booking office, will be well expended. Do you employ clerks, there are
several Guarantee Societies who will secure you against loss by
defalcation. Shopkeepers and others will do well to insure their glass
against breakage, and all and everyone should pay into a "General
Accident" Association, for broken limbs, like broken glass, cannot be
foreseen or prevented. It is not likely that any of [**] will be "drawn"
for a militiaman in these piping times of peace, but that the system of
insurance was applied here in the last century against the chances of
being drawn in the ballot, is evidenced by the following
carefully-preserved and curious receipt:--

"Received of Matthew Boulton, tagmaker, Snow Hill, three shillings and
sixpence, for which sum I solemnly engage, if he should be chosen by
lot to serve in the militia for this parish, at the first meeting for
that purpose, to procure a substitute that shall be approved of.

"HENRY BROOKES, Sergt.

"Birmingham, Jan. 11, 1762."

The local manufacture of Insurance Societies has not been on a large
scale, almost the only ones being the "Birmingham Workman's Mutual," the
"British Workman," and the "Wesleyan and General." The late Act of
Parliament, by which in certain cases, employers are pecuniarily liable
for accidents to their workpeople, has brought into existence several
new Associations, prominent among which is the comprehensive "Employers'
Liability and Workpeople's Provident and Accident Insurance Society,
Limited," whose offices are at 33, Newhall Street.

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