It is far more difficult to point out what course of action will tend most successfully to secure the fair results of sobriety and frugality than it is to show how necessary it is that these virtues should be cultivated. "The difficulty of doing good," as one writer expresses it, "is at least equal to its luxury." The task we have undertaken is far from easy, and beset with perils, but we will endeavour to avoid all occasion of dispute. The pointing out of safe and profitable investments for the hard-earned savings of the frugal and industrious need not and should not be regarded as an invidious task. It seems to us that, as Savings Banks have to do primarily with the foundation of the habit of saving money, and indeed scarcely ever can be considered as competing with any of the numerous schemes for the investing of money, the subject should never be regarded with any jealous feeling. The principle upon which these institutions are founded "interferes," to use the words of one who has written most ably on such subjects, "with no individual action, saps no individual self-reliance." "It prolongs childhood by no proffered leading-string; it valitudinarises energy by no hedges or walls of defence, no fetters of well-meant paternal restriction. It encourages virtue and forethought by no artificial excitements, but simply by providing that they shall not be debarred from full fructification, nor defrauded of their natural reward. It does not attempt to foster the infant habit of saving by the unnatural addition of a penny to every penny laid by; it contents itself with endeavouring to secure to the poor and inexperienced that safe investment and that reasonable return for their small economies which is their just and scanty due."[10] Strengthened by such testimony, we will proceed at once to sketch the history, and, as far as we are able, to show the benefits to be derived from the various kinds of banks for savings established from time to time amongst us. [1] The following table taken from the _Statistical Returns_, presented by the Board of Trade, shows in a clear light how much of the position of the working classes must have been improved by the removal of fiscal burdens. Almost all the impositions of taxation between 1850 and 1864 have fallen upon the wealthier classes:--