fifteen shillings or so in six weeks' time
for mending the donkey-cart, and so on; and, thanks to the real savings
in the shape of food and firing ready for use, the shillings, however
come by, could be hoarded up.

But under the new thrift they cannot be so hoarded up; nor, fortunately,
are the little lump sums so necessary as before. The real savings now,
the real stores of useful capital, are no longer in the cottager's home.
They are in shops. What the modern labourer chiefly requires, therefore,
is not a little hoard of money lying by, but a regular supply of money,
a constant stream of it, flowing in, to enable him to go to the shops
regularly. In a word, he wants an income--a steady income of shillings.
And since his earnings are not steady--since his income may cease any
day, and continue in abeyance for weeks at a time, during which the
shops will be closed against him, his chief economy is directed upon the
object of insuring his weekly income. Most miserably for him, he has
never been able to insure it against all reverses. Against trade
depression, which throws him out of work and dries up the stream of
money that should come flowing in, he has no protection. He has none if
his employer should go bankrupt, or leave the neighbourhood, and dismiss
him; none against the competition of machinery. Still, the labourers do
as much as they can. Sickness, at least, does not find them unprepared.
To cover loss of wages during sickness, they pay into a benefit society.
The more careful, indeed, pay into two--the Oddfellows or the Foresters,
or some such society--and a local "slate-club." I have known men out of
work living on tea and bread, and not much of that, so that they may
keep up their club payments, and be sure of an income if they should
fall sick; and I have known men so circumstanced immediately feel the
advantage if sickness should actually fall upon them.

This is the new thrift, which has replaced that of the peasant. I do not
say that there is no other saving--that no little sums are hoarded up;
for, in fact, I could name one or two men who, after illness protracted
to the stage when sick-pay from the club is reduced, have still fought
off destitution with the small savings from better times. In most cases,
however, no hoarding is possible. The club takes all the spare money;
and the club alone stands between the labourer and destitution. And let
this be clearly understood. At first it looks as if the me