Journal of the Statistical Society of London

OBJECTS AND PROGRESS

THE STATISTICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON,

12, ST. JAMES'S SQUARE.

THE Statistical Society of London was founded on the 15th of March, 1834, in pursuance of a recommendation of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, for the purpose of collecting, arranging, and publishing facts calculated to illustrate the condition and prospects of society, and especially facts which can be stated numerically and arranged in tables. The collection of new statistical materials, it was contemplated, would form only one part of the Society's labours; the condensation, arrangement, and publication of those already existing, whether unpublished, or published only in an expensive or diffuse form, or in foreign languages, being a work of equal usefulness. It was also a prominent object of the Society to form a complete Statistical Library as rapidly as its funds would permit.

Such was the purport of the original prospectus; and now that the Society is in the tenth year of a prosperous existence, its Fellows have every reason to revert with satisfaction to this outline of its objects; for it is very seldom that the first designs of a public association for the advancement of science are all carried out with so much success as has attended upon those which that prospectus describes. The resources of the Society were, in the first instance, chiefly devoted, under the direction of its Committees, to the collection of new statistical information, and to this great purpose a part of its funds is still appropriated. Its monthly meetings have cultivated among its Fellows an active spirit of investigation, and brought out the valuable results of much individual labour. Its journal has fulfilled the purpose of condensation and publication; and the valuable books and papers which have already been collected form a library of facts of no mean utility.

The Sixth Annual Report of the Society, which contains an elaborate description of the scope and system of its labours, divides Statistics into the following chief sections:

I. The Statistics of Physical Geography, Division, and Appropriation; or, geographical and proprietary Statistics.

II. The Statistics of Production; or, agricultural, mining, fishery, manufacturing, and commercial Statistics.

III. The Statistics of Instruction; or, ecclesiastical, scientific, literary, university, and school Statistics.

MAR. 1846.

IV. The Statistics of Protection; or, constitutional, judicial, legal, military, and criminal Statistics.

V. The Statistics of Life, Consumption, and Enjoyment; or, of population, health, the distribution and consumption of the commodities of life, and public and private charity.

All the departments of Statistics above described may be cultivated to the development of as many branches of moral science, and to the attainment of that true insight into the actual condition of Society, without which the application of remedial measures is purely empirical.

Under this conviction, the original prospectus announced the intention of the Society carefully to exclude all "opinions" from its publications; not, assuredly, with the view of discouraging the proper use of hypothetical reasoning, but for the purpose of devoting the pages of its transactions to facts, and not to systems. In the pursuit of almost every investigation, the inquirer will adopt some hypothesis; but its truth and completeness, or its fallaciousness and insufficiency, must be demonstrated by observation and experiment. It is therefore the main purpose of scientific associations to call forth and register the results obtained by these processes; and observation in the wide field of human interest supplies those "facts calculated to illustrate the condition and prospects of society," which it is the design of the Statistical Society to "collect, arrange, and publish."

The pursuit of Statistical inquiries has already made such progress, not in England alone, but throughout Europe, as henceforth to be a necessity of the age, and one of its most honourable characteristics. Thus errors as to the actual condition and prospects of society are daily exploded, and more just data are supplied to guide the exertions of the philanthropist, the judgment of the legislator, and the speculations of the reasoner. The labours of the Statist, indeed, can alone assure us that we are really advancing in that knowledge of human interests in the aggregate to which it is no longer possible to deny the name of Science.

The Statistical Society of London consists of an unlimited number of Fellows, admitted by ballot, without any entrance fee, but paying a subscription of two guineas per annum; of foreign Honorary Members; and of Honorary Corresponding Members, resident out of the United Kingdom; and it carefully cultivates a connexion with the several local societies of the Empire, and a correspondence with those of Foreign Countries. Fellows elected in or after the month of June are exempt from paying their subscription for the current year. The Journal of the Society, published quarterly, is distributed gratuitously to all the Fellows; its library is one of circulation; and its Rooms and its Monthly Meetings are of great resort.

STATISTICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON,

June 17th, 1843.

OF THE

STATISTICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.

MARCH, 1846.

Sketch of the Progress and Present Extent of Savings' Banks in the United Kingdom. By G. R. PORTER, Esq., F.R.S.

[Read before the Statistical Section of the British Association, at Cambridge,

20th June, 1845.]

