required that he should furnish weekly returns of the transactions to the National Debt Commissioners: the correctness of these returns were to be checked by the treasurer, which office he of course filled _himself_. All that was necessary to the perpetration of fraud was that this actuary-treasurer should be on easy terms with his conscience, and this unfortunately was the sad state of the case. Deceive the Commissioners by falsified returns, and any amount of money, under the peculiar arrangements of this bank, might be pocketed without fear. In order to help himself to a full solution of the case, Mr. Pratt brought these returns down from London, and compared them with the bank accounts, with the following result:[129]--"The whole of the Returns he held in his hand were signed by Mr. Fletcher, as actuary and manager. In the statement dated January 1, 1859, the amount received was returned at 234_l._ On looking at the books for that day, he found it should have been 334_l._, therefore 100_l._ had been abstracted on that day [cries of 'Shame,' and sensation]. On the 8th of January, he found the payments were set down at 174_l._, whereas they had only been 74_l._, thus showing that the treasurer had put another 100_l._ in his pocket that week. In the return dated January 29, the receipts were set down at 183_l._, and the payments at 148_l._, whereas the former ought to have been 283_l._, and the latter 48_l._, thus taking to himself 200_l._ [renewed sensation]." So on through almost all the weekly accounts of three or four years. There seems to have been no other fraudulent transactions than those of this simple but abominable kind; the whole defalcation had taken place in this way, and it was made manifest that no one but the treasurer had participated in it. It is fortunate for the depositors that the frauds were found out when they were; but for the negligence in sending the required returns ordered by the House they might have been continued for an indefinite period. As it was, the assets of the bank realized in the first instance ten shillings in the pound; towards the close of 1862, another dividend of half-a-crown in the pound was paid, and since that time a third small amount has accrued to the depositors, who are never likely to be completely reimbursed of their loss. In 1862, Mr. Fletcher was tried before Baron Channell, and found guilty of "appropriating money with intent to defraud." His counsel, however, having made an able defence, characterised by the judge as being as subtle as it was ingenious, the point as to whether the prisoner was a "trustee" at the time of appropriating the money--this being one of the facts upon which the indictment was based--was reserved, and he was released on heavy bail. Into the further history of this man, the sequestration of his living by the Bishop of Lichfield for the behoof of the depositors, the repeated failures of justice in his case, his