arrangement, saying it would be _much better_ that the parties themselves should take it out of the one, and put it into the other bank. Acquaintance with the habits and wants of the poorer classes would have convinced Lord Redesdale to the contrary. Lord Redesdale said, in concluding, that "he was afraid the scheme would produce much disappointment to the public, and a great loss to the nation." _The Marquis of Clanricarde_ gave a very qualified and hesitating adhesion to the bill. Lord Stanley of Alderley satisfactorily replied to the arguments that had been adduced, and the bill was then referred to a Committee of the whole House. On the 25th of April the bill passed the Committee. Four days afterwards, Lord Monteagle again opposed it, saying that he saw, "with great alarm and regret," what seemed to him to be meant to produce a break-up of existing Savings Banks, and the substitution of the action of a salaried Government department for what he might call a great public charity, directed by benevolent persons acting gratuitously in their own neighbourhood. He went over the ground he had taken only a few days before, but in a spirit very much more subdued and less confident; and when the bill passed, he entered a long and laboured "protest" against it (_vide_ _Hansard_, vol. clxii. page 1213, where many more of Lord Monteagle's "protests" may be found). The Post Office Savings Bank Act, which we give _in extenso_,[176] received the Royal Assent on the 17th of May, 1861. [152] From this statement the ten or twelve principal banks in the country, many of which are open every day, and all in a flourishing financial condition, are of course excepted. [153] _Tracts on Poor Laws and Pauper Management_, included in the _Works of Jeremy Bentham_, edited by Sir John Bowring, vol. viii. edit. 1843, page 408. The punctuation and the italics of the above extract are Bentham's own. [154] A little _Handy Book_ on the subject, published in 1861, by Mr. H. Riseborough Sharman, one of the Editors of the _Insurance Gazette_, and which deservedly had a large sale, went over very ably, though in a way which produced considerable acrimony from some portion of the public press, some of this ground. Though it is open to question whether at so early a date it was not premature, and, whether in the peculiar form of a manual for intending depositors, it was wise to enter upon a discussion of these points, it is certain that by means of this pamphlet and other advocacy, Mr. Sharman laboured very hard and very zealously to prepare the public mind for the adoption of the scheme of Postal Banks, and to spread a knowledge of their benefits after the measure had become law. [155] _Duties of the Public with respect to Charitable Savings Banks._ Dublin 1852. [156] _On the present State of the Savings Bank Question._ Dublin, 1855.