Although this wise and benevolent measure has been enacted so long ago as the third year of the reign of King William IV., I find, to my deep regret, that, during that whole time, only about 600 persons have availed themselves of its provisions. I can discover no other reason for this inadequate success, but that the existence of the Act is not generally known, or that people are afraid of law and Acts of Parliament, which they cannot understand on account of their complicated technical wording. I have heard another reason stated, to which, however, I give little credit, namely, that servants fear lest a knowledge that they are able to purchase annuities by savings from their wages might induce their masters to reduce them. I have a better opinion of the disposition of employers generally, and am convinced that, on the contrary, nothing counteracts more the liberality of masters than the idea, not wholly unfounded, that an increase of means, instead of prompting to saving, leads to extravagance.

It is one of the main objects of this meeting to draw public attention to this “Deferred Annuities Act,” and the main object of this Society is to form a medium by which servants may acquire the benefits proffered by it free from risk, cost, or trouble.

The other objects are: to provide a home for female servants out of place, the usefulness of which hardly requires a word of commendation; to provide respectable lodgings for men-servants not lodged by their masters; and to establish a Registry for domestic servants generally, which will form as well a place of advertisement for their services, as a record of their characters, from which they can be obtained upon application.

Any one who is acquainted with the annoyances and inconveniences connected with the present system of “characters to servants,” will at once see the importance of the introduction of a system by which the servant will be protected from that ruin which the caprice of a single master (with whom he may even have lived for a short time only) may inflict upon him, and the master from the risk to which a character wrung from a former weak master, by the importunities of an undeserving servant, may expose him. Nor is it a small benefit to be conferred upon the servant, to enable him, by appealing to a long record of former services, to redeem the disqualification which a single fault might bring upon him.

Should we only succeed in inducing the public at large to consider all these points, we shall have the satisfaction of having furthered the interests of a class which we find recorded in the Report of the last Census as the most numerous in the British population.

I shall now call upon the Secretary to lay before you more in detail the points which I have slightly touched upon.

AT THE ENTERTAINMENT GIVEN BY
THE MERCHANT TAILORS’ COMPANY.
[JUNE 11th, 1849.]

Gentlemen,—