IMPORTANT TO WORKINGMEN.

The artisans of Philadelphia deserve the credit of a thoroughly successful scheme for the benefit of their class. Some years ago, the first "Co-operative Building and Loan Association" was organized in the City of Brotherly Love. Since then the work has gone quietly on, until now students of social science are amazed to hear that 600 of these societies exist in Philadelphia alone; that their aggregate capital is $150,000,000; and that many, very many, of their members, who have always worked and still work for day-wages, now own houses and land worth from $10,000 to $15,000. Only a small percentage of these associations has failed.

They are all organized on substantially the same plan. A share is issued to every applicant. One dollar per month is paid on each share. Each month, the money on hand is loaned to the shareholder who offers the largest premium and can give the best security. No loans are made except on real estate. The premiums bid sometimes amount to 25 or even 50 per cent. This is one source of income and the monthly interest is another. Fines, small in amount, rarely incurred, but rigorously exacted, are still another. In eight and a half years, the amount paid in will amount. to (102 months at $1) $102. Profits, interest and fines swell this to $200, the par value of each share. The shareholder then receives this sum, thus making a net profit of $98 on an investment of $102, or, if he has borrowed money, his mortgage is cancelled pro tanto. A man can hold any number of shares. This fact enables the laborer to buy his home. A man who takes five shares in one of these societies will accumulate $1000 in eight and one-half years, by paying $60 per year. If he borrows $1,500 as soon as he becomes a stockholder, at such a rate that he pays an average of $140 a year in premiums and interest (this is the usual rate on a loan of $1,500), and buys with this sum a house and lot, which are pledge to the society as security, he will pay, each year, $200-that is $60 on his shares and $140 on his loan. At the end of eight and one-half years, his payments on his shares will cease, and he will have $1000 to his credit on the books, which will cancel his mortgage. He will then own his home, subject to a mortgage of only $500. If he now takes three more shares, his annual dues will be $36 on them and about $44 interest—$80 in all. In eight and a half years more, his shares will be worth $600, which will cancel his mortgage and give him $100 cash. He has

thus bought his house and lot in seventeen years, by paying $200 per year for half that time and $80 annually thereafter. This is $2,380 in all. If he had rented such a house, he would have paid $200 a year rent, or $3,400 in seventeen years, and would own nothing. If he can afford to take eight shares at the beginning, his house will be paid for in eight and a half years. Thousands of workmen have become small capitalists in this way.

These societies are organized, controlled, and managed by workingmen. This explains their success, as it explains that of the great co-operative establishments of England and of SchulseDelitsch's "Peoples' Banks" in Germany. A summary of the report of one building and loan society, "The Artisans'," shows that its receipts for the year 1875 were $88,622; the loans, $68,872; and the profits, $19,749. The total property is $252,112, and the mortgages held amount to $227,600. The expense of managing this business was only $873.

ARE RICH MEN DANGEROUS TO THE REPUBLIC?

The Record of the Astor family cause some people to look with apprehension and dislike upon this massing of enormous wealth in the hands of one person. They fancy that it tends to make him too powerful for a republic like ours, and too influential for evil in a community, so many of whose citizens are dependent upon their labor for their daily bread. They attribute to great wealth a snow-ball like quality of attracting to itself the lesser fortunes with which it comes in contact, and predict that if it be allowed full liberty, an epoch will arrive when a few rich men will own the whole country, and all the rest of its inhabitants be obliged to pay them tribute. In their view, the Legislature should interfere to prevent this calamity, and by a compulsory division of such great estates as Mr. Astor's, scatter its bulk, and thus destroy its weight and momentum.

The conclusive objection to legislation of this kind is, that to be just it must be general, and a general law taking away from men the privilege of disposing of their property at their own pleasure, would discourage industry and enterprise. Human nature is such that with most of us selfish motives are powerful, and unselfish ones are weak. If no work were done in the world but what contributes to the welfare of others, comparatively little, beyond that which necessity compels, would be done at all. Nearly all the immense advances of modern civilization are due to efforts of which the mainspring has been the love of gain. Paralyze, or even weaken, this mainspring by impairing the right of disposing of the gain when it has been acquired, and you arrest the onward progress of the world. Whatever evils may arise from the existing liberty of accumulation, a greater evil would result from abolishing it.

men.

But, to our minds, the danger to the public from the perpetuation of great estates is more imaginary than real. By a gracious dispensation of Providence, men who are rich by inheritance find their abilities scarcely sufficient for the task of taking care of their riches, and have none to spare for that of oppressing their fellow The founder of a fortune, like the first Astor or the present Vanderbilt, must, of course, be a man of great force and ambition, but his successor never equals him in this respect. The incentive dies with the attainment of the object which aroused it. A son who finds a large estate ready made to his hands cannot possibly exert himself to increase it with the energy that his father displayed in getting it. He inevitably subsides into a mere steward or investment agent, and leaves the field of new enterprise to others. John Jacob Astor was a mercantile genius. His schemes embraced the whole globe, and he gathered in wealth from its four quarters. His son, who inherited the fruits of his toil, has done

nothing all his lifetime but build houses and collect their rents. His son and his son's son will do no more. Neither commerce nor politics has anything to fear from them. What they will chiefly care for will be to hold on to what they have. This is the case with the Duke of Westminster, the great English landed proprietor, with the Orleans family in France, and the Austrian Esterhazys. Even the present head of the Rothschilds has subsided into a humdrum banker, who never runs a risk, and is content to let younger and more adventurous houses take the lead in finance. Besides, the truth is that the accumulative power of money, unlike that of the snowball, diminishes as its bulk increases. It is impossible to handle millions of dollars and make them yield the same income that thousands do. Where a small investor can safely get his seven, eight or ten per cent. per annum, a large capitalist like Mr. Astor cannot, on an average, get five. The good things are all snapped up by men who, having less to look after, do it more thoroughly; and the proverbial timidity of millionaires interferes with that promptness and soundness of judgment essential to a succssful investor. This is proved by the history of this very Astor estate. When John Jacob Astor died in 1848 it was worth $20,000,000. With all the rise of the real estate, of which it is largely composed, it has only doubled in value in the twenty-seven years which have since elapsed, and the probability is that it will take as long to double it again. The Girard estate in Philadelphia, and that of Thellusson in England, illustrate the same law. Neither of these great properties has grown at a rate at all approaching that of lawful interest compounded half yearly.

The counterbalancing advantages, too, of great permanent fortunes should not be left out of consideration. When money remains for a length of time in a family, it usually comes, at some period or other, into the possession of a generous, public-spirited owner, who uses it in a way that profits his fellow man. He may be a lover of art and gather a collection of pictures and statues which he will throw open to the public; or he may be fond of books and form a library for the use of poorer scholars; or he may--and heaven send such an one to us soon!-have a taste for good architecture and build streets of houses which shall be at once grateful to the eye and convenient to dwell in. (r, finally, the family may die out, and the last survivor may imitate the example of Peabody, and devote his wealth to public benefactions.