But, before closing my remarks on the mercantile marine legislation of the twelve years subsequent to the repeal of the Navigation Laws, there is one measure, apparently trivial in itself, which has been a great boon to our seamen. Before any of these Acts came into operation, they, as I have endeavoured to show, were to a great extent under the control of a class of men familiarly known as “crimps,” who were the “sailor’s agents.”[167] They found him a ship, discounted his advance note at usurious rates, assisted him to receive his wages at the end of the voyage,[168] and _taught him how to spend them_. Previously to the Act of 1850, seamen, on the termination of a voyage, were either paid their wages on board ship, or at the office of the Shipowner or his agents. In either case, the crimps, most of whom were keepers of low lodging-houses or beer-shops, were in attendance upon the sailors, and he, who had to receive the largest amount of pay, was attended by the most numerous and obsequious of these vultures, each ready to prey upon him. Suspecting no wrong, Jack was too frequently induced, after he had received his wages, to partake, on the invitation of the crimps, of a glass of grog or a pint of beer at the nearest public-house, and this, apparently, friendly intercourse too often produced the most lamentable results. [Sidenote: Savings-banks for seamen instituted;] To obviate, or rather to mitigate if possible, these evils, the Commissioners for the reduction of the National Debt were empowered, by the Merchant Shipping Act of 1854, to establish Savings-Banks for seamen; and, by the Seamen’s Savings-Bank Act of 1856, these banks were placed under the control of the Board of Trade, which was authorized to open “a central office in London, together with branch savings-banks at such ports and places in the United Kingdom as they may think expedient,” where “seamen, or the wives, widows and children of seamen,” might make deposits, not exceeding at one time 200_l._ [Sidenote: and, somewhat later, money-order offices.]