Specific Effects of the Expenses of Funerals, and Associations to Defray Them Amongst the Labouring Classes
§ 53. The desire to secure respectful interment of themselves and their relations is, perhaps, the strongest and most widely-diffused feeling amongst the labouring classes of the population. Subscriptions may be obtained from large classes of them for their burial when it can be obtained neither for their own relief in sickness, nor for the education of their children, nor for any other object. The amount of the twenty-four millions of deposits in the savings’ banks of the United Kingdom is 29l. each depositor. Judging from particular investigations, it would appear that upwards of 5l. of each deposit may be considered a sum devoted to defray the expenses of burial, and about as much more to provide mourning and other expenses. From six to eight millions of savings may be considered as devoted to these objects.
§ 54. The following is an answer to some inquiries on the subject from the secretary of the St. Martin’s Lane Provident Institution, an institution in which the deposits amount to 1,168,850l., and the depositors, amounting to upwards of 32,000, comprehend some of the most frugal and respectable of the labouring classes:—
As you wished me to mention any facts within my knowledge, arising out of this institution and its concerns, bearing upon the question of sepulture, I would first state, that the average annual number of deaths occurring amongst our depositors (now about 32,000 in number) in the course of the last nine years, has been 231; these, taking the last of such years for an example, are divisible under the classes shown by the subjoined statement. By reference to this statement it will be seen how large a class of our depositors consists of individuals of the poorer or labouring population; and amongst that class, in regard to the question of sepulture, from the opportunity afforded me of inspecting the charges made for funerals, I should say that the expenses incurred for the funeral and interment alone are seldom so little as 4l., generally amount to 5l. and upwards, and not unfrequently exceed 6l.
It is, I may observe, no uncommon practice for parties to leave deposits in their names, about the amount I have stated, for the very purpose of providing for the expenses of their interment, so as to ensure for themselves, under any change of circumstances, a decent burial; this feeling has prevailed so strongly in instances within my own knowledge, that, upon the happening of the death, the party has been found to have died at last an inmate of a poor house, and destitute of every kind of property, save only the little fund appropriated for the purpose I have stated. This feeling is not confined solely to the poorest class of our depositors: an instance lately occurred in which a depositor to the amount of 32l., made a special request that 20l. of this money might, in the event of her death, be paid only to her undertaker on production of his account and of her burial certificate, and the balance to be paid to her relatives. The depositor died in the following year, and her wishes were accordingly carried into effect, with the concurrence of a relative, to whom it appeared she had communicated the arrangement she had thus made in regard to her money deposited with this institution.
| Total Number of Deaths in the Year ending 31st of March, 1842. | Total Effects of such deceased Depositions, certified as under the following Amounts, viz:— | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £50 | £100 | £200 | £300 | £400 | £450 | £600 | £800 | Amount to £1000 and upwards. | |
| 232 | 133 | 32 | 23 | 10 | 1 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 16 |
Occurrences such as those above alluded to are not unfrequent. Those who, as paupers, have led a life of dissipation, and have saved nothing for other objects, have yet reserved and concealed a small hoard to provide interment in a mode agreeable to their feelings. Besides the immense amount of money reserved for this purpose in the savings’ banks, it forms the great object of the benefit clubs: in most large towns there are burial clubs instituted for no other purpose. In the town of Preston nearly 30,000 persons, men, women, and children, are associated in six large societies for the purpose of burial; the chief of these clubs comprehends 15,164 members, and has since its commencement expended upwards of 1,000l. per annum, raised in weekly contributions, from a halfpenny and a penny to three-halfpence and two-pence per week. A benevolent officer, in giving an account of this club, expresses a hope that it may be practicable, in connexion with it, to get up some provision for the living, in the shape of medical attendance for the sick, an object which appears to have been entirely lost sight of in these societies. Besides the burial societies, of which the funds are deposited in the savings’ banks, there are others in which the funds are placed out in the hands of private persons, traders, who pay interest upon them.
§ 55. As an example of the allowances in the provincial clubs, it may be mentioned, that on an examination of the rules of 90 friendly societies at present existing in the borough and town of Walsall, comprising upwards of 5000 members, it appeared that the allowances insured for funerals were as follows:—that
| For the Funeral of the Husband. | For the Funeral of the Wife. | ||
| 22 societies | pay £10 | 36 societies | pay £3 |
| 12 | 8 | 16 | 5 |
| 8 | 7 | 14 | 4 |
| 3 | 16 | 9 | 8 |
| 3 | 6 | ||
| 3 | 7 |
The burial allowances in the others were not specified.
