4. Also to enable private and monthly nurses, and midwives, to do the same, but without requiring the certificate of character, which, not to be a mockery, ought to be an effectual one; and these persons are not under a fixed superior.
5. The pensions should, if it be possible, range from £13 or £15 a-year to £50 a-year: say £13, £20, £30, £40, £50.
6. Each hospital nurse to produce, before being allowed to join the Fund, a certificate from her matron of chastity, general good conduct, and a statement as to her being unmarried, married, or a widow, also of her having served in one hospital not less than a year. Also her marriage certificate, if a wife, and, if a widow, that and the certificate of her husband’s death. In the event of her marriage or re-marriage afterwards, the marriage-certificate to be produced, and her altered name and the fact of her marriage duly recorded in the Fund-book. (All this is important: aliases and fictitious marriages are sadly common, in this class).
7. If possible the certificate to be produced once a-year, and, on its failure, the contributor to cease to have a title to assistance. Assistance in the form of an addition to the annuity may be made contingent; the annuity which the premiums provide must be absolute: most of the vices tend to shorten life, that is, to diminish the number of annual payments, so that the fund would not be likely to incur losses through them.
8. Private and monthly nurses, and midwives, to produce, before being allowed to join the Fund, a certificate from the Clergyman of the parish, stating his belief that the subscriber is a respectable woman, unmarried, married, or a widow; and in the latter cases, marriage and death certificates. On any after-marriage or re-marriage, certificate to be produced and altered name registered, on pain of expulsion from the Fund. I should not attempt an annual certificate for this migratory and “independent” class.
9. Each nurse, before being allowed to join the Fund, to undergo whatever examination is undergone by women before they are allowed to effect Life Insurances, as to her being, at the date of joining, a healthy woman. (Physicians ought to advise here as to inserting provisions technical enough to be effective).
10. Payments to be made weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually, as shall be advised. Amounts to run from 6d. or 1s. a week upwards. For the plan to work, it ought to allow small payments on an ascending scale.
Many will only be able to make very small payments.
Few will be able to make other than small payments.