Samuel Smiles：Thrift, Excerpt 248

English benefit societies, notwithstanding their great uses and benefits, have numerous defects. There are faults in the details of their organization and management, whilst many of them are financially unsound. Like other institutions in their early stages, they have been tentative and in a great measure empirical,--more especially as regards their rates of contribution and allowances for sick relief. The rates have in many cases been fixed too low, in proportion to the benefits allowed; and hence the "box" is often declared to be closed, after the money subscribed has been expended. The society then comes to an end, and the older members have to go without relief for the rest of their lives. But life assurance societies themselves have had to undergo the same discipline of failure, and the operation of "winding up" has not unfrequently thrown discredit upon these middle-class associations.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14418
Locator：Excerpt 248 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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