§ 56. It must be premised, that it appears to be a serious error to regard the arrangements of all of this class of clubs as the arrangements of the poor people themselves; the arrangements are evidence only of the intensity of their feelings on the subject of interment, of their ignorance and their extensive need of information and trustworthy guidance.
There are, for example, in Westminster, Marylebone, Finsbury, the City, and the Tower Hamlets, districts of the metropolis, about 200 of such societies, composed chiefly of the labouring classes, comprising from 100 to 800 members each, possessing aggregate amounts of deposits of from 90l. to 1000l. each; raised in contributions of from three-halfpence to two-pence per week, and paying on the death of a member from 5l. to 10l. Besides these, there are clubs of a higher description, mostly amongst the smallest class of tradesmen, where the sums insured extend to sums as high as 200l., payable at the member’s death, and are understood to be chiefly devoted to the payment of the funeral expenses. The burial clubs for the labouring classes are generally got up by an undertaker and by the publican at whose house the club is held. The state of feeling addressed in the formation of these societies is denoted by the terms of the placards issued at the joint expense of the publican or of the undertaker, or rather of some mechanic or person of another trade, who gets the business done by an undertaker. These placards are frequently headed “In the midst of life we are in death;” and the addresses are in such terms as the following, which is taken from “The United Brothers’ and Sisters’ Burial Society,” held at the Old Duke William public house, Ratcliffe Highway:—
“In contemplating the many vicissitudes and changes incident to all persons of every station in life, and the many anxieties that crowd about our advancing years, more particularly the labouring class, through the uncertainty of employment, by long illness, or for want of friends reduced to extreme distress, and after a long and miserable life, and in expectation of that awful change which we must one time or other undergo, without ever providing for a decent interment, it will be some alleviation to our sufferings to remember that we bring no pecuniary burthen on our commiserating friends and relations, that at least we have divested our suffering families of that anxiety respecting our mortal remains which would add another pang to their already lacerated hearts: it too frequently occurs to the sorrow of many a feeling heart, who mourns over the deplorable loss of a beloved husband, wife, or friend; to obtain this desirable object, this society offers to the public, on easy terms, advantages worthy the consideration of persons in all stations of life.”
The terms of insurance are—
“That to defray the necessary expenses of printing books, bills, &c., that members of the first class, if under the age of 55 years, shall pay 1s. entrance, and contribute 1s. per month to the box and 2d. per quarter to the secretary; and members of the second class, under the age of 55 years, shall pay 6d. entrance, and 6d. per month to the box, and 2d. per quarter to the secretary; and every person above the age of 55 years, and members of the first class, to pay 2s. entrance, and contribute 1s. 6d. per month to the box, and 2d. per quarter to the secretary; and every member of the second class to pay 1s. entrance, and contribute 1s. per month to the box, and 2d. per quarter to the secretary. No more than 20 members will be admitted above the age of 60 years. They to be free in 12 months; nor shall any article that may be hereafter made exclude them.”
The benefits insured are to be—
“That at the death of a free member, immediate notice shall be given to T. Scotcher, undertaker, who shall perform the funeral, and he shall inform one of the committee, and the first meeting night after the burial, his or her relation, next of kin, or nominee, on producing satisfactory evidence, will be entitled (if a member of the first class) to the sum of 10l.; if a member of the second class, and above seven years, to 5l.; if under the age of seven years, to 3l.; but when the stock of this society amounts to 150l. in the public funds, if a member in the first class admitted ten years, 12l. will be allowed; and if a member admitted ten years in the second class, 6l. will be allowed, deducting all arrears on the books; and for the credit of the society, the committee shall see the undertaker’s bill discharged.”
The publican is secured by a provision that the box shall not be removed to any other public house; and the office of “J. Scotcher, undertaker and founder of the Society,” is made permanent. An arbitrary rule, in such terms as the following, is so couched (the officers being judges) as to suppress complaint. This rule is common to other societies:—
That if any member charge the committee, or any member thereof, or trustees, or secretary, with any improper practice in the management of the society, and cannot make it appear just, he or she shall be fined 5s., or be excluded.
