Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/816

 780 F R I F R 1 The limited extent and resources of the islands tend to minimize foreign settlement and interference, but missionary influence is, directly or indirectly, supreme. The regime is accordingly somewhat strained and severe, and restless spirits have to seek a vent for their energies in Fiji or elsewhere. Crime, however, is infrequent, and morality, always above the Polynesian average, is improving ; nearly every one can raad, and there is a general appearance of order and comfort. The people have strict notions of etiquette and gradations of rank ; their natural independence and self-esteem is perhaps fostered by their frequent employment .as the teachers of others, for which, however, they show much aptitude; other wise they are amiable and (especially in the upper ranks) courteous. They are arrogant, lively, inquisitive, and inclined to steal, their attacks, in earlier days, on Europeans, when not caused by misunderstandings, being due probably to their desire to obtain property which to them was of immense value. They are brave and not devoid of energy, though the soft climate and the abundance of food are against sustained exertion or great industrial progress. They value children, and seldom practise infanticide, and cannibalism only in exceptional cases. Their women are kindly treated, and only do the lighter work. Agriculture, which is well understood, is the chief industry. They are bold and skilful sailors and fishermen ; other trades, as boat and house building, carving, cooking, net and mat making, are usually hereditary. Their houses are slightly built, but the surrounding ground and roads are laid out with great care and taste. There are some ancient stone remains here, as in the Caroline Islands, burial places (feitoka) built with great blocks, and a remarkable monument consisting of two large blocks with a transverse one, containing a circular basin in the centre. The principal diseases are leprosy and elephantiasis, tona (the thoko of Fiji), influenza, ulcers, scrofula, consumption, and ophthalmia. Owing to the absence of swamps, feVer of a severe type is rare. The chief articles of export are cocoa-nut oil and copra ; a little sugar, cotton, and coffee, the cultivation of which is encouraged by the king ; and fresh provisions for ships, as yams, pigs, and poultry. The chief imports are cloth, cotton prints, hardware, mirrors, &amp;lt;kc., but these are not on the increase. Whale fishing (once extensive) is still carried on among the islands by European and American vessels. See Cook s Voyages ; Mariner s Account of th Natives of the Tonga Islands; Dumont d Urville s Voyage de I &quot;Astrolabe&quot; ; West s Ten Years in South Central Polynesia ; TSrenehley s Jottings during Cruise of If. if. S. &quot;Cttra&amp;lt;-oa,&quot; 1865; Meinicke, Die Inseln des Stillen Oceans ; Waldegrave in R. G. S. Journal, 1850. (C. T.) FRIENDLY SOCIETIES, according to the compre hensive definition of the Friendly Societies Act 1875, which now regulates such societies in Great Britain and Ireland, Defini- are &quot; societies established to provide by voluntary subscrip- ti - tions of the members thereof, with or without the aid of donations, for the relief or maintenance of the members, their husbands, wives, children, fathers, mothers, brothers or sisters, nephews or nieces, or wards being orphans, dur ing sickness or other infirmity, whether bodily or mental, in old age, or in widowhood, or for the relief or mainten ance of the orphan children of members during minority; for insuring money to be paid on the birth of a member s child, or on the death of a member, or for the funeral expenses of the husband, wife, or child of a member, or of the widow of a deceased member, or, as respects persons of the Jewish persuasion, for the payment of a sum of money during the period of confined mourning ; for the relief or maintenance of the members when on travel in search of employment, or when in distressed circumstances, or in case of shipwreck, or loss or damage of or to boats or nets; for the endowment of members or nominees of members at any age ; for the insurance against fire to any amount not exceeding 15 of the tools or implements of the trade or calling of the members &quot; and are limited in their contracts for assurance of annuities to 50, and for assurance of a gross sum to 200. They may be de scribed in a more popular and condensed form of words as the mutual assurance societies of the poorer classes, by which they seek to aid each other in the emergencies aris ing from sickness and death and other causes of distress. A phrase in the first Act for the encouragement and relief of friendly societies, passed in 1793, designating them &quot;societies of good fellowship,&quot; indicates another useful phase of their operations. The origin of the friendly society is, probably in all Ori. countries, the burial club. It has been the policy of every religion, if indeed it is not a common instinct of humanity, to surround the disposal of a dead body with circumstances of pomp and expenditure, often beyond the means of the surviving relatives. The appeal for help to friends and neighbours which necessarily follows is soon organized into a system of mutual aid, that falls in nat urally with the religious ceremonies by which honour is done to the dead. Thus Archdeacon Gray tells us that in China there are burial societies, termed &quot; long-life loan companies,&quot; in almost all the towns and villages. Among the Greeks the tpavoi combined the religious with the pro vident element. From the Greeks the Eomans derived their fraternities of a similar kind. The Teutons in like manner had their guilds. Whether the English friendly society owes its origin in the higher degree to the Roman or the Teutonic influence can hardly be determined. The utility of providing by combination for the ritual ex penditure upon burial having been ascertained, the next step to render mutual assistance in circumstances of distress generally was an easy one, and we find it taken by the Greek Zpavoi and by our own guilds. Another modification that the societies should consist not so much of neighbours as of persons having the same occupation soon arises ; and this is the germ of our trade unions ar,d our city companies in their original constitution. The interest, however, that these enquiries possess is mainly antiquarian. The legal definition of a friendly society quoted above points to an organization more complex than those of the ancient fraternities and guilds, and pro ceeding upon different principles. It may be that the one has grown out of the other. The common element of a provision for a contingent event by a joint contribution is in both ; but the friendly society alone has attempted to define with precision what is the risk against which it intends to provide, and what should be the contributions of the members to meet that risk. It would be curious to endeavour to trace how, after the suppression of the religious guilds in the 16th century, and the substitution of an organized system of relief by the poor law of Elizabeth for the more voluntary and casual means of relief that previously existed, the present system of friendly societies grew up. The modern friendly society, particularly in rural districts, clings with fondness to its annual feast and procession to church, its procession of all the brethren on the occasion of the funeral of one of them, and other incidents which are almost obviously sur vivals of the customs of mediaeval guilds. The last re corded guild was in existence in 1628, and there are records of friendly societies as early as 1634 and 1639. The connecting links, however, cannot be traced. With the exception of a society in the port of Borrowstounness on the Firth of Forth, no existing friendly society is known to be able to trace back its history beyond a date late in the 17th century, and no records remain of any that