1-150-978 - The Cartoon Collector/Heritage-Images

'Our (Very) Friendly Societies!', 1886. The representative of Britain's honest and sober working-class is diligently posting his small savings into the door of the Cormorant Friendly Society. On the other side of the door can be seen the 'cormorants', the directors of the society who are eating hugely, drinking deeply and enjoying the best cigars. This cartoon accompanies a poem of the same name which accuses such societies of keeping poor accounts, charging much, working little, and living on the proceeds of the thrift of the working classes. The percentage of profits made by societies sometimes were as high as fifty per cent. From Punch, or the London Charivari, March 20, 1886.