When a depositor wishes to withdraw any of his money, he has only to apply to the nearest post-office for the necessary printed form, and to fill it up, stating his name and address, where his money is deposited, the amount he wishes to withdraw, and the place where he wishes it paid, and by return of post he will receive a warrant, in which the postmaster named is authorized to pay the amount applied for. In this respect post-office savings' banks offer peculiar advantages. A depositor, for instance, visiting the metropolis, and having--as he may easily do in London--run short of ready money, may, with a little timely notice to the authorities in London, draw out, in any of the hundred new banks in the metropolis, from his amount at home sufficient for his needs. Another person, leaving one town for another, may, without any expense, and no more trouble than a simple notice, have his account transferred to his future home, and continue it there under precisely similar circumstances as those to which he has been accustomed. Last year this power was largely used, there being no fewer than 20,872 deposits and 15,842 withdrawals made under these circumstances, _e. g._ at places where the depositor is temporarily residing.[181] The facilities offered by the Post-Office in this way are unique; no other banks can offer them; and such is the admirable system adopted by the Post-Office, that complicated accounts of this nature are reduced to a matter of the simplest routine. At the end of each month the accounts of the two offices concerned in transactions of this kind are reconciled by the addition or deduction of the amounts in question, which arrangement, so far from being an irksome one, enables the Department to obtain a very valuable check upon its gross transactions. Under the old system, a depositor could only effect a transfer of his account from Manchester to Liverpool by withdrawing it from the one, under the usual long notice, and taking it to the other. This course was not only troublesome to the parties concerned, but the depositor ran the risk of losing his money, or, perhaps, of spending the whole or part of it. Under the Post-Office system, however, the transfer may be effected in a day or two, without the depositor even seeing the money, and without the smallest risk of loss. Suppose a depositor wishes to transfer his account from a bank under the old plan to one under the new, or _vice versâ_, the matter is one of equally simple arrangement. He has only to apply to the old savings' bank for a certificate to enable him to transfer his deposits in that bank to that belonging to the Post-Office, and when he obtains such certificate he may present it to any postmaster who transacts savings'-bank business. The postmaster receives it as if it were so much money, and issues a depositors' book, treating the case as if the amount had been handed over to him. A few days longer are required before an