Eaton weekly Democrat. [volume] (Eaton, Ohio) 1866-1875, 1871-06-22
TOM II joke.

A social club1of seventy or eighty
choice spirits, calling itself :sThe Serious
Family" and having for president or
chairman Mr.. Tom Poulton, barriter-in-
law in theory, and nothing at all in fact,
held its weekly meetings for some.years
in three or four large rooms in a dull,
gaunt house in Soho square. The prim-
airy object of this association was the pro-
motion of good-fellowship by the on
ciliatory medium of wholesome spirits
and good tobacco. 1t possessed a
secondary, or rather incidental, feature
in the shape of a Provident Loan Fund,
and, according to the bylaws of this
fund, all members of the club who had
proved their general solvency by twelve
regular payments of one sovereign, were
entitled to one loan of 924- to be repaid
in six months of the date of borrowing.
The fund was projected by Mr.. Tom
Poulton, who proved by statistics that,
taking the general population of Great
Britain and Ireland, including women
and children, and excluding all the
members of the house of peers, and all
registered paupers, only one person in
our lived beyond his annual income; OF,
in other words, only one person in four
had occasion to borrow money to meet
his yearly expenditures. Assuming that
these statistics were applicable to so many
members ofsthe Serious Family as elected
to become subscribers to the projected
Provident Loan Fund, it followed that
for every four annual subscriptions of
G12 only one annual loan of 924 would
be applied for, leaving a clear annual
balance of924 in the funds favor. -
But Mr.. Tom Poulton did not close
his eyes to the possibilities that statistics
which held goodMhen applied to 80, 1000
900 people, including women and chill
dren, might stand in need of some modi-
fication before they became applicable to
an exceptional gathering of seventy or
eighty young and middle-aged persons,
among whom there were no women and
no children. He very fairly admitted
the exceptional character of h club, in
the course of his speech on the motion
that the fund be instituted, but he con-
tended that, if as many as one in three,
instead of IL in four, were to apply at
years end for the loan of 924, the result
would show a clear balance of 100 per
cent. in favor of the projected fund. He
went on, to show that, if an application
from one in three resulted in a profit of
so per cent, an application from one in
one and a half would result in a profit of
% per cent; or, carrying the principle
still further, an application from one in
three-quarters would result in a profit of
123 per cent; from which an easy cal
culation would show that if every mem
Der of the Loan Fund who had sub
scritcd S12 were to insist on borrowing
f24, the clear annual profit in favor of
h club would be 1875 per cent, and Mr..
Tom Poulton would undertake, in writ
ing, to be responsible for the accuracy
of his calculation. 1t was Immediately
proposed that this fund be forthwith in
%stituted, and the proposition was forth
with carried by acelamation. Mr.. Tom
Poulton was Immediately elected chair
man, treasurer, secretary, and trustee of
the fund, and the whole club became
subscribers to it.
Nowt this was one of Mr.. Tom Poulton's
practical jokes. Mr.. Tom Poulton had,
among other valuable gifts, a keen n
of humor, S keen, indeed, that it was in
no degree blunted if the joke turned
against himself. Most of Mr.. Tom Poul-
tons Jokes turned against himself, and
the particular joke that Mr.. Tom Poui-