The results of this fraud in Dublin and the neighbourhood was most disastrous; not only so, but years afterwards, in remote parts of England as well as Ireland, this case of fraud was referred to with considerable bitterness, and urged as an excuse for prodigality and recklessness. There was at the time a still more important Savings Bank, with several branches, in Dublin; and so great was the effect of the fraud, that nearly all the money deposited in this bank was withdrawn within four weeks, and it was a considerable period before it recovered its position. The depositors in the Cuffe Street bank were of the poorest classes, and the effect upon them when they found they had been robbed of all they had is described as painful in the extreme. "Dealing with the case, and the details of it," said one influential gentleman, "I have never seen anything more calculated to excite painful feelings than this was; some of the depositors were on the very verge of wretchedness and destitution, without a shilling to support them." According to another excellent authority[67] some died of want and distress, and many of them had to seek the shelter of the workhouse. Before the case came on for discussion in Parliament, several petitions were presented to the House of Commons, praying for help, and setting the pitiable situation in which the frauds had placed many of the depositors before the public; and one, signed by 5,076 citizens of Dublin, with the Protestant and Catholic Archbishops of Dublin heading the names, bore out in full the facts to which we have just alluded.