cotton wool, the staple fibre of the masses, increased from 152,000,000 lbs. in 1820 to 259,000,000 lbs. in 1832, or an increase of 70 per cent.[58] Enough has been said, we hope, to show the gradual progress made in these years in all that relates to the social advancement and well-being of the people, and to what extent Savings Banks played a part on that advancement. Because these institutions have been proved to create frugal habits--in much the same way that the supply of intoxicating drinks creates in many cases a demand for them--as well as to give them direction and encouragement, we have endeavoured to prove their right to a foremost place among the many other mighty engines of civilization which have made Great Britain what it is. And now we must conclude this chapter with a less pleasant task, and refer briefly, at present, to two foes to Savings Banks, one without and one within, both of which had a very powerful effect as hindrances on the progress of these useful institutions. We refer to the doubts which began to be cast on the utility of Savings Banks by portions of the public press, and the serious frauds which now for the first time began to engage public attention. In 1844, when Mr. Goulburn's bill was under discussion and subsequently to that, several newspapers began to dispute that Savings Banks were either so useful or so wise as had been generally thought up to that period. The _Times_ newspaper, with an hostility which Dr. Chalmers characterized as "most glaring" and "likely to mislead every artisan from the path of his true interests," laughed at and ridiculed the system long after it had proved its usefulness in numerous ways. That paper, which opposed the new Poor Law of 1834 with great bitterness, and had treated with manifest injustice other schemes for the social amelioration of the poor, devoted several editorial articles in 1844 to throw discredit on the institution of Savings Banks. The articles in question were calculated to work a mischievous practical influence on many readers, especially on those who gave little attention to the subject of political economy; they were meant to create a spirit of opposition to Savings Banks, but in many cases they must have had the opposite effect and failed to convince all who were not equally perverse. To show the kind of argument indulged in by the leading journal at a time when it was equally as now the greatest newspaper power in the land, when its rebuke or praise had a weighty effect on any important measure, and when Cabinet Councils debated whether it should be propitiated or defied,[59] we need only give the following extracts:--