Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-01-20 00:00:00

of their interests. They have a right to expect
the law's protection. Whether it be as to their
labour, their health, their earnings, or their
savings, they are eminently entitled to be shielded,
in so far as legislative enactments can do so, from
all that is unfair, injurious, or hazardous, in any
situation, or in any circumstance, in which they
may be placed. It is proper to provide, as much
as possible, for their being secured a fair day's
wages for a fair day's work. It is imperative upon
the authorities to see that the sanitary condition of
the place where they live is what it ought to be.
They deserve to be protected in the full enjoyment
of the fruits of their industry. If they are thrifty,
and can lay by any portion of the same, they
ought to be defended from all risk of loss, all
danger of fraud, in the mode of its investment.

There are 'clubs and societies of various kinds,
which are designed to deal advantageously, in one
way or another, with any little savings they can
manage to lay by from their weekly earnings ; and
in the constitution and working of such contri-
vances, professedly for their benefit, it is most
important that such securities should be provided
by law, as will effectually protect them against
all hazards of imposition, and of loss, in any

It is with reference to a Society of the latter
description that we make these remarks. Burial
Societies, if rightly conducted, and if they have no
arbitrary or trickish rules to operate injuriously to
their poorer members at any time when
they may be in trouble or in difficulty,
are calculated to be of very great benefit
to such as avail themselves of them. The
ostensible object is to provide for the decent
burial of their deceased members ; to which bene-
fit they entitle themselves by small weekly pay-
ments. Of course there must be rules regulating
the equitable carrying out of ' such a provision,
and especially to secure the punctual payment of
the prescribed subscription. But there are some
such Societies, it seems, even in our own neigh-
bourhood, the rules of which are not only so
stringently, but so cunningly framed, as to lure on
the poor people to keep subscribing, week by
week, and then when the hour of need arises, and
the object for which they have been paying their
money is to be realised, they are turned round
upon and told that there has been some fatal
irregularity, of which they were utterly uncon-
scious, and they are refused all benefit whatever,
in their extremity of trouble and distress, from the
funds to which, it may be for years, they have been
contributing—and making very often, a great
sacrifice .to do so.

A case in point was brought before the Liver-
pool Police Court a few days since. A poor
woman had heen a paying member to the " Liver-
pool Victoria Burial Society " for fifteen years,
when her son, for whose benefit she sought to
appropriate her claim, died; and upon applying for
the money due, she was told that there had been
some technical irregularity or other which had
Put the deceased " out of benefit," and that she
was not entitled to anything. There is, it appears,
a rule of the Society thus arbitrarily contrived,
and artfully worded :—"Any member being six
weeks in arrears shall be suspended, and receive
no benefit until four weeks after the time such
arrears shall be reduced under that amount ; and

should the member die during such suspension
of four weeks, he or she shall not be en-
titled to the funeral allowance ;" and further,
"'No members shall bring their. subscriptions
to the office where the Society is held, but pay
the same to the Collector, between the hours of

ten o'clock on Saturday morning, and two
o'clock on the Friday afternoon next following."
Now it is evident that such requirements as
these are calculated to perplex and mislead poor,
ignorant, and simple-minded people,—and espe-
cially women, who know nothing of business, and
find it difficult to comprehend the niceties of such
very precise and particular regulations. In the
case alluded to, to which they were applied in the
denial of all benefit whatever, after fifteen years'
membership, to the poor woman who had to bury
her son, there was every reason to conclude that
she had been wholly unaware of any irregularity—
and the particular nature of it was left in great
confusion. The Magistrate had no alternative
but to decide against the poor victimised member,
though he declared his deep regret at being
obliged to do so. Truly did he remark, that "it
showed how careful poor people should be, as to
the characters of those to whom they entrust their
money,"—than which there could scarcely be a
severer reflection upon the Society in question.
Nay, more,—the worthy Magistrate did not hesi-
tate to say, that he " found the rules full of traps
and pit-falls, into which," he added, " the poor
will fall." But then what an infamous shame to

have such traps provided for them to fall into !

This poor woman, who fell into one of the Victoria
Society's " traps and pit-falls," had, we repeat,
been a member, regularly and punctually contri-
buting her weekly payment, with the slight excep-
tion which has been taken advantage of, for fifteen
years, and had entitled herself to £l6 for the
burial of her son,—but when trouble and sorrow
come upon her, she is refused all assistance what-
ever—deprived of all the benefit which for so long
a period she had been paying her money to the
Society to secure !

The Victoria Burial Society, by acting thus
illiberally, thus inhumanly, to a poor woman,
being one of its members, in her hour of sorrow
and bereavement, has certainly excited a feeling of
execration in the public mind, under which its
prosperity, any more than its respectability, cannot
possibly be promoted. The policy, therefore, of
its conduct is bad, as well as the morality of it.
But such opportunities of oppressing the poor
ougli not to be permitted. We earndittly call the
attention of Mr. TIDD PRATT
.to its exacting and
most artful rules ; for we cannot but think that,
upon reflection, he must see the necessity of their
careful revision.

