A meeting of delegates from various Trade Friendly Societies, &c.,
met in the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street, on Wednesday, to protest against the Bishop of Peterborough's Bill on the subject of children's insurance, and to condemn the imputations against the working classes on which it is supposed to be founded. But the protests and resolutions only come to this, that the great majority of the working classes are quite incapable of starving their children, or otherwise shortening their lives in order to get a few pounds ; and that we all know.
But how can the great majority of any class answer for the small minority who are capable of these things ? It would be about as wise for the professional classes to resent the imputa- tion that some of their number are fraudulent trustees, as for the working classes to resent the imputation that some of their number murder their children to get the insurance-money. Those who do such things do not make confidants of those who regard such acts with horror. It is a folly to look at these charges, which are founded on the experience of Judges and Magistrates, as if they arose from any sort of caste-feeling They arise from the sincere wish to save helpless children from the cruelty of criminal parents, to whatever class they may happen to belong.
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