gain of £1,838 on the year, and leaving the Society with a capital of £8,274 17s. 6d. At the beginning of the year we had over 100 members out of employment (principally late Midland employees), and their out-of-work benefits came to £299 4s. A large number found work abroad, and emigration grants cost the Society £125 10s." The superannuation benefits cost the Society £150 19s, that year, including a grant of £20 to a member knocked down by a passenger train at St. Pancras, and losing an arm. This incapacitation grant was subsequently increased to £100. The legal costs exceeded £85, chiefly involved in a recovery from the Midland Railway of compensation for the widow of Driver James Branner, killed during fog at Kentish Town shed. The jury found for £320, the amount claimed, and attributed negligence to the company, and excluded the driver from all blame. This notable award caused counsel for the company to claim the verdict, because their servant was not guilty of blame.
The year 1888 was notable, too, for the decision to issue a Society "Journal," which had been mooted several times, and which proved a complete success. It reached a circulation of 4,000 copies, and left a balance of £2 on the year for the Society's funds. Thirteen new branches were opened in the year, and 704 new members enrolled. It should be remembered that the Midland strike had lost the Society 403 members, but the close of 1888 found 2,368 members on the books, a net increase of 301. "Since that time," added the report, "our growth has been most rapid, a sure indication that our members are becoming increasingly alive to the necessity and usefulness of a trade union for locomotive workers." This report was the first issued from the new (the third) head office of the Society, 44, Park Square, and one of the auditors who signed it was Albert Fox, who was subsequently destined to figure as General Secretary.
Looking over the systems, there were wage movements under the various companies in the same year. For example, a meeting of North Eastern men held at Newcastle presented the following programme:—