It is to be observed that the high and exclusive spirit of some of the rules would seem to show how little the body of the members are consulted in the preparation of them. Thus, in the “Ancient Friendly Society,” it is provided that “if any man sits down to drink with the stewards to pay sixpence, whether a member or not.” It is provided in the rules of the “Loyal United Friends,” that “if any person sit down to drink with the committee he is to pay sixpence;” and it is the same with a large proportion of the others.
In what is called an “improved burial society,” of the date of 1841, called the East London Burial Society, held at the Swan public house, Bethnal Green, the terms are:—
That the members of this society shall pay their contributions weekly or monthly, and shall pay 1d. per quarter extra, to defray other expenses attending the society. Every member shall pay 1d. per week for the first class, from two to fifty-five years; the second class, from ten to fifty-five years, 2d. per week; the third class, from ten to fifty-five years, shall pay 3d. per week.
Richard Crafer appears to be the president, and William Duggan secretary; then Richard Crafer afterwards appears as the undertaker. With respect to him the following is inserted as a fundamental rule of the society:—
That Richard Crafer, being the founder of this Society, shall be the undertaker, and no future articles shall remove him, so long as he gives general satisfaction to the society, and in case of his death, his eldest son shall claim the same for the benefit of the widow, and at her decease the same shall devolve on the eldest son living.
Mr. William Duggan is appointed secretary, and for his attendance and services he shall be allowed the sum of 1d. per quarter, for as many members as there are on the society’s books: he will assist the society with his best advice, and register good and healthy members, and post the books. He shall be allowed 3d. each for all notices he may deliver on the society’s business, but not obliged to go more than two miles from the club-house.
This is preceded by the usual rule, that—
Any member coming to the society’s meeting-house in liquor, so as to disturb the proceedings, shall be fined 1s., and ordered to leave the room; and should any member charge the committee, secretary, president, trustees, or landlord with any unjust proceedings relative to the society, and cannot substantiate the same, he or she shall pay a fine not exceeding 10s. to the stock, or be excluded.
In the society of “United Brewers and Draymen,” of which J. Guy is secretary and undertaker, one of the fundamental rules is, that—
At the funeral of a member, the secretary shall provide fittings for porters and six pall bearers, for which he shall be allowed 1l., whether they are used or not, provided such member dies and is interred within three miles of any meeting-house.
The particulars of the provision commonly held out, is stated in the following rule of the General Burial Society:—
That the landlord for the time being shall be treasurer, and when there is sufficient cash, above what is necessary to supply the exigencies of the society, the same shall be vested in the public funds, in the names of the trustees appointed by the committee. The landlord, as treasurer, &c., shall give proper security for the due performance of his offices.
An evil entailed beyond the excessive amount of subscriptions paid for an object that is but poorly obtained, is the impulse given by it to the vice of drinking; to the destruction of real friendly sympathy amongst the working classes, by making the announcement of the death to be received as the demoralizing announcement of a coming carousal. Such expenses can only be incurred in the absence of proper feeling, in the face of destitute orphan children. The secretary of one of the better ordered burial clubs, a working man, thus speaks of the regulations which tend to drinking. He was asked—
What number of members have you?—Two hundred, who pay sixpence per month.
What is the publican’s advantage out of this?—The allowance is sixpence spending-money from each committee-man. I do not like this, and have wanted to change the place of meeting to a coffee-house, for the members frequently add a shilling to the sixpence spending-money, and are then not in a condition to begin business; but I find it is part of the rules of this, as well as of the other societies, that they shall be held at public houses.
On the occasion of the funeral is there no drinking?—Yes, there is; that is another great evil, and I wish there was a way of remedying it. The family provide themselves with drink, and the friends coming also drink. I have known this to be to such excess, that the undertaker’s men, who always take whatever drink is given them, are frequently unfit to perform their duty, and have reeled in carrying the coffin. At these times it is very distressing. The men who stand as mutes at the door, as they stand out in the cold, are supposed to require most drink, and receive it most liberally. I have seen these men reel about the road, and after the burial we have been obliged to put these mutes and their staves into the interior of the hearse and drive them home, as they were incapable of walking. After the return from the funeral, the mourners commonly have drink again at the house. This drinking at the funeral is a very great evil.
