AMALGAMATED SOCIETY OP ENGINEERS.
The great depression of trade during the last year in connexion with the engineering department of industry, and the degree in which it af- fects the health of the community, as well as the self-reliance of a great body of the working classes, are curiously illustrated in the report just published of the "Amalgamated Society of Engineers." The money aid afforded to its members during the year, on the score of sickness, burials, superannuation, and temporary want of work, amounted to 47,3681., out of a fund contributed by 14,745 members, and entailed a loss to the society of 17,6931. beyond the expenditure of previous years. This extraordinary in- crease is attributable to the depression of trade already alluded to. The report states " that when trade is bad, sickness and even deaths are more general," and that in the year 1867 donations to members out of employment averaged 19s. 9-td. per member, whereas it amounted last year to 21. 6e. 7d. ; the other benefits bear similar averages. The vast amount of misery which must have been alleviated by the expenditure of so much money requires no stretch of the imagination to conceive. Consumption, says the report, is the great cause of mortality among the workmen, more than one third of the whole of those named in the death column having died of that disease.
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