can refrain from doing harm, since they cannot do good; and will not press this most discreditable bill through the House at the end of August without necessity for it, and against the opinions of those best calculated to form a judgment." Irish members, seeing the turn the discussion was taking, urged that, at any rate, the bill might apply to Ireland. It was patent to everybody that the poor depositors in Ireland needed every protection, however secure the same classes might feel in England. In Ireland such a bill was really required, and was necessary, to restore confidence in Savings Banks;[80] why not make it apply to Ireland only? After an unsuccessful attempt on the part of Lord George Bentinck to throw out the bill altogether, it was decided, on the motion of Mr. Wodehouse, and by a vote of thirty to eleven, that the words "Great Britain" should be struck out of the motion, and that the Act should simply apply to Irish Savings Banks. That the bill now passed was a beneficial change in the law, and a considerable step in the right direction, no one now doubts; had not the perverseness of Savings Bank officials prevented the Government from making its provisions apply to England, much subsequent suffering and grievous loss would have been saved to many of the best classes of our industrial population. It was a safeguard such as was wanted in Ireland, and it answered admirably. The bill having been made law, and new depositors secured to a considerable extent from robbery and exaction, the attention of the Legislature was called to those who had lost their all by past frauds; and the records of Parliament show that one member after another reverted to such topics until redress was obtained. On the 29th of March, 1849, _Mr. Reynolds_, the member for Dublin, moved for the appointment of a Committee to investigate into the case of the Cuffe Street bank in Dublin, and to ascertain who were liable for the extensive frauds in that bank. He alluded to the unsatisfactory result of the previous inquiry, which was, indeed, not meant to be final. In making his motion, Mr. Reynolds, who had access, of course, to the best sources of information, entered into a full account of this bank, stating, indeed, many of the facts which we have already given. He complained most bitterly of the Government, who had accepted the advice of a "flippant barrister," as Mr. Pratt was designated, and who had suffered the bank to go on when it was known to be in a state of hopeless insolvency. He described the heartrending scenes which he had witnessed in Dublin, owing to the failure of the bank, and during the last eighteen months, and related some of the cases to the House, where they had ended in insanity, death, or suicide. That the depositors were mostly poor persons he proved, by stating the average amount due to each of the 1,664 persons who were creditors of the bank to be but 27_l._ Mr. Reynolds added, that he had no hesitation in