Mr. Tidd Pratt made a well-deserved exposé of a swindling
friendly society before the Lord Mayor on Wednesday. He stated that within a few yards of the Mansion House were the offices of the "Garibaldi Mutual Life Assurance and Sick Fund Friendly Society." This sounding title had been adopted by a friendly society of the worst kind. The office consisted of a small back-room, into which letters were dropped through a hole in the door. Nothing had been known of the people who called for them. The prospectus was a tissue of absurdities and un- truths. The report talked of policies numbered up to 7,316, whereas the society, started in 1863, had scarcely one-tenth that number of members. The actuary, whose name is given, is a respectable man, who denies all knowledge of the society. The same may be said of the physician and the solicitor, and there is no account at the London and County Bank, as stated. The names of the trustees were either mythical, or taken without the consent of their possessors. The rates were constructed upon a radically vicious system, and in fact the whole thing was as thoroughly rotten as it could well be. The prospectus was adorned with a picture repre- senting Garibaldi waving his sword over the heads of a number of women and children, looking himself, as Mr. Pratt said, more as if he were about to cut their heads off than to protect them. If any man can root out these pernicious swindlers it is Mr. Pratt, but the credulity of the poorer classes is still too great, not to tempt such undertakings as the " Garibaldi " into the field.
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