Provided that no member shall subscribe or contract for an annuity exceeding thirty pounds per annum, or a sum payable on death, or on any other contingency, exceeding two hundred pounds.

And if such persons so intending to form and establish such society, shall transmit rules for the government, guidance, and regulation of the same to the Registrar aforesaid, and shall obtain his certificate that the same are in conformity with law as hereinafter mentioned, then the said society shall be deemed to be fully formed and established from the date of the said certificate (c).

bers against loss by disease or death of cattle employed in trade or agriculture; for accumulating at interest, for the use of the member, the surplus fund remaining, after providing for his assurance; for relief in case of shipwreck, or loss, or damage to boats or nets; and for the establishment of Working Men's Clubs. See report of the Registrar of Friendly Societies, July, 1866.

(c) Notwithstanding this section, any bond or security given to the treasurer before obtaining the certificate will be valid, and may be sued upon at law. This point arose in the case of Jones v. Woollam, 5 Barn. & Ald. 769, (see Appendix) where it was held that a bond given to the treasurer of a benefit society for the use of the society, was an available security at common law, although the rules of the society had not been confirmed pursuant to the statute then in force relating to Friendly Societies. In Margett v. Parkes, 1 Dowl. & L. 582, which was an action of assumpsit by the treasurer of a Friendly Society on a note, it was held that an averment that the rules were filed under 10 Geo. 4, c. 56, before the making of the promise, was not material, and an objection that they were not filed until after the making of the note, but before it came due, was invalid.

A society is formed when persons meet to make contributions subject to certain rules. The formation of the society dates from that period, if the rules are afterwards certified. See Williams v. Hayward, 2 Jurist, N. S. 1128; 19 Justice of the Peace, p. 788, where it was held that where a mortgage was made to the society prior to the date of the certifi

X. [Repealed by 21 & 22 Vict. c. 101, s. 2, infra, p. 64.]

societies, in

entitled to

of this Act.

XI. And whereas many provident, benevolent, Benevolent and charitable institutions and societies are formed what case and may be formed for the purpose of relieving the the benefits physical wants and necessities of persons in poor circumstances, or for improving the dwellings of the labouring classes, or for granting pensions, or for providing habitations for the members or other persons elected by them, and it is expedient to afford protection to the funds thereof: Be it enacted, that if two copies of the rules of any such institution or society, and from time to time the like copies of any alterations or amendments made in the same, signed by three members and the secretary thereof, shall be transmitted to the Registrar aforesaid, such Registrar shall, if he shall find that the same are not repugnant to law, give a certificate to that effect; and thereupon the following sections of this Act, that is to say, the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth, twenty-first, and twenty-second, fortieth, forty-first, forty-second, and forty-third, shall extend and be applicable to the

cate, the certificate had reference back to the formation of the society, so as to exempt the mortgage from stamp duty; and, as in Bradburne v. Whitbread, 6 Sc. N. P. 284, which was the case of an unstamped promissory note given to the trustees of a loan society established under the Friendly Loan Act, it was contended that the trustees could not sue on the note, it having been made before the rules were enrolled, though after they had been certified; but the court held that the enrolment of the rules before the commencement of the action was sufficient to enable the trustees to recover.

Statutes as to unlawful

extend to

societies under this

Act or any repealed Acts.

said institution and society, as fully as if the same were a society established under this Act (a).

XII. The Act of the thirty-ninth of George the oaths not to Third, chapter seventy-nine, and the Act of the fifty-seventh of George the Third, chapter nineteen, and also the Act of the fourteenth and fifteenth of Her present Majesty, chapter fortyeight, relating to unlawful oaths in Ireland, shall not extend to any society established under this Act or any of the Acts hereby repealed, or to any meeting of the members or officers thereof, in which society or at which meeting no business whatever is transacted other than that which directly and immediately relates to the objects of the society as declared in the rules thereof, and set forth in the certified copy thereof: Provided that the trustees or other officers of the society, when required under the hands of two of Her Majesty's justices of the peace, shall give full information to such justices of the nature, objects, proceedings, and practices of such society, and in default thereof the provisions of the Acts herein recited shall be in force in respect of such society (b).

(a) By sect. 3 of 21 & 22 Vict. c. 101, sections 16 and 24 are also made applicable to these societies.

(b) In the case of Hodges v. Wale, 2 Weekly Rep. 65, (see Appendix,) V. C. Wood held that the registrar's certificate was conclusive as to a society being in conformity with law, and therefore entitled to the benefit of this section; but in the R. v. Davis, 1 Weekly Notes, p. 25, it was held that evidence might be admitted to show that the society had changed its character, and so was not entitled to the benefit of the Act.

how dis

XIII. It shall be lawful for the members of any Societies society heretofore formed and established, or here- solved. after to be formed and established, at some meeting thereof to be specially called in that behalf, to dissolve or determine the same by consent: Provided that no society established under this or any Act relating to Friendly Societies shall be dissolved or determined without obtaining the votes of consent of five-sixths in value of the then existing members thereof, including the honorary members, if any, to be ascertained in manner hereinafter mentioned, nor without the consent of all persons, if any, then receiving or then entitled to receive any relief, annuity, or other benefit from the funds thereof, to be testified under their hands individually and respectively, unless the claim of every such person be first duly satisfied, or adequate provision made for satisfying such claim (c); and for the pur

(c) The rules may require other assents to a dissolution than those mentioned in this section. By the rules of a society a dissolution was not to take place without the consent of ninetenths of the members. More than that number agreed to dissolve the society, and divide the funds equally; and it was held that the resolution having been passed by the majority required by the rule, and by the five-sixths in value pursuant to the Act, was binding upon all the members, Poore v. Dennett, 18 Justice of the Peace, 215, (see Appendix). In a late case before the Vice-Chancellor Wood, In re The Eclipse Mutual Benefit Society, M. S., the society agreed to dissolve, but the necessary consent to the dissolution was not obtained, and the non-consenting members, some six or seven persons, continued paying their subscriptions, but the other members ceased to do so. The Vice-Chancellor would not direct the funds to be paid over to such continuing members, but said that the society had ceased to exist by the nonpayment of the members, and he made no order. In Spiller v. Maude, 13 Weekly Rep. 70, it was held that a sole surviving member was not entitled as such to the funds of the society, where

Sic.

pose of ascertaining the votes of such five-sixths in value of the numbers* as aforesaid, every member shall be entitled to one vote, and an additional vote for every five years that he may have been a member, but no one member shall have more than five votes in the whole; and the intended appropriation or division of the funds or other property shall be fairly and distinctly stated in the agreement for dissolution prior to such consent being given (b); and the agreement for such dissolution duly signed as aforesaid, accompanied with a statutory declaration by one of the trustees, or by three members and the secretary, taken before a justice of the peace, that the provisions of this Act have been complied with, shall be forthwith transmitted to the Registrar, to be by him deposited with the rules of the society, and such agreement shall thereupon be an effectual discharge at law and in equity to the trustees, treasurers, and other officers of such society, and shall operate as a release from all the members of the society to such trustees, treasurers, and other officers; and it shall not be lawful in any society to direct a division or appropriation of any part of the stock thereof, except for the purpose of carying into effect the general interests and objects declared in the rules as originally certified, unless the claim of every member is first duly satisfied, or adequate provision

part had arisen from donations, but the fund was ordered to be paid into court, and the dividends to be paid to the member during his life, with liberty to apply at his death.

(b) By sect. 1 of 23 & 24 Vict. c. 58, this appropriation or division need not be stated, but the sum may be referred to the award of the Registrar.