Returning to an account of those who have been represented as suggesting the principle of Postal Banks, we think the number may be fairly reduced by several names. And in that number we would class Dr. W. Neilson Hancock, of Dublin. Of Dr. Hancock's exertions in connexion with the frauds in Savings Banks, and his description of the feeling of insecurity which they engendered, we have already spoken; those exertions related exclusively, so far as we can gather from his pamphlets, to a remedy for this grievance. In a paper[155] read by Dr. Hancock before the Dublin Statistical Society in 1852, and republished in a pamphlet form four years afterwards, we find him saying, that private enterprise had not had a fair trial,--if it had, and failed, then Government should undertake the work, _as it did Money Order business_:-- "That part of the natural business of bankers which consists in receiving deposits from the poor might be undertaken by some public officers appointed for the purpose, _just as_ the granting of Money Orders, another part of the same business, is carried on by the officers of the Post Office. Such an institution would be called a Savings Bank; and in it the Government would be responsible to the depositors for the acts of the clerks. So that the entire responsibility of management would rest with the members of Government in charge of that department, and the depositors would have perfect security for any money actually paid to a clerk.... My own impression is, that if our laws were framed with a view to allow of small deposits and small investments, private enterprise is quite adequate to supply a complete system of safe investments for the poor. But whether that opinion be sound or not, a Government institution _like the Money Order Office_, with Government officers and Government security for those officers, would be infinitely better than the present system of divided responsibility and absence of security." In a further paper, read and published in a pamphlet form in 1855,[156] Dr. Hancock made no further proposal towards the object immediately in our view, although he said-- "The Money Order Office of the Post Office shows that a large part of the business of banking for the poor can be cheaply and efficiently conducted by the officers of a public department. The first step towards the adoption of such measures is to produce in the public mind a conviction of the utter instability of banks as now constituted, and that conviction I have endeavoured to create."