By-Laws of the Committee.-Observations.

their several districts-and to insert in their monthly reports the names and address of such persons as they may consider proper to be invited to join the Committee.

XIX. That the Collectors shall make inquiry every three months of all the pawnbrokers within their respective districts, whether any Bibles or Testaments are pledged, and to what extent; and ascertain, if possible, the names and address of the parties who have pledged them; and shall include all such information in their next monthly report. The Collectors are also requested to endeavour to interest pawnbrokers in the great object of the Bible Society.

XX. At the Committee Meetings in February, May, August, and November, a Sub-Committee shall be appointed to prepare and bring to the next meeting of the Committee a draft of a report to the ensuing Conference. Such report to be taken into consideration, and, when adopted, to be handed to the secretaries, who shall fill up the blanks, sign, and present the same." XXI. That the Bibles and Testaments issued by this Association shall be sold at the cost prices, as specified in the annexed table:-but the Collectors are authorised, in cases of poverty, or under peculiar circumstances, to deliver copies when not less than one-half of the cost price has been paid.

XXII. No new By-Law shall be made, nor any existing By-Law repealed or altered, without one month's previous notice being given, and a copy of the proposed alteration sent to every member of the Committee.

3. OBSERVATIONS.

The reader is referred to Chap. II. (Section III. Fifth Division) for many general remarks on the nature and tendency of those regulations. Such further observations as appear necessary will now be submitted.

I. It is very desirable that a place should be gratuitously obtained for the meetings of the Committee. It frequently

This By-Law is only applicable where Conferences are held;-these are at present confined to the metropolis, but may, with considerable advantage, be instituted in those places where several Associations are connected with the same Auxiliary (or Branch) Society.

+ The cost prices specified in this list are those of the present time (March 1821). Every alteration of price is communicated by the Parent Committee to the Secretaries of Auxiliary Societies, who should immediately apprise the Secretaries of their Associations; and the latter should promptly inform the Collectors, and make the requisite corrrection in this By-Law.

Importance of punctuality, and adherence to prescribed order of proceeding. happens that a school-room is offered for this purpose, or one of the apartments belonging to a public establishment; and it is of importance that it be a place to which every member can come with the most perfect freedom. The day

and hour should be selected which are the most convenient to the majority of the Committee. The advantages of punctuality in the attendance of Committee Meetings cannot be too strongly enforced. In this, as in other respects, the example of the officers will have a powerful influence on the other members of the Committee.

II. A due attention to the provisions of the Second and two following By-Laws will materially tend to facilitate the business. The Chair should always be taken at the hour specified; and if the officers can make it convenient to be at the committee-room half an hour previously, it will expedite the business, especially if the Collectors be informed of this arrangement, as they will then apply for any requisite assistance. The regular attendance of the members of the Auxiliary Committee should be always encouraged, and their advice or suggestions received with respectful attention. The gentleman who presides should have a copy of the ByLaws before him, and should strictly maintain the decorum and order of the meeting. Much valuable time will be saved by a strict adherence to the prescribed arrangement of the committee-business, which it is the peculiar province of the secretaries to enforce.

The nature of the Collectors' and Officers' Reports will be considered in Chap. VII., in order to avoid repetition, and to bring the whole subject under review in a connected series of observations.

III. The practical operation of the Fifth By-Law, as regards the arrangement of the districts, has been considered in the preceding section. In the appointment of Collectors, it will be found advantageous to leave the members at liberty to select those districts which they respectively prefer, and to make their own election of their colleagues. In some of the Associations connected with the Southwark Society, the secretaries have rendered very essential services to the institution by occasionally assisting the Collectors.

IV. The duty enjoined by the Sixth By-Law, though a painful one, should always be impartially fulfilled. It is much more easy to arrest the progress of decay, than to recover the ground which has been lost by inattention; and

Special Meetings of the Committee should be avoided.

no rule of the society should be considered a dead letter. This remark is equally applicable to the Ninth By-Law:the more frequently the secretaries can make it convenient to attend the meetings of Sub-Committees, the more likely is it that the object of their appointment will be attained.

v. Although cases may sometimes occur to justify the extraordinary meetings of the Committee, authorised by the Tenth By-Law, they should be held as seldom as possible. An hour or two, monthly, will be found quite sufficient for the usual duties of a Committee, and the valuable time of its members should never be trifled with.

VI. The observations on the duties of the secretaries of an Auxiliary Society (See Chap. II. Section III. Ninth Division) may afford some useful suggestions to those who occupy a similar situation in Bible Associations, so as to explain the tendency of the Eleventh By-Law; but the subject will be more explicitly treated in Chap. VIII. Section I.

VII. Great advantage has been found to result from the regulation contained in the Twelfth By-Law, as every Bible and Testament found at a pawnbroker's or book-stall can be immediately traced to the original receiver. The observation on the Nineteenth By-Law will furnish a satisfactory illustration of this remark. The propriety of the Thirteenth By-Law will be more fully appreciated on reference to Chap. VIII. Section II.; as the regulations of the "LOAN-FUND" provide for all cases of emergency.

