who pay over all the receipts to Miss Cooper.
Not a single defalcation has at any time
occurred, and the property of the club has been
most scrupulously respected by the individual
members. When we visited the premises a
few weeks ago, we were shown over them by
the secretary, a man of excellent sense and
address, though following the humble occupation
of a hawker. A large proportion of the
members, by the way, consists of men engaged
in street-avocations, even including crossing-
sweepers, though the muster also comprises
skilled artisans and tradesmen. In the large
common-room at the basement (thirty feet by
twenty-eight in measurement), we saw several
persons quietly enjoying their cups of coffee
and their pipes. On the same level are to
be found the library, the kitchen, the lavatory,
and every convenience necessary to the comfort
of those who attend. Up-stairs, the committee
of a Loan Society was holding a meeting. From
this association as much as £15 may be
borrowed. Each member may take from one to
four shares, at threepence each, and at the end
of thirteen weeks he is entitled to a loan of £1
for every 6s. 6d. subscribed, to be repaid (with
interest at the rate of one shilling in the pound)
by weekly instalments at the rate of sixpence in
the pound for every pound borrowed, the borrower
continuing to pay up his shares. In an
adjoining room, reading and writing lessons were
going on; and, at a later hour, we saw a small
class assembled in the pursuit of a study which
one would hardly have expected to find
recognised at all in an institution addressing for the
most part the humblest orders. A few young
men were learning French. The class was
started only a few months ago, for the benefit
of some members who are employed in book-
sellers' shops and foreign merchants' offices.
At the commencement, twenty joined, but the
number has since fallen to twelve. We are
informed that they make good progress, and, as
the club is in union with the Society of Arts,
there is every guarantee that whatever is done
in the way of education will be well done. It
is not improbable that some of the French
students will enter their names for the next
examination of the Society.

Besides the Loan Society, four other bodies
are held in connexion with the Duck-lane Club:
viz. a penny bank, a temperance society (with a
sick fund for members), a cricket club, and
a barrow club. The last-named is a particularly
excellent fund. By subscribing a shilling
a week, any street salesman belonging to the
general club may hire a barrow for use in his
trade, and at the end of fifty weeks' subscription
the vehicle becomes his own property without
any further payment. The fund was started in
consequence of the high rate of interest which
the costermongers of the district were paying
for the hire of their barrows and trucks, and
which, of course, in the ordinary way of business,
did not ensure possession of the property
after any amount of payment in the shape of
interest. The club, however, does not attend
simply to the material wants of its members. A
short prayer-meeting takes place on Wednesdays
at mid-day; on Thursday evenings a Bible-class
is held, at which a chapter is read and
commented upon by a clergyman; and on Sundays
a religious service is conducted at night.
Attendance ait all these observances is perfectly
optional, and the entire liberty of choice thus
left to the men has resulted in their regarding
religion with more respect than most of them
previously entertained. The numbers who go
to the services are nevertheless very small in
comparison with the total number of members
of the club. The radical divergence of the
labouring classes from established modes of faith
is also shown, not unfrequently, at the Bible
readings. Any auditor being permitted to make
such objections as occur to him—objections
which the clerical reader answers as best he
can—several have availed themselves of the
permission, and some exciting controversies have
been carried on.

One of the great tests of the permanency of
Working Men's Clubs will be, as usual with
most projects, on the financial ground. Can
they, or can they not, be made self-supporting?
Undoubtedly there are difficulties (though it is
to be hoped not insuperable difficulties) in the
way of this consummation; of which difficulties
one of the most serious is the migratory life of
working men, and the consequent unsteadiness
of the subscriptions at any one place. The
Duck-lane Institute is the creature of private
benevolence. It does not pay its own expenses;
it does not pretend to do so, or expect to do so.
The munificent foundress is even of opinion that
these associations (allowing for a few exceptions,
owing to peculiar circumstances) must always
partake of the nature of charities, for that, if
the subscriptions are raised above a nominal
sum, the number of members will be but few.
In many country towns, however, the number at
a higher rate of weekly payment than Miss
Cooper requires is very much larger. The club
at Leeds, with a subscription of a penny a
week, counts from 1500 to 2000 supporters,
and has even gone up to 3500 on special
occasions. Still, it must be admitted that this does
not pay, and the deficiency is made up by the
founder, Mr. Darnton Lupton, who administers
the affairs of the body in the spirit of a paternal
despotism. At Bristol, a club has been
established at a low weekly rate of subscription,
which is rapidly attaining a most prosperous
condition. The Wednesbury Club, as we have
already seen, pays its way, and is governed on
thoroughly popular principles; here the weekly
subscription is double that at Leeds, and four
times that at Duck-lane. Those who support
the system of non-payment, argue that the
working man is no more degraded by going to a club,
the expenses of which are mainly borne by some
benevolent lady or gentleman, than a middle
class parent is degraded by sending his son to
Christ's Hospital. But there is surely a great
distinction, as far as the feelings are concerned
(and the feelings, rather than the reason, are the