At a meeting of the Petersfield Mutual Cattle Insurance Society, held on Wednesday last, being the last meeting for the entry of members, it was announced that 1064 head of cattle, of the value of £12,051, had been insured in the Association.
Petersfield District Mutual Cattle Insurance Society
To the Editor of the Hampshire Chronicle.
SIR,—Most of your readers will observe with satisfaction at the meeting of the committee of this society, on Wednesday last, it was announced that 1064 head of cattle had been insured, at the sum of £12,051, or about £12 per head. By the rules of the society the calls on the subscribers are limited to 2s. 6d. in the pound on this sum, at the rate of two-thirds value of the dead animal, will pay for nearly 200 head, so that assuming one in five of the 1064 cattle insured were to die, the fund already subscribed is ample to meet the demand.
Great credit is due to these energetic and ‟practical” Christian men of Petersfield and its district; there is no ‟passing by on the other side” while their neighbour lies wounded in the ditch, with them; but what are our land-lords about in this neighbourhood? Petersfield, Romsey, Alton, and Alresford are positively shaming the Winchester division out of the map of the county; our industrious dairymen and cow-farmers are imploring help from those of whom they have a right to expect it—the landlords and all interested in land, not merely their pecuniary aid, but their active influence and personal assistance in forming a society similar to this of our neighbours. Where are they all, these ‟Christian Brothers” in purple, now that the day of adversity is upon those whom they can ‟soap” over with less service as ‟Christian brethren” when a new organ is required, an old butter cross, or, may be, a damaged crozier to be repaired? The hard-earned sixpences of these cattle owners are welcome enough then, but, alas! for their poor selves when calamity is at the door! There are numbers at this moment in and around this city who, if they are not steeled against world’s woes by a more hopeful prospect, are nightly tossing their feverish heads on restless pillows, uncertain into what abyss of suffering the rinderpest may plunge them tomorrow. They ask no eleemosynary aid. They spurn the idea of a fund à la Lancashire. They have their own subscriptions ready in their hands, but they can find no landlords, lay or clerical, or leisure M.P.’s, who can sacrifice sufficient of self to second their efforts in this house or that. Proh pudor, Winchester district. Arise, and be doing!
I am, &c. J. T. T.
Winchester, Oct. 13.