Samuel Smiles：Thrift, Excerpt 251

Many persons object to Friendly Societies because they are conducted at public-houses; because many of them are got up by the keepers of public-houses in order to obtain custom from the members; and because, in their fortnightly meetings to pay their subscriptions, they acquire the pernicious habit of drinking, and thus waste quite as much as they save. The Friendly Societies doubtless rely very much on the social element. The public-house is everybody's house. The members can there meet together, talk together, and drink together. It is extremely probable that had they trusted solely to the sense of duty--the duty of insuring against sickness--and merely required the members to pay their weekly contributions to a collector, very few societies of the kind would have remained in existence. In a large number of cases, there is practically no choice between the society that meets at a public-house, and none at all.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14418
Locator：Excerpt 251 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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