Now, what the Newspaper Press Fund proposes to do with its money is
to grant relief to members in want or distress, and to the widows,
families, parents, or other near relatives of deceased members in
right of a moderate provident annual subscription--commutable, I
observe, for a moderate provident life subscription--and its
members comprise the whole paid class of literary contributors to
the press of the United Kingdom, and every class of reporters. The
number of its members at this time last year was something below
100. At the present time it is somewhat above 170, not including
30 members of the press who are regular subscribers, but have not
as yet qualified as regular members. This number is steadily on
the increase, not only as regards the metropolitan press, but also
as regards the provincial throughout the country. I have observed
within these few days that many members of the press at Manchester
have lately at a meeting expressed a strong brotherly interest in
this Institution, and a great desire to extend its operations, and
to strengthen its hands, provided that something in the independent
nature of life assurance and the purchase of deferred annuities
could be introduced into its details, and always assuming that in
it the metropolis and the provinces stand on perfectly equal
ground. This appears to me to be a demand so very moderate, that I
can hardly have a doubt of a response on the part of the managers,
or of the beneficial and harmonious results. It only remains to
add, on this head of desert, the agreeable circumstance that out of
all the money collected in aid of the society during the last year
more than one-third came exclusively from the press.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, in regard to the last claim--the last
point of desert--the hold upon the public--I think I may say that