The Warrington Examiner. — 1875-07-03 (Warrington, Cheshire, England)

THE WARRINGTON EXAMINER, SATURDAY, JULY 3,1875.  London are libelled by the existence of the Old Bailey, and insulted by a penal code. After all, this so-called limitation is in reality a concession, for it is necessary for an insurance among the richer classes that the assurer should have an interest in the life, which rule is broken through in the case of these friendly societies. But even were it a limitation and not a privilege, we ought perhaps to consider the evidence of Dr. Curvenger, who was examined before a committee of the House of Commons with reference to the preservation of infant life, and who states that the number of deaths among infants, where parents were members of burial clubs, was double that which took place among other children. There is the fact, too, and this apart from all theories, and simply the evidence of hard figures, that whilst, according to the registration returns, the deaths tare much greater in the first year of life over the whole of the United Kingdom, the reverse is the case in the large town, where, the burial clubs are in active operation; and the deaths in the second and third years far exceed those in the first year of life. As such claims only become payable in the second and third years, the fact seems to .become patent, that an evil exists which requires a remedy. We make no charge against the working man. Probably the increased mortality would not, on investigation, be found to exist among his children, but rather among those who, being illegitimate, are neglected, either through the necessities or the carelessness of their unhappy mothers; or among those of an idle and drunken father, whose wife is compelled to go out to work to support herself and her family. But with these facts and figures before him we wonder at the want of back-bone in Sir Stafford Northcote, who yielded one night so far as to raise £3 to £5, and the next morning consented to fix £6 as the limit of Infantile Assurance. As the matter stands now, the workingman is supposed to be able to resist the temptation of child-murder for the sum of £6, whilst he cannot be trusted above that sum. To have been logical the restriction should have been removed altogether or the temptation to carelessness done away with. But logic is not the strong point of the present ministry. They cultivate the amiable at the expense of the intellectual. They believe that virtue has advanced far enough for permissive legislation to take the place of compulsory. They would allow a man to contract himself out of the decalogue, and would have added to each commandment thundered from Sinai, a still small voice of "except you choose to do otherwise." And so it has happened that in the present case Sir Stafford Northcote has sacrificed a principle based on the logic and evidence of statistics, to a false sentiment and a fear of being misunderstood, and having made the charge himself, at last, looking forward probably to the next gene;al election, congratulated himself that he had had the opportunity of removing "an odious imputation," which had long rested on the working man. From such maudlin ministers, from such weak-kneed and invertebrate politicians, from men who have not the courage of their opinions, and who advance but to withdraw, may the good-sense of tie country, the pluck and earnestness of the constiTuencies, the honesty that hates to see principles sacrificed to policy, soon deliver us.