THERE is one of the many benevolent institu-
tions with which Liverpool abounds, whose anni-
_
versay meeting was reported in our columns a few
days since, which well deserves at our hands a
more particular notice. We allude to the Estab

lishment for Needlewomen. -Its immediate object
is to provide needlework for women who are in
want of such employment,—and their name, in a
town like ours, is naturally legion : to provide it
for them when otherwise they most probably
could not obtain it ; and thereby to furnish the
means of humble but comfortable and respectable
subsistence, to many who, but for such an instru-
mentality, would be left destitute of all reputable
resources for their daily bread. And in this point
of view it is, that the indirect influences of such
an institution may be readily conceived to be most
important. It affords an honest livelihood in cases
where such a livelihood, without some such aid, is
often most difficult to be obtained ; and it is, there-
fore, not only the good that it does, but the evil
that it prevents, which is to be taken into account,
in estimating the beneficial working of an organi-
sation like this. Many a one, we verily believe, is
saved from a life of infamy by the provision which
is thereby made for perhaps the only kind of em-
ployment that is available in the case. And then
it associates them with those, their being known
to whom, and sympathised with by them, cannot
fail to do them good. More than this, there is a
Poor Clothing Fund connected with it, which may
be said, in an especial manner, to be twice-blessed,
—first blessing the needlwomen to whom it gives
employment ; and, next, blessing the poor reci-
pients of the clothes thus provided, among whom,
we suppose, may not unfrequently be included
some of the industrious workwomen themselves.

We were somewhat surprised, we must confess,
to find the good Bishop of CHESTER, who presided
at the meeting, saying to it—" I do not know
whether the Society ought or ought not to be called
a charity, strictly speaking, because its principle
is not to give away what may be called alms, in
the ordinary sense, in the sense of gifts of money."
This view of such charitable operations were too
narrow, too conventional ; and the Bishop himself
would seem immediately to have thought so ; for
he added : " But I think it is the best form that
charity can possibly assume, because it is the way
of enabling people to support themselves by their
own honest industry, without receiving alms or
charity at all. I think, therefore, that if,
stritcly speaking, this is not a charity it is the
best substitute for it, and perhaps a better thing
than charity itself." We humbly think that it is
real charity to exert such an influence for practi-
cal good as this institution does, among those who,
but for its operations, would in all probability be
left destitute of all available means of maintaining
themselves by their own honest industry. It is
an institution that cares for the poor, and such as
have none to help them ; and cares for them kindly
and considerately, preserving their self-respect,
whilst helping them to needful employment. And
surely this were true Charity. For it is virtually
a bearing of the burthens of the poor, and thereby
fulfilling a great Christian obligation.

But the worst of it is, that with this, as with
too many other charitable organisations, the well-
to-do public do not come forward with the amount
of support they ought to do. The Committee state
in their report--" There are numberless applica-
tions for- employment. The ladies of the com-
mittee could well afford, and. Are quite willing to
give, any additional assistance that might be

required, if the public will only supply the work
which they will find well and reasonably done,
and at the same time have the satisfaction of
knowing that the workwoman is adequately paid;
and surely it is cheering to know that the things
which administer to the comfort of the rich are
not obtained by the under-paid labour of the
poor." Surely here are motives to such support
as the Society seeks, which must appeal irre-
sistibly to every respectable family, in
which such work is a constantly

recurring

necessity

Then there is the provision it makes

for supplying the poor with comfortable and
durable clothes, at very low prices. " The poor
clothing this year," the Committee report, " has
had a fair sale, and consequently the second and
third classes of workwomen have had better
employment than heretofore. The repository also
shows a more favourable account." So that, it is
evident, the institution is doing a two-
fold good work among a class of our
population that has the strongest claims on public
sympathy, and whose well-being it is not only the

duty of society, but its interest, to promote. The
institution, it was most gratifying to learn , is,
upon the whole, in a flourishing condition. But,
as the Committee well observe, " Let not this be a
reason for any to slacken in their endeavours.
Though much has been done, there remains much
to do. The winter is on, and the poor are crying
out for work. Let it not be said that they cry in

BARON PENNEFATEIER.—Baron Pennefather has re-
tired from the bench, which he adorned for the long term
of 38 years. He was called to the Bar in 1795, and
became one of the Barons of the Exchequer in 1821, so
that he was 26 years at the Bar before his elevation. It
may be safely said that there is no man now living who
has had so large an experience of Irish society in all its
phases and changes. There are few among us old enough
to remember what he was as an advocate, but as a judge
he is universally known and appreciated throughout
the country. Among men of all classes and creeds
his talents and character have been the objects of
the highest admiration. Indeed, the public feeling
towards him has long been something akin to veneration.
His name has been associated with all that is pure
and exalted in the administration of justice. A nobler
example of the perfect judicial mind was never exhibited
on the English or Irish Bench. He had well-defined
political principles, which he held firmly, but those who
designated his principles as " party convictions " admit
that he never allowed them to interfere with the pure
administration of justice. The Roman Catholic felt as
confident that he would receive justice at his hands as
the Protestant. No man understood the principles of
jurisprudence better, and no man ever applied them with
more judgment and discrimination, or with greater free-
dom from any sort of bias. We cannot better express the
universal estimate of his character than in the words of a
contemporary, the Freeman's Journal :—" As a judge,
the Baron was one of the first that ever sat on the Irish
Bench. He was emphatically a great judge." A great
judge is a great man, and a good man. To deserve the
title, a man must be richly endowed with the finest gifts
of mind, and the most ennobling virtues that adorn
humanity. These were possessed by Baron Pennefather,
in a measure very rarely exceeded, and were displayed
with unclouded and unvarying brilliancy throughout his
long and illustrious career.—Dublin Daily Express.