This scheme, last and best of all, must help to foster independent habits among the working population. Their dealings with the post-office banks are pure matters of business, and no obligation of any sort is either given or received. The existing banks, on the other hand, partake largely of the nature of a charity. An objection frequently urged against savings' banks with much bitterness is, that many great employers of labour are on the directorate of such institutions, and that, consequently, they are able to exercise an oversight over their characters and savings, not always used for the best of purposes. In the Committee of Inquiry to which we have already alluded, cases--designated "rare," we are glad to add--were adduced, from which it appeared that provident workmen's wages had been reduced by their employers, upon the ground of their being already well enough off. No such considerations, however, can affect the new banks: postmasters are forbidden to divulge the names of any depositor, or any of the amounts which he or she may have placed in their hands.[183] The advantages of these banks are so obvious, and the arrangements under which they are worked are of such a simple nature, that they cannot help but be increasingly useful and successful. Moreover, they are so accessible, that the working man, especially, requires nothing but the _will_ to do that which his everyday experience tells him is so necessary should be done for the comfort of his family and home. FOOTNOTES: [180] The case of a fraud of this kind was mentioned by Lord Monteagle when the Post-Office Savings'-Bank Bill was before the Lords. In a Hertfordshire Savings' Bank, a deficiency of 10,000_l._ was discovered, and the entire amount was subscribed by nine of the trustees, who were noblemen and gentlemen in the neighbourhood. [181] One of the first deposits which was made on the first day of opening in the banks started on the new system was withdrawn the next week in another town at some distance. The depositor was a person travelling with a wild beast menagerie.--_Mr. Gladstone's Speech at Mold_, January 5, 1864.