Her Majesty's Mails

Some change, or some new system, had long been regarded as absolutely necessary. In 1861, the number of savings' banks on the old plan was 638; yet out of this number there were no less than fourteen counties in the United Kingdom without a bank at all. Even in England, when the test was applied to towns, all, for instance, of a size containing upwards of 10,000 inhabitants, it was found that there were at least twenty-four without savings'-bank accommodation of any sort. Nor was this all. Even where savings' banks already existed, 355 were open only once a-week, and that for a few hours; some twice a-week; but very few--only twenty, in fact--were open for a few hours every day. When, added to all this want of accommodation and absence of facility, we remember the unsatisfactory state of the law concerning them, there can be no wonder that public attention was called to the subject from time to time. So early as 1807, Mr. Whitbread introduced a Bill into Parliament to make the money-order office at the post-office available for collecting sums from all parts of the country, and transmitting them to a central bank which should be established in London. At that time, the money-order department of the Post-Office had not arrived at the state of efficiency to which it subsequently attained, and the Bill was withdrawn. Other proposals shared the same fate, till, in 1860, Mr.