AMONG the "signs of the times" which it is most satisfactory to contemplate, because it affords at once evidence of social progress, and furnishes the best assurance for its continuance, must be placed the fact, that among the classes of our countrymen who are in circumstances of ease and comfort, there has of late arisen a great and growing concern for the well-being of the less favoured and more numerous class-those whose daily subsistence must be acquired by their daily toil. Influences to this end have long been quietly but steadily at work, set in motion by individuals, few in number, and, for the most part, of small account in the eyes of the world, who were at first sustained only by the consciousness of duty performed, and who long remained uncheered by any evidences of success; those influences are now, however, openly and even ostentatiously employed; they have found their way into every circle, and have even received the homage of the Senate. It has become fashionable to express the desire of promoting the general welfare of the working classes, and even to make some exertion to secure it, and we can hardly conceive that this stage of the question could have been reached, unless through the sense of its importance having taken a firm hold of the public mind, enlisting among its promoters men who, by means of their station and intellectual endowments, must command the attention of society.

The present is not an occasion on which it would be proper to enlarge upon the moral obligation to which allusion has now been made; but it is clearly within the province of statistical inquiry to ascertain, as correctly as possible, the actual condition of those whom we would seek to benefit. Without such inquiries we must always be, as it were, groping in the dark, and liable to make a profitless use of our energies, if even they should not be hurtfully employed.

Various efforts, which have been attended with more or less of success, have been made of late years by our Statistical Societies, and by means of Government Commissioners, to place before the world true pictures of the social condition of the great masses of our fellow countrymen, who form, what by a somewhat arbitrary distinction, are called the working classes; and from a variety of Journals and Parliamentary Reports, much is to be learned concerning their means of living, as well as the manner in which such means are employed. hours of leisure could hardly find better employment than in studying the different volumes in which this subject is authoritatively treated, in weighing the recommendations which they offer, and in helping to carry into execution those among them which appear to call for adoption, and which it may be in our power to forward. The volumes in

VOL. IX. PART I.

Our

question are within the reach of every one, and it would be productive of but little good to call away attention from them, by offering an analysis, or pretended analysis, of their contents. There is, however, one subject, intimately connected with the matters of which they treat, and which at the same time has become a thing of national importance, inquiry into which may throw light upon every branch of the subject, and which has not been made the matter of any recent investigation, the progress of Savings' Banks,-in describing which, I would now venture to solicit a few minutes of attention on the part of the Section.

Savings' Banks, it is well known, are to be placed among the inventions of the present century. They are of English origin, although, happily, they are not now confined to these kingdoms. We owe their institution to a well-known benevolent lady, Mrs. Priscilla Wakefield, who, in 1804, induced six gentlemen, residing at Tottenham, near London, to receive deposits from labourers and servants, and to be responsible for their safety and return when needed to the depositors, with 5 per cent. interest thereon, provided the sum were not less than 20s., and had remained for a year at least in their hands. Deposits of not less than one shilling were received. Four years later (1808), eight individuals, of whom four were ladies, took upon themselves the like responsibility at Bath, engaging to pay 4 per cent. interest upon all deposits up to 50l., but limiting to 2,000l. the whole sum to be deposited. In the same year, the late Mr. Whitbread tried, without success, to procure legislative sanction for a plan, whereby the small savings of the industrious labourer and artisan would be placed under the safeguard of public Commissioners.

The first Savings' Bank, regularly and minutely organized, was "The Parish Bank Friendly Society of Ruthwell," in Dumfries-shire, established through the exertions of Mr. Henry Duncan in 1810; and it was mainly owing to its success, as set forth in the published reports of that gentleman, that many other institutions were formed upon the model of that at Ruthwell, so that before any legislative provision had been made for their encouragement, there existed 70 Savings' Banks in England, 4 in Wales, and 4 in Ireland.

In July, 1817, two Acts received the Royal Assent for encouraging the establishment of Banks for Savings in England and Wales, and in Ireland. It was not until 1835, that these institutions were placed under legislative regulation in Scotland, a circumstance which in all probability is to be ascribed to the facilities given by Bankers in that part of the kingdom for the profitable deposit with them of small sums. Under the Acts of 1817, the sums deposited were placed by the Trustees of each Bank in the hands of the Commissioners for the reduction of the National Debt, who thereupon issued debentures for the amount bearing interest at the rate of 3d. per cent. per diem, or 47. 11s. 3d. per cent. per annum. It was customary for the Trustees to allow 4 per cent. only to the depositors, retaining the balance of the interest received from Government to defray the necessary charges of the establishment for office rent, clerks, &c.

The progress of these Savings' Banks, after receiving the sanction of the legislature, has become a matter of national importance, not only as affording means for judging concerning the actual and comparative condition from time to time of those classes of persons who

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Journal of the Statistical Society of London, 第 9 巻