Having said so much for the history of the ‘Hearts of Oak,’ let us now briefly turn to the main features and working of the system pursued by this huge benefit society.
The predominating principle upon which the system acts seems to be a complete reliance upon actual merits and on them alone. As a consequence, a total absence of all external show and attraction will be found in the administration of the society. It clings to the term ‘society’ in opposition to ‘club’ with a most jealous tenacity, although we confess to seeing very little difference between the strictly lexical significance of the two words. Mr Marshall, the able secretary to the society, is of a different opinion, however, and holds that the associations which are respectively bound up with each term differ considerably; a club being generally looked upon as a meeting for social purposes, held as a rule at a public-house. ‘It involves,’ he goes on to say, ‘the glass, the pipe, the song, and other incidents of what is called good-fellowship; and also in many cases regalia, processions, dinners, suppers, and other devices for wasting money and weaning men from their homes and their families.’ Whether such ‘incidents’ are the associations attached alone to a club or not, it is not necessary here to determine, it being sufficient to know that at all events the ‘Hearts of Oak’ does not rely upon any of these things—although it is common to think that only by such inducements and attractions can the working classes be brought into habits and ways of thrift and saving—and in so doing, the society is a standing contradiction to all such opinions. It has never had to resort to any such extraneous aid. It does not make use of either public-houses or lodges; it indulges in no dinners or suppers, no regalia or processions, no pipe, glass, or song; it employs no agents, canvassers, or collectors; and it spends no money in commission nor yet in advertisements, generally so indispensable an aid to institutions of all kinds. Notwithstanding all this, the ‘Hearts of Oak’ has of late years admitted more new members than the increase shewn by the Odd-fellows, who possess lodges and branches in every part of the civilised world.