What number of members have you?—Two hundred, who pay sixpence per month.
What is the publican’s advantage out of this?—The allowance is sixpence spending-money from each committee-man. I do not like this, and have wanted to change the place of meeting to a coffee-house, for the members frequently add a shilling to the sixpence spending-money, and are then not in a condition to begin business; but I find it is part of the rules of this, as well as of the other societies, that they shall be held at public houses.
On the occasion of the funeral is there no drinking?—Yes, there is; that is another great evil, and I wish there was a way of remedying it. The family provide themselves with drink, and the friends coming also drink. I have known this to be to such excess, that the undertaker’s men, who always take whatever drink is given them, are frequently unfit to perform their duty, and have reeled in carrying the coffin. At these times it is very distressing. The men who stand as mutes at the door, as they stand out in the cold, are supposed to require most drink, and receive it most liberally. I have seen these men reel about the road, and after the burial we have been obliged to put these mutes and their staves into the interior of the hearse and drive them home, as they were incapable of walking. After the return from the funeral, the mourners commonly have drink again at the house. This drinking at the funeral is a very great evil.
Besides the regulations of meeting which lead to expenditure for drinking, besides express regulations for allowances of drink, the “funeral allowances” are sometimes read by the publican to mean “expenditure” with him. The officers of a club in Liverpool having been summoned before Mr. Rushton, the magistrate, for the non-payment of a sum allowed by the rules, for funeral expenses, the steward of the club attended, and in answer to the claim, stated that the complainant had refused to take 4s. worth of whiskey at the house where the club meetings were held, a quantity which had been used and allowed in that and other clubs, as forming part of the “funeral expenses.” Notwithstanding the usage, the magistrate refused to sanction the steward’s reading of the term; and decided that the whole of the payment of expenses must be in money and not in whiskey.
It is difficult to ascertain the amount spent in drink, but it appears from the amount cited of the expenditure in the 90 societies at Walsall, that the required allowance was 2d. per month, in others 3d., and the aggregate sum spent in those clubs (if it were only limited to the rule), must have amounted to 981l. 13s. 4d.; but besides these prescribed portions of drink, there are prescribed annual feasts, at from 2s. 3d. to 3s. 6d. per member, amounting to an annual sum of 257l. 10s., making a total of 1239l. 3s. 4d. per annum, expended in such expenses. Besides these, there are decoration expenses, in which one society alone expended between 70l. and 80l. Seventeen of the societies had lost 1500l., and one of them 600l., through various causes (such as the defalcations of secretaries), either directly or indirectly, attributable to an inefficient system of management. If the one year’s expenditure on drink, feast, and decoration money, were placed out in the savings’ bank, at interest, together with the amount of losses from mismanagement, the amount due to the contributors, to this small group of societies, would, at the end of 10 years, have amounted to the sum of 5328l. 19s. 3d.
§ 57. To prevent frauds, some of the rules provide that the secretary shall see the body. For this service, in the society called the “Frugal Society,” where 7l. is allowed for the interment, a fee of 2s. 6d. is allowed to him, and 4s. if he have to go from two to five miles for the purpose. It is to be observed, that this is the usual fee provided by such societies for any inspection of the body.
The publican is generally made the treasurer, and usually the money is placed by him into the hands of his brewer, by whom from four to five per cent. interest is paid for its use as capital. In other instances it forms a capital for the publican himself; in some instances it is lent to other tradesmen. Though failures of societies have occurred from the failure of those to whom their funds have been lent, they do not appear to have been so frequent as the failures from the erroneous bases in respect to insurance on which they are generally founded.
§ 58. Believing that if the sums insured for burial in most of the burial clubs were received in money, the premiums paid by the members of these clubs are excessive, as compared with the premiums paid in the higher classes of insurance offices, I have submitted a number of their regulations, which may be considered specimens of the common terms of assurance, to Mr. Jenkin Jones, the actuary of the National Mercantile Life Assurance Society. His conclusions, which are confirmed by Mr. Griffith Davies, the actuary of the Guardian Office, show that for a risk, for which, if the Northampton tables were taken as the basis of the assurance, that in the large society at Preston, where an annual premium of 3s. 9d. would be taken for one risk by an assurance office, 7s. 10d. is taken from the contributors by the club. The General Friendly Society, for a risk for which 3s. 9d. would suffice on the Northampton table, receives 11s. 5d. Instead of an average premium of 5s. 2d., the “Friendly Society” takes 11s. 1d. If we add 25 per cent., to the premium that would be charged according to the Northampton rate (which is supposed to represent a higher mortality than the average) for expenses of management, including books, stationery, &c., and to cover the loss of interest occasioned by weekly or monthly contributions, instead of annual premiums payable at the beginning of each year, in nearly all these clubs the poor man pays an excess for burial of, at least, one-third,—besides the expense of liquor more than he would otherwise drink, which he is induced to take at the time of his multiplied attendances to pay his weekly subscriptions. There are various causes (which it would require a long report to specify) for the failure of these clubs, and for the loss of the savings devoted to their objects. The chief manager, the undertaker, has commonly an immediate interest in the admission of bad lives, which bring him quick funerals. The younger members often begin to perceive that they are subjected to unduly heavy charges, and when they are in the majority, they break up the society and divide the stock among them equally, and the older members who have contributed from the commencement are mercilessly deprived of the consolation for which they have during a great part of their lives made the most constant sacrifices. Independently of the excessive rates charged by these societies, the principle upon which the charges are made is a very unjust one, viz.—that of charging the same rate to each member, without reference to age.
§ 59. It will be seen from the following table that the “Friendly” Society’s premium (11s. 1d.) is rather more than double the average of the Northampton (5s. 2d.), and the premium by the Northampton rates for ages 15 and 45 are 3s. 10d., and 7s. 9d.; the premiums of the “Friendly” Society, therefore, according to their own average, ought not to be more for these ages than about twice these amounts, or for age 15, 7s. 8d.; age 45, 15s. 6d.; but members between these ages pay alike (11s. 1d.), the younger member therefore pays 3s. 5d. more than he ought, and the older member 4s. 5d. less than he ought.
| Age. | “Friendly” Society Premium. | Average Premium according to the Northampton Rate. | Premium according to the Northampton Rate. | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| s. | d. | s. | d. | s. | d. | |
| 7–45 | 11 | 1 | 5 | 2 | ||
| 15 | 3 | 10 | ||||
| 45 | 7 | 9 | ||||