matter, choosing an extraordinary time, not however without its significance--of a Sunday after the usual service. The clerical delinquent acknowledged his guilt, and said, "He was very sorry, but never intended to defraud the depositors of a shilling." It will be seen, however, that the fraudulent transactions were of such a nature as not to admit of any extenuation, and to render condonation of any sort impossible. The feeling produced by the disclosure was painful in the extreme, and the country spoke out with vigour on this extraordinary and merciless breach of trust. The local magnates, indeed, and the body of trustees who had allowed these frauds to run on, spoke with bated breath of the "deficiencies" of the Bilston treasurer; the _Times_, on the other hand, spoke far more in accord the with the general feeling of the country, when it characterised "this man Fletcher" as "the meanest, the most cowardly, and the most cruel of swindlers."[127] Under his manipulations, the Bilston bank was a Savings Bank in nothing but the name; there were trustees, but they were tools; rules, properly certified, but never obeyed; accounts made out and "cooked," but never checked or audited. The trustees did just what they were bid, and the real operator at the bank did just what he chose. This clergyman and magistrate was a swindler, his books a heap of lies, his balance-sheets pure fiction. Mr. Pratt was sent for to examine into the state of the bank immediately after its condition became known, and it is to the account which he himself subsequently gave to the depositors that we are indebted for most of the particulars which elucidate Mr. Fletcher's mode of operation, when in the thick of his guilt. Mr. Pratt stated, that from 1848 to January, 1861, there did not appear to have been any meeting either of the trustees or managers, for the purpose, according to the rules, of auditing or settling the weekly accounts. The Rev. R. J. Heafield, a trustee and manager of the bank, confessed at the trial of Mr. Fletcher, at the Staffordshire Lent Assizes, 1862, his own culpable negligence in the following words:--"The weekly returns signed by me were prepared by Mr. Fletcher. _When I signed them, I never in any way compared them with the books._ They were presented to me either by Mr. or Mrs. Fletcher, _and I took no measures to verify their accuracy._"[128] What might not a designing man do with such a tool as this? Having subdued his trustees in this way, the rest was, as we shall see, quite easy. The books at the bank were, it is only fair to say, kept quite correctly; so were the depositors' books. According to the evidence of Mr. Pratt: "In the day-book everything was entered with scrupulous correctness; and 1200 depositors out of 1400 had brought in their books, and he did not believe an error had been discovered." Mr. Fletcher chose a somewhat simpler course of action, which we will describe. His duty as actuary of the bank