Besides the regulations of meeting which lead to expenditure for drinking, besides express regulations for allowances of drink, the “funeral allowances” are sometimes read by the publican to mean “expenditure” with him. The officers of a club in Liverpool having been summoned before Mr. Rushton, the magistrate, for the non-payment of a sum allowed by the rules, for funeral expenses, the steward of the club attended, and in answer to the claim, stated that the complainant had refused to take 4s. worth of whiskey at the house where the club meetings were held, a quantity which had been used and allowed in that and other clubs, as forming part of the “funeral expenses.” Notwithstanding the usage, the magistrate refused to sanction the steward’s reading of the term; and decided that the whole of the payment of expenses must be in money and not in whiskey.
It is difficult to ascertain the amount spent in drink, but it appears from the amount cited of the expenditure in the 90 societies at Walsall, that the required allowance was 2d. per month, in others 3d., and the aggregate sum spent in those clubs (if it were only limited to the rule), must have amounted to 981l. 13s. 4d.; but besides these prescribed portions of drink, there are prescribed annual feasts, at from 2s. 3d. to 3s. 6d. per member, amounting to an annual sum of 257l. 10s., making a total of 1239l. 3s. 4d. per annum, expended in such expenses. Besides these, there are decoration expenses, in which one society alone expended between 70l. and 80l. Seventeen of the societies had lost 1500l., and one of them 600l., through various causes (such as the defalcations of secretaries), either directly or indirectly, attributable to an inefficient system of management. If the one year’s expenditure on drink, feast, and decoration money, were placed out in the savings’ bank, at interest, together with the amount of losses from mismanagement, the amount due to the contributors, to this small group of societies, would, at the end of 10 years, have amounted to the sum of 5328l. 19s. 3d.
§ 57. To prevent frauds, some of the rules provide that the secretary shall see the body. For this service, in the society called the “Frugal Society,” where 7l. is allowed for the interment, a fee of 2s. 6d. is allowed to him, and 4s. if he have to go from two to five miles for the purpose. It is to be observed, that this is the usual fee provided by such societies for any inspection of the body.
The publican is generally made the treasurer, and usually the money is placed by him into the hands of his brewer, by whom from four to five per cent. interest is paid for its use as capital. In other instances it forms a capital for the publican himself; in some instances it is lent to other tradesmen. Though failures of societies have occurred from the failure of those to whom their funds have been lent, they do not appear to have been so frequent as the failures from the erroneous bases in respect to insurance on which they are generally founded.
§ 58. Believing that if the sums insured for burial in most of the burial clubs were received in money, the premiums paid by the members of these clubs are excessive, as compared with the premiums paid in the higher classes of insurance offices, I have submitted a number of their regulations, which may be considered specimens of the common terms of assurance, to Mr. Jenkin Jones, the actuary of the National Mercantile Life Assurance Society. His conclusions, which are confirmed by Mr. Griffith Davies, the actuary of the Guardian Office, show that for a risk, for which, if the Northampton tables were taken as the basis of the assurance, that in the large society at Preston, where an annual premium of 3s. 9d. would be taken for one risk by an assurance office, 7s. 10d. is taken from the contributors by the club. The General Friendly Society, for a risk for which 3s. 9d. would suffice on the Northampton table, receives 11s. 5d. Instead of an average premium of 5s. 2d., the “Friendly Society” takes 11s. 1d. If we add 25 per cent., to the premium that would be charged according to the Northampton rate (which is supposed to represent a higher mortality than the average) for expenses of management, including books, stationery, &c., and to cover the loss of interest occasioned by weekly or monthly contributions, instead of annual premiums payable at the beginning of each year, in nearly all these clubs the poor man pays an excess for burial of, at least, one-third,—besides the expense of liquor more than he would otherwise drink, which he is induced to take at the time of his multiplied attendances to pay his weekly subscriptions. There are various causes (which it would require a long report to specify) for the failure of these clubs, and for the loss of the savings devoted to their objects. The chief manager, the undertaker, has commonly an immediate interest in the admission of bad lives, which bring him quick funerals. The younger members often begin to perceive that they are subjected to unduly heavy charges, and when they are in the majority, they break up the society and divide the stock among them equally, and the older members who have contributed from the commencement are mercilessly deprived of the consolation for which they have during a great part of their lives made the most constant sacrifices. Independently of the excessive rates charged by these societies, the principle upon which the charges are made is a very unjust one, viz.—that of charging the same rate to each member, without reference to age.
