ear of
legislation for weeks together, to be whirled through
their various stages u rapidly as if they bad no
more bearing on the common weal than an unop,
prima bill foe the settlement of some Lord Tom
Noddy's estate, oe the deviation of 1 railway ; but
we hope the few observations we have made may
attract the attention of some Government official to
the manifest widgeons= of the new bill as it stands
now, and procure either some material alterations,
or its withdrawal for six months, or such longer
period as may be needful for the discovery of a de-
partment willing and competent to undertake its
revisal and re-introduction. Then will our seed have
fallen upon good ground.—Deily News.

We seriously advocated the suggestions of lifr.Trun
PAM, that for the present, at all events, the opera-
tions of Friendly Societies should be limited to pay-
ments in sickness and at death, and the collection of
separate contribution for the purchase of government
annuities. Them the proposed Bill ignores.
We urged the well•knowu and oftenosenserated
evils of the old system, which recent cenumusleations
confirm most fully, and the value u buss for calma
latices of the statistics laboriously collected during
five years with the professed object of assisting this
interesting domestic question out of the slough of
despond in which it is at present floundering. But we
find that the experience of the National Debt Olds,
and the tables formed on it, are entirely passed over.
Where uniformity should and might have been
enforced, diversity is invited by the clause which
permits societies to go where they like for experience
and for tables—so that Übe always to an actuary. A
second Demi, on the judgment-seat le hardly
needed to tell the reader that to consult a dozen
actuaries (albeit professors of an exact misuse) is
absut as sure a way to arrive at a difference of opinion
as the consultation of a dozen independent members

of say other profession. Bat most of ss will

surprised to learn why all Friendly Societies are tool

saddled with the impost of an actuary's fee. A
glance will show that the calculation of new tables
must be far too expensive; the mere certifying of
. those sanctioned by the State, useless. But it is
asserted that the Government, having once been led
into grave error by their mathematical NI.
culator, are not prepared to vouch foe Se
work done in his office. We must, them,
loudly impeach the official neglect that has
allowed a very large sum to be thrown away
through this business, and demand foe this
purely ornamsntal functionary—if he doss not feel

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THE EXPRESS. FRIDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 16, 1855.

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