Page:Item 8 1860.pdf/146

bers if they can get them, but they are not sufficient to justify unwarrantable interference. He congratulates the members who were at the meeting at the Music Hall for the manner in which they stated their case; but I understand that one of them made it a little too warm even for Mr. Tidd Pratt.... Your last correspondent ‘S. Leonardensis’ indulges in wholesale charges against us. He winds up with asking us not to think that he and other gentlemen wish to injure. We never did. As to consulting ‘an actuary and acting on his advice either for amalgamation or reconstruction’ we who have the practical working of the societies, know quite as much and perhaps a little more than some of these actuaries, with their impracticable ideas.... A member of the Old Friendly is free in 18 months for sick pay, which is 12s. a week for the first six months, 8s. a week for the second six months, and 6s. a week for the remainder of his illness. If the member is too old for permanent hard work he will become a superannuated member, with 4s. a week for life. On the death of a member, if he had been in the society two years, his relatives will be entitled to £5, and an additional sum of 10s. for every year, exceeding two that he has been a member, till the aggregate sum amounts to £15. On the death of a member’s wife, if he has been in the society five years, he will be entitled to £4, and an additional sum of 5s. for every year, except five that he has been a member, till the agregate(sic) sum amounts to £6 5s. To secure these benefits the members are required to pay in one year, by four equal quarterly payments, the expenditure of the previous year, which is a guarantee for its stability; and after that year it will most likely be 6s. a quarter only. .....I mean to say – and the officers of the other societies will bear me out in it – that the principles and figures laid down by Mr. Tidd Pratt are utterly impracticable, mischievous and uncalled for. I dare say I shall be told that our subscriptions are not enough to keep the society on. I reply why should we demand 13s. 6d. from members when we have proved that less than half that amount is sufficient? As for the Government scale and what Mr. Tidd Pratt says they are absurd. [Mr. Richardson having complained of his opponents not giving their real names, and “S. Leonardensis” having assured him that he could get them at the newspaper office, the former replied that he knew perfectly well who S. Leonardensis was, and that he together with Mr. Hume had the character of being two persons who were everlastingly interfering in what did not concern them] “I think”, continued Richardson that if Mr. Hume has so much time to spare , it is