(d.) Every award under this or the last preceding section, whether for dissolution or distribution of funds, is final and conclusive on the society in respect of which the same is made, and on all members of the same, and other persons having any claim on the funds of the society, without appeal, and shall be enforced in the same manner as a decision on a dispute under this Act; and the expenses of every investigation and award, and of publishing every notice of dissolution, shall be paid out of the funds of the society before any other appropriation thereof shall be made:

(e.) Notice of every award for dissolution shall, within twenty-one days after the same shall have been made, be advertised by the central office in the Gazette, and in some newspaper circulating in the county in which the registered office of the society is situated, and unless, within three months from the date of the Gazette in which such advertisement appears, a member or other person interested in or having any claim on the funds of the society commences proceedings to set aside the dissolution of the society consequent upon such award, and such dissolution is set aside accordingly, the society shall be legally dissolved from the date of such advertisement, and and the requisite consents to the application to the registrar shall be considered to have been duly obtained without proof of the signatures thereto.

(9.) The provisions of the present section shall not

apply to any society having branches without the consent of the central body of such society.

26. Militiamen and volunteers not to lose benefits. -No person, by reason of his enrolment or service in the militia or as a naval coast volunteer, Royal Naval volunteer, naval artillery volunteer, or in any corps of yeomanry or volunteers whatsoever, shall lose or forfeit any interest he possesses at the time of his being so enrolled or serving in any friendly society, registered or unregistered, or be fined for absence from or nonattendance at any meeting of the society, such absence or non-attendance being occasioned by the discharge of his military or naval duty as certified by his commanding officer, any rules of such society to the contrary notwithstanding, and any dispute between any such society and such person by reason of such enrolment or service shall be decided by a court of summary jurisdiction under this Act ;* but if the rules of a society certified before the twenty-third day of July one thousand eight hundred and fifty-five, and in force at the time of such enrolment or service, provide that a member shall be deprived of any benefit by reason of such enrolment or service, the society may require of such member a contribution exceeding the rate of contribution otherwise payable by him to an amount not exceeding one-tenth of such rate during the time such member shall be serving out of the United Kingdom, or may suspend all claim of such member to any benefits assured by the society, and all claim of the soɔiety to any contributions payable by such member,

• It will be observed that a dispute of the kind here referred to must be referred to a court of summary jurisdiction (as to what is a court of summary jurisdiction, see clause 33); and it is almost unnecessary to say that this will be the case, whatever the rules of the society may say, unless, indeed, both parties consent to a different mode of settlement.

during the time only he may be serving out of the United Kingdom, but so that if he return to the United Kingdom he shall forthwith be replaced on the same footing as before he went abroad on service.

27. Limitations of benefits.--No member of a registered friendly society, nor any person claiming through a member, shall be entitled to receive more than two hundred pounds by way of gross sum, together with any bonuses or additions declared upon assurances not exceeding that amount, or (except as provided by section six of this Act), fifty pounds a year by way of annuity, from any one or more such societies; and any such society may require a member, or person claiming through a member, to make and sign a statutory declaration that the total amount to which such member or person is entitled from one or more such societies does not exceed the sums aforesaid; and any person knowingly making a false or fraudulent declaration in the matter shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.

28. Payments on death of children.-With respect to payments on the death of children under ten years of age, the following provisions shall have effect:

(1.) No society shall insure or pay on the death of a child under five years of age any sum of money which, added to any amount payable on the death of such child by any other society, exceeds six pounds, or on the death of a child under ten years of age any sum of money which, added to any amount payable on the death of such child by any other society, exceeds ten pounds.

(2.) No society shall pay any sum on the death of a child under ten years of age except to the parent of such child, or to the personal representative of such

parent, and upon the production by such parent or his personal representative of a certificate of death issued by the registrar of deaths, or other person having the care of the register of deaths, containing the particulars after mentioned.

(3.) Whenever a certificate of the death of a child is applied for for the purpose of obtaining a sum of money from a society, the name of such society and the sum sought to be obtained therefrom shall be stated to the registrar of deaths, who shall write on or at the foot of such certificate the words "to be produced to the society" (naming the same)," said to be liable for payment of the sum of (stating the same), and all certificates of the same death shall be numbered in consecutive order, and the sum charged by the registrar of deaths for each such certificate shall not exceed one shilling.

(4.) No registrar of deaths shall give any one or more certificates of death for the payment in the whole of any sum of money exceeding six pounds on the death of a child under five years, or for the payment in the whole of a sum exceeding ten pounds on the death of a child under ten years; and no such certificate shall be granted unless the cause of death has been previously entered in the register of deaths on the certificate of a coroner or of a registered medical practitioner who attended such deceased child during its last illness, or except upon the production of a certificate of the probable cause of death under the hand of a registered medical practitioner, or of other satisfactory evidence of the same.

(5.) Any society to which is produced a certificate of the death of a child which does not purport to be the first shall, before paying any money thereon, be

* That is to say, the executor or administrator of the parent.

bound to inquire whether any and what sums of money have been paid on the same death by any other society. (6.) It shall be an offence under this Act *

(a.) If any society pays money on the death of a child under ten years of age otherwise than is provided by this Act;

(b.) If any parent or personal representative of a parent claiming money on the death of a child produces any certificate of such death other than is herein provided to the society. or societies from which the money is claimed, or produces a false certificate, or one fraudulently obtained, or in any way attempts to defeat the provisions of this Act with respect to payments upon the death of children.

(7.) The word "society" in the present section shall include all industrial assurance companies assuring the payment of money on the death of children under the age of ten years.

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(8.) No assurance made or to be made by any dustrial assurance company, of a sum of money payable on the death of a child under the age of ten years, which would be valid if effected with a registered society, shall be invalidated by reason of any provision contained in the Act of the fourteenth year of His late Majesty King George the Third, chapter forty-eight, for regulating insurances upon lives and for prohibiting all such insurances except in cases w herethe person insuring shall have an interest in the life of the persons insured.

(9.) Provided that nothing in this section contained

* Under clause 32, sub-section 2, post, p. 102, the punishment for these offences is a penalty of not less than £1 and not more than £5, recoverable at the suit of the chief or any assistant registrar, or of any person aggrieved.