The frauds at Hertford, Brighton, Reading, Cuffe Street, Bilston, and Canterbury, where the amounts of the defalcations are known, are left out of consideration. Thus the total amount of the frauds enumerated in the Returns, extending over thirteen years, was 179,280l.; or if we include the Cuffe Street bank fraud, to make up for those Irish banks which sent no returns, and errors of computation, and spread the total over all the thirteen years, the average amount of defalcation was at the rate of 17,600l. a year; or, taking the banks mentioned in the Returns, upwards of 7,900l. for each involved. Doing the same with the total loss to depositors, or 117,732l., we find the average loss for each bank to be nearly 5,000l.
The reader who may have followed us through this chapter, and remembers the classes to which the cheated depositors generally belonged,[132] will have some idea how much pain and suffering the amount of money so treacherously wrested out of their hands really represents. “But the evil,” Mr. Gladstone well said several years ago when speaking on this very point, “that is done, is, unfortunately, not to be measured by the actual amount of money loss; there is an amount of evil such as figures can convey no idea of; and it is impossible that the public confidence in these institutions can be that which it ought to be, while these losses are liable to occur at all.” This was a deficiency which Mr. Gladstone set himself to remedy immediately afterwards, and, though unable to do so at the time through the opposition of Savings Bank managers, it was not long before another system was provided which struck for ever at the root of this grievance; and for all practical purposes, and so far as it was now possible, repaired the injury which the industrious classes had suffered through the action of defective legislation, and the moral obliquity of those who had been trusted with their earnings.[133] After entering still more fully in the next chapter into the defects of the Savings Bank institution, considered purely as a system, and the attempts made from time to time to remedy its deficiencies, it will be time to describe how the above beneficial result was brought about.
[114] “In the case of a fraudulent actuary, especially if the bank is carried on at the man's own house, there is no limit to the fraud which he may commit.”—Evidence of Mr. Tidd Pratt before the Committee of 1848.
[115] That Lynch, was no ordinary man there is abundant evidence. The following address to the inhabitants of Tralee—which from anybody else would be considered well meant and well expressed advice, simply completes the burlesque in his case:—
1. “Money, as the means of procuring the necessaries and comforts of life, is a blessing; and to be careful of it is a duty incumbent on all.”
2. “To lay by in the time of youth, and whilst we enjoy good health, a portion of the fruits of industry in store for future wants, is a mark of wisdom; and considering that all are liable to infirmities, a provision to alleviate them is of the greatest importance.”
3. “Some men by hard labour, and others by superior skill, earn high wages; yet for want of proper management they have nothing to reserve. Many might be disposed to save a part of their earnings if they knew how to set about it, or where to place it with safety; whilst others who have occasionally practiced saving, have lost what they had laid up, by trusting it in unsafe hands.”
4. “The promoters of this institution are aware that several of their neighbours, from various causes, are unable to procure many of the comforts, if not the necessaries of life; they are, nevertheless, fully persuaded that many others who have the advantage of constant employment, and are favoured with the enjoyment of health and strength, might, by practising laudable economy, reserve a portion of their earnings to meet the demands which a future pressure of bad times, sickness, old age, or an increase of family, may bring upon them, and thereby avoid the calamities under which so many of them suffer.”
5. “It is a great mistake to suppose that small sums are not worth saving. By the habit of saving in little matters, riches are acquired; farthings saved would soon accumulate to shillings, and those to pounds,” &c. &c. &c.