Celluloid Club has teams entered in both the Suburban and the Newark Leagues, the Suburban team winning the bronze trophy representing the championship of that league for 1901-02. During the summer a base ball team, representing the Celluloid Club, is sent the rounds, and in seasons past has done very creditable playing, considering their necessarily limited opportunities for practice. One of the most successful departments of the club's work is the Mutual Benefit Insurance. While a part of the club, this branch is considered important enough to have its own officers and board of managers. The insurance feature was started mainly through the expressed desire of the company to have an organized bureau to investigate claims for assistance, and also to help employes who might be unfortunate, and further, to provide a fund that would supply in a measure wages lost by reason of sickness or accident, and a funeral benefit in case of death. The premiums are very low, being two cents for each dollar of weekly insurance desired in case of sickness or other disability, and four cents weekly for a death benefit of one hundred dollars. The Mutual Benefit department of the Celluloid Club is a most decided success, doing a large amount of good by providing assistance at times when money is most needed, and that under such a plan as not to hurt the self-respect of members. The services of a competent physician are furnished free to members in all cases of personal sickness, not necessarily of such a nature as to disable them from work. Some idea of the good work done by this department of the club is shown by the fact that during the first three months of the present year (1904) upwards of one thousand dollars ($1,000) were paid out for sick benefits alone. The officials of the Celluloid Company have shown a marked degree of interest in the working of the Mutual Benefit Association, and the company aided its start with a substantial contribution in order that funds should be available, if needed, before the young association had time to accumulate a sufficient amount of money to meet obliga tions from premiums paid by the members. This starting sum has not been drawn upon, but is considered as a sort of reserve fund, and the association has added a considerable amount to the original nest egg. The company also pays the salaries of the secretaries, who are the only officers that receive any compensation. The experience is that the Celluloid employes' club has proved helpful all around. In the club house the members conduct themselves with proper decorum, and, while feeling perfectly free in the matter of selecting their amusements, are courteous in their intercourse with one another, the influences being wholly of an educating and refining nature. Club experiences with the employes of the Celluloid Company go far to make life worth the living, and the sacrifice of time made necessary in the management of the various branches of club work finds competent, unselfish and willing members ready to assume any office, no matter how exacting the duties may be. The families connected with the factory and their friends have learned by experience that the club house is so conducted as to be a perfectly safe and proper place for young women to frequent whether on stated social occasions, or ordinarily, as casual visitors in the company of members. The club and the Mutual Benefit Association have each. separate and complete sets of carefully thought out by-laws, the result of years of actual and successful experience with club and insurance organizations as applied to factory employes; and the officers are at all times willing to place such knowledge as they may have gained at the disposal of bodies of working people who may desire through some such efforts at organization to try the experiment of benefiting themselves and those around them by plans similar to those used to such good purpose by the employes of the Celluloid Company. The Clifton Silk Mills, Town of Union, N. J. Manufacturers of Broad Silk Goods. Employs 297 Males and 345 Females. About four years ago the Clifton Silk Mills Company organized a benefit society for the assistance of its employes, which has proved very successful. The company employs about six hundred and fifty (650) persons, and about onehalf of them are members of the association. The incidental expenses, outside of doctor's fees, are all provided for by the company, so that practically every cent contributed by the employes is returned to them in the form of benefits. The benefit society meets the purposes for which it was established very well, and has now a substantial fund on hand. Membership in the association is divided into three classes, the differentiation being on the lines of weekly earnings. Class A embraces all whose earnings are ten dollars ($10.00) a week or over; Class B includes those whose earnings range from six dollars and fifty cents ($6.50) to ten dollars ($10.00) per week, and Class C embraces all who are earning less than six dollars and fifty cents ($6.50) per week. The entrance fees charged are regulated according to classes; for Class A it is seventy-five cents ($0.75); Class B, fifty cents ($0.50), and Class C, twenty-five cents ($0.25). The dues charged and benefits paid the several classes of members are as follows: Class A, fifteen cents ($0.15), due every two weeks, benefits, seven dollars ($7.00) per week; Class B, ten cents ($0.10), due every two weeks, benefits, four dollars and seventy-five cents ($4.75) per week; Class C, five cents ($0.05), due every two weeks, benefits two dollars and thirty-five cents ($2.35). Dues are deducted from wages by the company's paymaster and turned over to the treasurer of the association. A receipt for the amount taken from the wages of members is enclosed in their pay envelope. To be entitled to sick benefits a member must have been connected with the society at least one month, and is not to receive anything for disability lasting less than one week, nor more than a total of eight weeks' benefit in any one year. The society also provides death benefits arranged by classes as follows: Class A, seventy-five dollars ($75.00); Class B, fifty dollars ($50.00); Class C, twenty-five dollars ($25.00). Members of the society may resign at any time by giving thirty days' notice to the secretary, during which time dues must be paid as usual. A member who leaves the employment of the mills or is discharged forfeits at once all right of membership; but if discharged the two previous payments of dues are restored when the member is finally paid off. Proper notification blanks to be used in case of sickness or death are supplied to members, and these must be used in bringing claims for either form of benefit before the Board of Directors of the society. A visiting committee investigates all cases, and advises the Directors as to the facts. underlying the claim. The management of the benefit society is vested in a Board of Directors, four of whom are elected by the members, and one appointed by the Board of Directors of the mills. These serve for six months, or until their successors are elected or appointed. The Clifton Silk Mills Company shows a very earnest and intelligent interest in the success of this society, and states that it has in embryo many good plans for the benefit of its employes that have not yet been worked out. Reference is made in the company's communication to the National Cash Register Company, of Dayton, Ohio, and the belief is expressed that its experience has discouraged many employers who contemplated pursuing a similar policy to an extent that can hardly be credited. "That company did almost everything that human ingenuity could devise for the benefit of its people, but in spite of this, directly some labor agitators came along and organized them, they went on strike for the most unwarranted reasons and treated their employers as if they were their personal enemies. "There is practically no large employer of labor but who is aware of the circumstances of the case, and many who had laid various plans to establish some of the features that the National Cash Register Company had put in operation gave up the idea entirely on account of that strike in Dayton." E. V. Connett & Company, Orange Valley, N. J. Manufacturers of Fur Hats. Employs 500 Males and 100 Females. This firm has as yet no definite form of benefit or betterment institution, but has the details of very comprehensive plans along these lines now under consideration, some of which will, no doubt, be adopted in the near future. Crescent Pearl Works, Vineland, N. J. Manufacturers of Pearl Buttons and Pearl Novelties. This company encourages its employes to offer suggestions looking to the expediting of work and the improvement of the various processes of production. A liberal bonus is paid those who furnish helpful ideas, and quite a large sum of money has been paid out on that account. Work is divided out on a plan somewhat resembling the task system. An accurate account is kept of each man's product, and additional pay is given him for each gross of buttons turned out in excess of the quantity required for a day's work. Sentiments of self-respect, coupled with a sense of individual importance and responsibility, have transformed the character of the workmen; timidity, lack of interest, and the merely perfunctory performance of duty have given place to manly confidence in themselves, and an |