§ 59. It will be seen from the following table that the “Friendly” Society’s premium (11s. 1d.) is rather more than double the average of the Northampton (5s. 2d.), and the premium by the Northampton rates for ages 15 and 45 are 3s. 10d., and 7s. 9d.; the premiums of the “Friendly” Society, therefore, according to their own average, ought not to be more for these ages than about twice these amounts, or for age 15, 7s. 8d.; age 45, 15s. 6d.; but members between these ages pay alike (11s. 1d.), the younger member therefore pays 3s. 5d. more than he ought, and the older member 4s. 5d. less than he ought.
| Age. | “Friendly” Society Premium. | Average Premium according to the Northampton Rate. | Premium according to the Northampton Rate. | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| s. | d. | s. | d. | s. | d. | |
| 7–45 | 11 | 1 | 5 | 2 | ||
| 15 | 3 | 10 | ||||
| 45 | 7 | 9 | ||||
And by the Northampton rate (upon the principle adopted by the society), the younger member would have to pay 1s. 4d. more and the elder member 2s. 7d. less than he ought. As an exemplification of the instability of such societies, Mr. Tidd Pratt mentioned to me that at a recent election of a poor man to a vacancy in the Metropolitan Benefit Societies’ Asylum, a condition of which is that the candidate must be above sixty years of age, and have been a member of a benefit society more than ten years, there were 32 candidates, from whose documents it appeared that the societies of no less than 14 out of the 32 had been dissolved, and that some of them had belonged to two societies, and that both had failed them. Such societies are nevertheless constantly renewed on the old and unsafe foundations; and so intense is the prevalent feeling on the subject of respectful interment, that to secure it, a large proportion of the working population pay the same extravagant premiums to several of these clubs, in the hope that one, at least, may at the last avail them. On the death of a mechanic, the first business of an experienced undertaker is to ascertain of how many societies the deceased was a member, and to arrange the funeral accordingly. I am informed that it is not unfrequent that such sums as fifteen, twenty, thirty, and even forty pounds’ expenses are incurred for a mechanic’s funeral under these circumstances. When two or three of the undertakers of different clubs meet on the same search, and when they cannot agree to “settle” between them their shares in the performance of the funerals, very complex questions arise, which, it is stated, the magistrates have great difficulty in settling.
§ 60. The exercise, on the parts of the lowest classes, of the feeling, in itself so laudable and apparently susceptible of great moral good, under proper guidance, has, in those districts where the burial societies are conspicuous and numerous, led to dreadful incidental consequences, displaying, amongst other things, the dangers of disturbing natural responsibilities, and allowing interests to be placed in operation against moral duties.
§ 61. The insecurity of the burial societies has, under the anxiety of feeling of the working classes, lest they might fail of their object from the failure of the club, led to multiplied insurances for adults, thence for families, and for children; and thence has arisen high gains on the death of each child,—in other words, a bounty on neglect and infanticide. Those who are aware of the moral condition of a large proportion of the population, will expect that such an interest would, sooner or later, have its operation on some depraved minds to be found in every class.
§ 62. Mr. Robert Hawksworth, the Visitor to the Manchester and Salford District Provident Society, recently stated to me,—“Here, the mode of conducting the funerals—the habits of drinking at the time of assemblage at the house, before the corpse is removed, renewed on the return from the funeral, when they drink to excess, the long retention of the body in the one room, are all exceedingly demoralizing. The occasion of a funeral is commonly looked to, amongst the lowest grade, as the occasion of ‘a stir;’ the occasion of the drinking is viewed at the least with complacency.” A minister in the neighbourhood of Manchester expressed his sorrow on observing a great want of natural feeling, and great apathy at the funerals. The sight of a free flow of tears was a refreshment which he seldom received. He was, moreover, often shocked by a common phrase amongst women of the lowest class—“Aye, aye, that child will not live; it is in the burial club.”