VIII. The important duty enjoined by the Fourteenth ByLaw, and the facility with which it may be discharged, will be more fully understood on referring to the Specimen of a Monthly Report, Chap. VII. Section V.

IX. In reference to the Fifteenth By-Law, it may be suffi→ cient, in this place, to observe, that while the two-fold object of Bible Associations should never be lost sight of by the Collectors, they are recommended to exercise the greatest delicacy and prudence in soliciting free contributions from the labouring classes of society; and in every instance where the real comforts of a family would be abridged thereby, such contributions should be kindly, but firmly declined. This part of the subject, which involves the most important considerations, will be treated of more at large in the sequel.

x. Although the funds of the Association are prudently protected by the Sixteenth By-Law, it will be observed that

Success depends principally on the attention of Collectors.

a door is left open for the supply of individuals going to service, &c.

XI. The provisions of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth ByLaws involve no inconsiderable portion of the practical details of a Bible Association. In every well-organized Association, provided the districts be adequately furnished with Collectors, a perpetual system of re-visiting will be kept up, and an accurate knowledge of the neighbourhood be obtained. But it is advisable that the whole of the district should be periodically re-visited. Of the importance of punctuality in collecting, it is scarcely possible to say too much. The success of every Association will always be in direct proportion to the degree of regularity evinced by the Collectors; and although it has been said, that the poor had neither the ability nor the inclination to co-operate in this good work, the event has proved that they have both: they have manifested the greatest readiness to subscribe, not only to procure the sacred volume for themselves, but to promote its universal diffusion; and in many cases the Collectors have felt it their duty to accept a part, only, of what they had liberally offered to contribute. The ability of the poor who subscribe is evinced by the aggregate amount of their contributions-by the decided preference given to the highest priced Bibles-and, in numerous instances, by the continuance of their regular subscriptions after they have obtained the wished-for treasure.

XII. The Nineteenth By-Law had its origin in the opposition made to the society, on the grounds which this regulation proposes to examine. Few objections have been more strongly and pertinaciously urged, than that which is founded on the presumption that the subscribers would pawn the Bibles and Testaments supplied by the Bible Society: repeated and strict investigations, in various places, have however completely refuted this objection. In no part have these inquiries been more systematically and perseveringly pursued than in Southwark, where it has been correctly ascertained, that of 25,484 Bibles and Testaments, circulated up to March 1818, only twenty-four copies (fourteen of which were issued by one Association) had found their way to the pawnbrokers, being in the proportion of one to every ELEVEN HUNDRED copies issued. The result of a similar investigation in Liverpool, where more than 30,000 copies had been distributed by the Auxiliary Institution and its connected societies, appears to have been still more satisfac

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Result of inquiries among the Pawnbrokers of Liverpool and Newcastle. tory-in their second Annual Report, the Committee of the Ladies' Branch of that Society observe :—

"Your Committee have made repeated visits to the pawnbrokers in this town, and the result has been highly satisfactory. After every pains in their power to elicit the truth, only one Bible has been discovered; and although their vigilance may, from interested motives, have been, in some instances, eluded, your Committee believe that these instances have been exceedingly rare. The pawnbrokers have generally declared, that they neither had received nor would receive the Society's Bibles; and many of them have become contributors as well as their servants."

And the following extract from the first Annual Report of the Tindale Ward Auxiliary Society, affords a gratifying evidence of similar results in another extensive district:

"Your Committee cannot avoid remarking upon one circumstance most nearly connected with the success of the society, the circulation of a report, that the poor were so crammed with Bibles, that the pawnbrokers' shops were filled with them; and that the booksellers could afford to sell them (so purchased of the poor) at half price.' Groundless as such assertions must have appeared to your Committee, it yet became their duty to inquire minutely into these alleged facts, not only as they were said to exist in their own district, but in the town of Newcastle, where the fourth Auxiliary Bible Society in the kingdom had been established. It is with pleasure your Committee state the result of their investigation to be, that during the whole period of the late scarcity, not more than two Bibles had been left at a pawnbroker's shop, and that only for a short time:' and 'but one Testament had been offered for sale' by a little girl, who had picked it up in one of the soldiers' billet-rooms. This latter however was, even in the first instance, refused, from the society's mark being observed on the back."

XIII. The practical application of the Twentieth By-Law will be fully explained in Section V. of this Chapter.

XIV. In reference to the Twenty-first By-Law, Collectors should be particularly careful not to inform the subscribers that they are empowered to deliver Bibles and Testaments under the cost prices. They are indeed, by this By-Law, authorised to deliver copies before the cost price is completed; but this power should always be exercised with peculiar caution and discretion, not only to prevent jealousy on the part of subscribers, but the misapplication of the funds. In those few cases, where copies are delivered under the cost prices, the subscribers should be distinctly told, that they are supplied in the confidence of their continuing their subscription, and that the cost prices are considerably lower than those at which similar copies could be procured from booksellers.

xv. The tendency of the Twenty-second By-Law will be evident. Many disadvantages have resulted from frequent and unnecessary changes in the regulations which govern