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. ODDFELLOWS AT MACHYNLLETH.

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ODDFELLOWS AT MACHYNLLETH. THE increased interest manifested in the Odd- fellowship at Machynlleth on Tuesday last, when the tenth anniversary of the Llynlloedd Lodge was celebrated, fairly represents the altered state of the public mind respecting friendly societies all over the country. Well-to-do people are discovering that lodges of Oddfellows, Foresters, and Druids are common ground where working men and those above the social scale can conveniently meet and render each other mutual assistance. Eight honorary mem- bers it might reasonably be thought are nothing to boast of, but when it is remembered how long working men are left, unavoidably left, to struggle alone in their efforts to make provision for sickness and bereavement, the number is one for which the lodge may fairly claim credit. The balance sheet up to Dec. 1877 shows progress, but we have called attention to it mainly to point out that a lady, Mrs. MILTON DAVIES, appears as a donor of £4. This timely gift enabled the lodge to show a favourable balance of £4 8s. 9d. on the management fund account. The balance would have been still larger, had it not been that the burgeon had to be paid for two years' attendance, owing to a deficiency in the fund last year. Hardly anything is more difficult than to know how to give money wisely, but a contribution to a friendly society is almost certain to be well-used, and never fails to kindle between the different classes of society that kindly feeling which has done so much to preserve this country from violent changes. There is in the balance sheet one item that shows the Machynlleth Ledge deserves support. Publicans, as a rule, place a room at the disposal of friendly societies for a merely nominal rent, and often make no charge at all. The temptation to drink for the good of the house is considerable in cases of this kind, and, although the lodge appar- ently saves money, the individual members pay dearly for the accomodation, and in some instances niav contract habits of insobriety. The Llynlloedd Lodge meets at the Town Hall, and wisely pays J64 a year for the rent of the room. How difficult it is to induce a lodge to pay a sum of £4 a year for accomodation which can be bad at nearly any public house for nothing is well known to those who have taken interest in friendly societies, and tried to remove them from public houses to private places. The management of friendly societies affords admirable training for working men who are apt to undervalue qualities and powers that make no demands upon physical forcn. Members of lodges, it is well kbown, are groat sticklers for the punctilious observance of ceremony, and it is a very grave offence not to address an officer according to the titles he bears. Disorder of any kind is almost unknown in lodge rooms--indeed it is questionable whether a little mote freedom would not increase the popularity of the meetings, raid tend to make young men more eagerly seek for official position. The part friendly societies have played in reducing pauperism will only be fully recognized when the history of tiiis century comes to be written. The givat advance in the social life of the people will abide when revolutions and political changes that now claim prominent attention have sunk into the oblivion that has attended similar move- ments in the past. Pauperism is the great problem each generation of statesmen for more than two hundred years has left unsolved—the problem which the people are now, however, in a fair way to solve for tnemselves by their own provident habits. It is remarkable that the deep and long-continued depression of trade in South Wales has not yet resulted in a rate of pauperism much higher than in some of the ill-managed unions ot the North. Perhaps this year's returns will show a worse state of things thall last; but still it must be admitted that notwithstanding much deeply- regretted improvidence there must have been a good deal of saving and forethought, for which the sufferers in the houth are never credited, friendly societies, again, it mast be remembered, have yet very little to thank Governments for but perhaps in the future something may be done to extend their sphere of usefulness by enabling them to make provision on more favourable terms for old members, &c. From whatever side friendly societies are looked at, they are clearly an in- fluence in the right direction, and are worthy of that support which every man has it in his power to give by becoming a member and paying his subscription regularly. The Aberystwyth dis- trict, as was pointed out at the meeting on Tues- day, is making headway, but the progress would be much more rapid if the great advantages, both pecuniary and social, of friendly societies were more generally acknowledged and more frequently remembeied by those who have influence with working mea. There is no surer way of helping a district than by starting a branch of one of three great orders. To open a lodge and take interest in it until it is firmly established is to give a district a new force for good. There is much to be done in this direction in many parts of Wales, especially where out-reliet and not frugality is depended upon in times of need.

NIGHT SCHOOLS.

LOCAL AND DISTRICT NOTES.

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