Ten years afterwards a more powerful voice than Mr. Herbert's asked the same question, and appealed to the country for a reply. "If ever," said the _Times_ newspaper, speaking of Savings Bank money in a leading article, 17th January, 1862, "there was a sacred fund, this is one; if ever there was a class and a fund which deserved the protection of wise laws and stringent responsibilities, surely this is the class and this the fund." Says an objector: "Irregularities will creep into the management of the best of funds, and frauds are as old as the world." Says the _Times_: "How can people treat such cases as a matter of course! How can we look on while the poor commit their all to such institutions as these! It is useless to tell us that nine out of ten, or ninety-nine out of a hundred of these Savings Banks, are conducted with scrupulous care and constant supervision." Referring, then, to the recent case at Bilston, it continued, "How can the depositors of a few hoarded shillings know where the Fletchers hold sway, and where the managers do their duty? The only sound advice to give the working classes under such circumstances is, to have nothing to do with institutions _where such things can occur_." The argument was irrefutable; nor was the advice given hastily. The Postal Banks had then been introduced to the country, and the article thus winds up: "This advice would have been difficult to give some years ago; it is not so now. The Post Office Savings Banks offer an escape from danger, and at the same time remove the necessity of taxing the time and attention of philanthropic men in offices where negligence may occasion such wide-spread ruin. We confess that, in the face of such occurrences as those of Bilston, we hope the day will speedily arrive when these 531 fallible Savings Banks will all cease to exist."[139]