lasses, and at the same time provides the
means of home enjoyments, without which such advances would be
comparatively useless, and certainly uncertain."[1]

[Footnote 1: Letter of Mr. John Holmes, in Reports of Paris Universal
Exhibition, 1867 vol. vi., p. 240.]

There are also exceptional towns and villages in Lancashire where large
sums of money have been saved by the operatives for buying or building
comfortable cottage dwellings. Last year Padiham saved about fifteen
thousand pounds for this purpose, although its population is only about
8,000. Burnley has also been very successful. The Building Society there
has 6,600 investors, who saved last year L160,000 or an average of
twenty-four pounds for each investor. The members consist principally of
mill operatives, miners, mechanics, engineers, carpenters, stonemasons,
and labourers. They also include women, both married and unmarried. Our
informant states that "great numbers of the working classes have
purchased houses in which to live. They have likewise bought houses as a
means of investment. The building society has assisted in hundreds of
these cases, by advancing money on mortgage,--such mortgages being
repaid by easy instalments."

Building Societies are, on the whole, among the most excellent methods
of illustrating the advantages of Thrift. They induce men to save money
for the purpose of buying their own homes; in which, so long as they
live, they possess the best of all securities.

CHAPTER VII.

ECONOMY IN LIFE ASSURANCE.

"Do not, for one repulse, forego the purpose
That you resolved to effect."--_Shakespeare_.

"We are helpers, fellow-creatures,
Of the right against the wrong."--_E. Barrett_.

"Life was not given us to be all used up in the pursuit of what we must
leave behind us when we die."--_Joseph May_.

"Le bonheur ou le malheur de la vielillesse n'est souvent que l'extrait
de notre vie passee." (The blessedness or misery of old age is often but
the extract of our past life.) _De Maistre_.

Two other methods of co-operative saving remain to be mentioned. The
first is by Life Assurance, which enables widows and children to be
provided for at the death of the assured; and the second is by Friendly
Societies, which enable working men to provide themselves with relief in
sickness, and their widows and orphans with a small sum at their death.
The first method is practised by the middle and upper classes; and the
second by the wor