details that we will now turn. Claiming priority in all respects was the fraud on the County of Kerry Savings Bank at Tralee. The Tralee Savings Bank was established in 1823, many of the noblemen and leading gentlemen of the neighbourhood taking part in its formation. The secretary from the commencement was Mr. John Lynch, who was appointed by a majority of the trustees at a salary of 60_l._ per annum. From the commencement the bank was held at the house of the secretary, and was open from two till four every Monday.[114] Among the directors there were five clergymen, and the rest were highly respectable gentlemen of Tralee. The same might be said of the twenty managers, nearly half of whom were clergymen. The Rev. A. B. Rowan was treasurer of the bank. In the pass-books were abstracts of the Rules and Regulations of the bank, and these were headed by the following motto:-- "For age and want save while you may, No morning sun lasts a whole day." Other useful injunctions were given in sober prose, such as "Examine your pass-book, and see that the entry is correct." "If you lose this book, give immediate notice at the bank, otherwise you may be defrauded."[115] With what feelings the pages of the books containing this sage advice would be turned subsequently, we leave the reader to judge after he has learnt more. Of course, Lynch was highly respected in the town: one witness describes him as, from the first of his connexion with the bank till the exposure, a man above suspicion; and Mr. Rowan, the treasurer, told the Committee of 1848, that he believed the public generally "had more confidence in Mr. Lynch than they had in many, or any, of the trustees themselves." (839.) That he was clever, as well as "correct," is manifest from the fact that he succeeded for sixteen years in carrying on, unsuspected by anybody, a complete system of frauds of different kinds, by which he appropriated to his own use during that time no less than an average of 2,000_l._ a year. He seems to have commenced his dishonest practices soon after the formation of the bank; but until 1832 his peculations were of small amount. From 1832 to 1847 he practised every possible description of fraud, and though some of them might have been detected by a rigid system of check, nearly all of them were remarkable for the ingenuity they displayed: "The contrivance and adroitness with which he managed these frauds," says one who subsequently went over the accounts of the bank, "were so ingenious as almost to defy detection." One of his practices was to account for a less sum than he received from a depositor, and this description of fraud he managed as follows (and this is a case which actually occurred): He received for lodgment three sums of 30_l._, 15_l._, and 27_l._ in one day, without any assistance or supervision from trustee or manager. These amounts he entered in his books as 3_l._, 5_l._, and 7_l._ respectively, and pocketed the difference.