h peasantry has been famed, and which even yet survives
in some degree of vigour, notwithstanding the fatally counteractive
influence of poor-laws. The funds contributed by these worthy men were
put into a box, and kept there--for in those days there were no banks
to take a fruitful charge of money--and at certain periods the
contributors would meet, and see what they could spare for the relief
of such poor fellow-countrymen as had in the interval applied to them.
We have still a faint living image of this simple plan in the _boxes_
belonging to certain trades in our Scottish towns, or rather the
survivance of the phrase, for the money, we must presume, is now
everywhere relegated to the keeping of the banks. The institution in
those days was known as the SCOTTISH BOX, just as a money-dealing
company came to be called a bank, from the table (_banco_) which it
employed in transacting its business. From a very early period in its
history, it seems to have taken the form of what is now called a
Friendly Society, each person contributing an entrance-fee of 5s., and
6d. per quarter thereafter, so as to be entitled to certain benefits
in the event of poverty or sickness. Small sums were also lent to the
poorer members, without interest, and burial expenses were paid. We
find from the records that, in 1638, when the company was twenty in
number, and met in Lamb's Conduit Street, it allowed 20s. for a
certain class of those of its members who had died of the plague, and
30s. for others. The whole affair, however, was then on a limited
scale--the quarterly disbursements in 1661 amounting only to L.9, 4s.
Nevertheless, upwards of 300 poor Scotsmen, swept off by the
pestilence of 1665-6, were buried at the expense of the Box, while
numbers more were nourished during their sickness, without subjecting
the parishes in which they resided to the smallest expense. We have
not the slightest doubt, that not one of these people felt the
bitterness of a dependence on alms. If not actually entitled to relief
in consideration of previous payments of their own, they would feel
that they were beholden only to their kindly countrymen. It would be
like the members of a family helping each other. Humiliation could
have been felt only, if they had had to accept of alms from those
amongst whom they sojourned as strangers. Such is the way, at least,
in which we read the character of our countrymen.

In the year 1665, the Box was exalted into the cha