The actual cost of the funeral of a child varies from 1l. to 30s. The allowances from the clubs in that town on the occurrence of the death of a child are usually 3l., and extend to 4l. and 5l. But insurances for such payments on the deaths of children are made in four or five of these burial societies; and an officer mentioned to me an instance where one man had insured such payments in no less than nineteen different burial-clubs in Manchester. Officers of these societies, relieving officers, and others whose administrative duties put them in communication with the lowest classes in those districts, express their moral conviction of the operation of such bounties to produce instances of the visible neglect of children, of which they are witnesses. They often say—“You are not treating that child properly; it will not live; is it in the club?” and the answer corresponds with the impression produced by the sight. Mr. Gardiner, the clerk to the Manchester Union, in the course of his exercise of the important functions of registering the causes of death, deemed the cause assigned by a labouring man for the death of a child unsatisfactory, and on staying to inquire found that popular rumour assigned the death to wilful starvation:—
The child (according to a statement of the case) had been entered in at least ten burial clubs; and its parents had six other children, who only lived from nine to eighteen months respectively. They had received 20l. from several burial clubs for one of these children, and they expected to receive at least us much on account of this child. An inquest was held at Mr. Gardiner’s insistence when several persons, who had known the deceased, stated that she was a fine fat child shortly after her birth, but that she soon became quite thin, was badly clothed, and seemed as if she did not get a sufficiency of food. She was mostly in the care of a girl six or seven years of age: her father bore the character of a drunken man. He had another child, which was in several burial clubs, and was a year old when it died; the child’s mother stated that the child was more than ten months old, but she could not recollect the day of her birth; she thought its complaint was convulsions, in which it died. It had been ill about seven weeks; when it took ill, she had given it some oil of aniseeds and squills, which she had procured from Mr. Smith, a druggist. Since then she had given it nothing in the way of medicine, except some wine and water, which she gave it during the last few days of its life, when it could not suck or take gruel. It was in three burial clubs; her husband told her that they had received upwards of 20l. from burial clubs in which the other child had been entered; none of her children who had died were more than eighteen months old.
A surgeon stated, that he made a post-mortem examination of the body of deceased; it was then in an advanced state of decomposition, but not so far gone as to interfere with the examination. There was no appearance of external violence on the body, but there was an extreme degree of emaciation. The brain was healthy, and gave no indication of convulsions having been the cause of death; the process of teething had not commenced; had such been the case, it might have led to the supposition that fits might have occurred; the lungs, heart, stomach, and intestines were in a natural and healthy state.
The jury having expressed it as their opinion that the evidence of the parents was made up for the occasion, and entitled to no credit, returned the following verdict:—“Died through want of nourishment; but whether occasioned by a deficiency of food, or by disease of the liver and spine, brought on by improper food and drink, or otherwise, does not appear.”
No further steps were taken upon this verdict; and the man enforced payments upon his insurances from ten burial clubs, and obtained from them a total sum of 34l. 3s. for the burial of this one child. Two similar cases came under the notice of Mr. Coppock, the Clerk and Superintendent-Registrar of the Stockport Union, in both of which he prosecuted the parties for murder. In one case, where three children had been poisoned with arsenic, the father was tried, with the mother, and convicted at Chester, and sentenced to be transported for life, but the mother was acquitted. In the other case, where the judge summed up for a conviction, the accused, the father, was, to the astonishment of every one, acquitted. In this case the body was exhumed after interment, and arsenic was detected in the stomach. In consequence of the suspicion raised upon the death, on which the accusation was made in the first case, the bodies of two other children were taken up and examined, when arsenic was found in the stomach. In all these cases payments on the deaths of the children were insured from the burial clubs: the cost of the coffin and burial dues would not be more than about 1l., and the allowance from the club is 3l.
§ 63. It is remarked, on these dreadful cases, by the Superintendent Registrar, that the children who were boys, and therefore likely to be useful to the parents, were not poisoned; the female children were the victims. It was the clear opinion of the medical officers that infanticides have been committed in Stockport to obtain the burial money.12 Cases of the culpable neglect of children who were insured in several clubs had been observed at Preston. The collector of a burial society, one of the most respectable in Manchester, stated to me strong grounds for believing that it had become a practice to neglect children for the sake of the money allowed. The practice of insuring in a number of these clubs was increasing. He gave the following description of the frauds to which the clubs were exposed:—
A great number of individuals have themselves and family in two or more societies, and by that means realize a great sum of money at the death of any one of them; and I have no doubt at all in saying that a great many deaths are occasioned through neglect, when there is a great sum to be obtained at their decease. Such cases as these generally happen amongst the lower orders of society.
