similar.

~Land Agency.~--An International Land and Labour Agency was established
at Birmingham by the Hon. Elihu Burritt in October, 1869; its object
being to facilitate the settlement of English farmers and mechanics in
the United States, and also to supply American orders for English
labourers and domestic servants of all kinds. Large numbers of
servant-girls in England, it was thought, would be glad to go to
America, but unable to pay their passage-money, and unwilling to start
without knowing where they were to go on arriving. This agency advanced
the passage-money, to be deducted from the first wages; but, though the
scheme was good and well meant, very little advantage was taken of the
agency, and, like some other of the learned blacksmith's notions, though
a fair-looking tree, it bore very little fruit.

~Land and Building Societies.~--Though frequently considered to be quite
a modern invention, the plan of a number uniting to purchase lands and
houses for after distribution, is a system almost as old as the hills.
The earliest record we have of a local Building Society dates from 1781,
though no documents are at hand to show its methods of working. On Jan.
17, 1837, the books were opened for the formation of a Freehold Land and
Building Society here, but its usefulness was very limited, and its
existence short. It was left to the seething and revolutionary days of
1847-8, when the Continental nations were toppling over thrones and
kicking out kings, for sundry of our men of light and leading to bethink
themselves of the immense political power that lay in the holding of the
land, and how, by the exercise of the old English law, which gave the
holder of a 40s. freehold the right of voting for the election of a
"knight of the shire," such power could be brought to bear on
Parliament, by the extension of the franchise in that direction. The