“Knowledge considered in relation to Working Men.” This lecture by the worthy Dr. a resident at Ore House, was attentively listened to and received with appreciative applause. The list of further lectures during the winter session consisted of one each by Messrs. T. H. Cole, T. Tate, W. D. Lucas-Shadwell, J. Rock, W. Ransom, C. J. Womersley and J. Banks.
Important to Benefit Societies.
The long existing dispute between the Trustees of the Old Friendly Society versus Benjamin Banks, who as a former secretary had appropriated moneys to his own use and falsified the accompts, was once more the subject of litigation, on an appeal from the decision given at the Lewes Quarter Sessions. The appeal was heard at the Court of Queen’s Bench on the 8th of February, before the Lord Chief Justice and four other judges. “The single question was whether the money could be recovered by an action, or whether the dispute was one between the society and a member which ought to have been decided by a magistrate.” The Court held that the action was rightly brought, and gave judgement for plaintiffs. It was hoped that the friends of the defendant would be satisfied with the continual defeats they had met in the various courts.
Small Tenements.
It may be news to many readers of this Local History that the present “Investment and Building Society” originated from the representation and urgent appeals of the St. Leonards Gazette and the Hastings News. The latter journal of Oct. 18th, commenced an appropriate leader in the following words:-
- Lodging-houses of mammoth proportions spring up in Hastings and St. Leonards like mushrooms, and fine shops are growing with almost equal celerity. The rich and the waiters upon the rich have plenty of house accommodation of the best sort, and nothing can be said why they shouldn’t. But the poor man – the small clerk, with a large family, - the journeyman, with decent tastes and a tidy wife, - the respectable artizan, “about to marry”- what is to become of them? Are they to be doomed to hovels fit only for pigs in some augean stable of a place where a Hercules is woefully wanted, or still forced together, two or three families in a house, to the detriment of health and comfort, and possibly morals. Will nobody who has abundance of money forego a large interest on the outlay of a part of it, and be content with 4 or 5 per cent. instead of 7 or 8, if he can benefit hundreds of his deserving fellows by it? We ask these questions of somebody because many people are continually asking them of us. We put them to the public in general, in hope that somebody in particular may be found to answer them. Few facts are more patent in the economic and social history of Hastings, -