In reference to cases of undoubted imposition, I will just name a few out of a great many. A person residing in Manchester wished to enter herself and grandchild into our society. We went to the house, and there were from ten to twelve individuals present, the greater part of them children,—two of them somewhere about three months old. I asked who it was that was going to enter? The mistress of the house spoke up, and said it was herself and her grandchild. I asked which was her grandchild? She took a very fine child in her arms and said that was it, and asked me would it do?—to which I answered, yes. The other was a very thin ghastly-looking child. I asked what was the matter with it? She said they could not tell; it had been so from the time it was born. I assure you, sir, it was an awful sight to look at. A thought struck me when I came out, that if that child died they might say it was the child I entered, so I determined to keep my eye on it every time I called, which was once a fortnight. In four months afterwards this thin child died, and according to my anticipations they brought a notice of death for the child I had not entered. I went down to visit, and on looking at it, and examining it, I pronounced it not the child I had entered. She said it was, and a great contest arose for about an hour, during which time I asked her were there not two children about the same age when first I came into her house? which she denied at first, but afterwards admitted it. I then asked her was not one of them a very fine and the other a very thin child? to which she answered, yes. I then asked her whether it was the finest or the thin one I entered? She answered, the finest one. I then asked her was that the fine one? She said, yes. I then asked her where was the thin child? She pointed to one that was sleeping in a bed, and said that was it. I looked at it, and said this was the child I entered. I then asked her how it was that this child which was sleeping had become so fat and the other so thin? to which she said she could not tell. Now I said to her, it is clear enough how you have done this; you showed me that living child, and gave me the name of the one that is dead, which she denied having done; and so we were compelled to give her the money because we had no means of finding it out but by some one in the house telling of her. But since, a little light has been thrown on it by her husband uttering a saying when he was drunk one day when I was there. This was the saying:—“A bright set of boys you are, burying the living for the dead!”—meaning that we gave burial money for a living child; but he was immediately stopped by his wife.
Another case, a woman in Salford, entered herself and two sons, and one of them was far gone in consumption; this we discovered and on asking, why she did it, she said she thought she could get a few pounds to bury him. Another, a man entered his wife, and she lay dying at the same time. When we asked him where his wife was, he pointed to a woman that was sitting by the fireside, and said that was her; but his wife died before she became a member. Another person, in order to obtain the funeral money, kept his child three weeks, until it was in a state of decomposition. The last case, out of many more that might be named, is rather ludicrous.
A man and his wife, residing in Cotton-street, agreed that one of them, namely, the husband, should pretend to be dead, in order that the wife might receive his funeral money; accordingly the wife proceeds in due form to give notice of his death; the visiting officer on behalf of the society, whose duty it was to see the corpse, repairs to the house, enters the chamber, and inquires for the deceased; the should-be disconsolate widow points him to the body of her late husband, whose chin was tied up with a handkerchief in the attitude of death; he surveys the corpse—the eyelids seem to move; he feels the pulse, the certain signs of life are there: the officer pronounceth him not dead; she in return says, he is dead, for there has not been a breath in him since 12 o’clock last night. The neighbours are called in; a discussion ensues between the wife and the officer: some declare they saw the husband at the door that morning giving a light. He (the officer) requires her to bring a doctor; she goes, and says she can’t get one to come; the officer goes and brings one, who ordered him to be raised up in the bed, and having obtained some water, the doctor, while the man was sitting up, dashed it in his face.
The man was apprehended and taken before the magistrates for the fraud. Sir Charles Shaw, the Commissioner of Police, directed that he should be produced in court in the same dress in which he had been laid out and was apprehended, which produced a very salutary effect.
§ 64. The evidence in respect to the crimes committed under such circumstances may be carried into wider ramifications. Some of the better constituted societies have perceived the evil of insurances, carried to the extent of entirely removing responsibilities, or creating bounties, to the promotion of the event insured against, and have endeavoured to abate the evil, as far as they could, by the adoption of a condition, that no payment should be made where a party was found to have been a member or to have insured in another club.
