could scarcely be thought ignorant in financial questions of this kind, show how wide-spread must have been the misapprehension, and are of themselves almost a sufficient justification of the ignorance of the bulk of the poorer classes. Nor were there wanting excellent and numerous authorities who must have contributed to this improper impression. Mr. Scratchley, in his _Practical Treatise on Savings Banks_, pp. 72-4, has taken great pains[137] to string together a formidable list of those whom he finds inculcating the same view as that already expressed by prominent members of Parliament during debate. Suffice it to say, that when such books as McCulloch's _Commercial Dictionary_, Porter's _Progress of the Nation_, _The Quarterly Review_, _Chambers's Information for the People_, _Chambers's Magazine_, _The Penny Magazine_, and the Irish school books, laid it down that depositors had perfect security from Government for the money paid into Savings Banks, those of the class which relies to such a great extent on the intelligence of those above them may well be excused for falling into error, and may well be pitied when called upon to bear loss. Government took up the subject of Savings Banks at an early stage in their history, with the object of "protecting" them,[138] and to that end they made it an imperative duty on the part of the trustees of these banks to deposit their money with the State; unfortunately, however, no steps were taken to enforce this provision. Here lay the fatal mistake, and the source of all the trouble. "The whole success of Savings Banks," says Mr. McCulloch in his _Statistics of the British Empire_, "depends upon the security the depositors have for their money. No one was accustomed to speak of Savings Banks without commenting on the increase in the stability of the country by giving the poorer classes a direct interest in the preservation of public credit; but it requires no great amount of penetration to see that so much entirely depends upon the fact that faith is kept with such depositors." To all intents and purposes proper faith was _not_ kept by the banks, and a proper knowledge of the real amount of risk the poor were running was wrongly withheld from them: hence the undoing of a great part of the good work accomplished in the first quarter of the present century by the establishment of Savings Banks. "What was the use," indignantly asked a member of the House of Commons of the Government in 1851, "of preaching to the poor the duty of being honest, industrious, and self-dependent, if the fruits of their hard earnings were thus to be swept away?"