A bricklayer stands at the head of the “Building Club,” where every member perhaps subscribes two guineas per month, and each house, value about one hundred pounds, is balloted for as soon as erected. As a house is a weighty concern, every member is obliged to produce two bondsmen for the performance of covenants.
I will venture to pronounce another, the “Capital Club;” for when the contributions amount to fifty pounds, the members ballot for this capital, to bring into business, here also securities are necessary. It is easy to conceive the two last clubs are extremely beneficial to building and to commerce.
The last I shall enumerate is the “Clock Club.” When the weekly deposits of the members amount to about four pounds, they cast lots who shall be first served with a clock of that value, and continue the same method till the whole club is supplied; after which, the clock-maker and landlord cast about for another set, who are chiefly young housekeepers. Hence the beginner ornaments his premises with furniture, the artist finds employment with profit, and the publican empties his barrel.[276]
[276] Hutton’s History of Birmingham.
HYPOCHONDRIA.
A person at Taunton often kept at home for several weeks, under an idea of danger in going abroad. Sometimes he imagined that he was a cat, and seated himself on his hind quarters; at other times he would fancy himself a tea-pot, and stand with one arm a-kimbo like the handle, and the other stretched out like the spout. At last he conceived himself to have died, and would not move or be moved till the coffin came. His wife, in serious alarm, sent for a surgeon, who addressed him with the usual salutation, “How do you do this morning?”
“Do!” replied he in a low voice, “a pretty question to a dead man!”
“Dead, sir! what do you mean?”