§ 65. The collector of the society, whose exemplification of one class of frauds is above cited, stated, that they were about to adopt the common rule of the insurance societies, that all claims should be forfeited for an act of suicide; for they had even instances which showed that men held their own lives on so loose a tenure as to throw them away on apparently slight motives. In one instance a man went to the secretary, and asked whether, if he were to commit suicide, his widow would be entitled to the burial money? The secretary stated that, there being no rule against it, he thought, the survivor would be entitled. The man, having fully satisfied himself on this point, went away and took poison. The amount of burial money gained was supposed to be 50l. In another case, the letter announcing to the widow the benefit he had secured, grew indistinct from the working of the poison and the sinking of life whilst the man was writing it, until it was nearly illegible. But the occurrence of such facts, showing a recklessness of life, with a degree of strength of domestic affections which induces them to encounter violent deaths for the sake of the survivors, is not confined to one class of society. Soon after the practice of insuring from insurance companies, the payment of large sums on the deaths of parties began to extend as a mode of providing for families, instances occurred where tradesmen and persons of the higher and middle classes, having effected insurances on their own lives, committed suicide with the view apparently of securing to their families the benefit of the sums insured. It is understood that the experience of such cases, and the obvious inducement which persons having in view to commit suicide to effect insurances on their lives, and thus defraud the offices, led to the precaution, now almost universal, of inserting the condition, which, however, is confined to insurance by persons on their own lives; that “if the assured shall die by his own act, whether sane or insane,” the policy shall be void. Yet frauds are occasionally committed by persons who must know that they have not long to live.
§ 66. Multiplied payments on one death are contrary to the spirit, at the least, of the law. A payment of a sum certain to parish officers, to be relieved from any future payments in respect to an illegitimate child, has been declared to be illegal. “One of the principles on which that decision is founded is, that the payment of a large sum for the support of a child gives the parish a degree of interest in the child’s death, and might have a tendency to induce the officers to relax in their duty towards it.”13
§ 67. In the higher order of life insurances, the legislature has endeavoured to arrest the dangerous tendency of insuring beyond the interest, by providing, by statute 14 Geo. III., c. 48, that persons insuring the lives of others shall have an interest in such lives; and it is a principle of insurance law that where a risk paid for has not been run, the premiums shall be returned; and it would seem to be a principle of common law that insurances beyond the actual interest are void. In the case of Fauntleroy, the banker, who insured his life in the Amicable Office for 6000l., the claim was resisted on the fact that he had been attainted, convicted, and executed for forgeries committed since the insurance, and the House of Lords held the insurance to be void on the plainest principles of public policy. The Lord Chancellor, in delivering the judgment of the house, said—“Is it possible that such a contract could be sustained? Is it not void upon the plainest principles of public policy? Would not such a contract (if available) take away one of those restraints operating on the minds of men against the commission of crimes,—namely, the interest we have in the welfare and prosperity of our connexions? Now, if a policy of that description, with such a form of condition inserted in it in express terms, cannot, on grounds of public policy, be sustained, how is it to be contended that in a policy expressed in such terms as the present, and after the events which have happened, that we can sustain such a claim?”14
§ 68. The Benefit clubs in large towns cannot easily take effectual measures against the multiplication of insurances, which indeed their own instability to some extent justifies, and they may find their account, in paying sums beyond the legal authority, as the higher insurance offices avowedly do, in paying on policies to parties who have had no legal interest in the life insured. An officer of one of these large insurance establishments declared, that if they had acted upon the decision of the courts in the case of Godson v. Boldero, “they might as well have shut their doors.”
§ 69. Although the practice referred to, of multiplied insurances of sums payable on the death of children, appears happily to have broken out into infanticides only in the districts mentioned, yet as the means and the temptation are left equally open in all, the necessity of preventing them, as far as a direct legislative act may, is submitted, by a short provision prohibiting payments beyond the actual cost of interment, and directing the return of the premiums or subscriptions where they have been given to more than one club.
§ 70. The means for the most direct protection of infantile life, and for giving additional security for life in general, will be subsequently submitted for consideration, with the evidence as to the means and the necessity of the appointment of medical officers for the protection of the public health.
§ 71. A collateral means of security, and of the abatement of other evils incidental to the practice of interments, will be found in the practicable administrative measures for reducing the unnecessary expense of interments, and, by consequence, of the temptations to crime constituted by the apparent expediency of the insurance of the payment of large sums to meet that expense.
It will, moreover, on further examination, become apparent, in this as in some other branches of public expenditure, that a course which attains increased efficiency with the popular desiderata in respect to interments is a course of economy.