The subject of savings banks for the army was allowed to rest for a time, but by the assistance of Sir James McGregor and Lord Howick a scheme was at length approved and finally established in 1842.  The result has proved satisfactory in an eminent degree, and speaks well for the character of the British soldier.  It appears from a paper presented to the House of Commons some years ago,—­giving the details of the savings effected by the respective corps,—­that the men of the Royal Artillery had saved over twenty-three thousand pounds, or an average of sixteen pounds to each depositor.  These savings were made out of a daily pay of one and threepence and a penny for beer-money, or equal to about nine and sixpence a week, subject to sundry deductions for extra clothing.  Again, the men of the Royal Engineers—­mostly drawn from the skilled mechanical class—­had saved nearly twelve thousand pounds, or an average of about twenty pounds for each depositor.  The Twenty-sixth regiment of the line (Cameronians), whose pay was a shilling a day and a penny for beer, saved over four thousand pounds.  Two hundred and fifty men of the first battalion, or one-third of the corps, were depositors in the savings bank, and their savings amounted to about seventeen pounds per man.

But this is not all.  Private soldiers, out of their small earnings, are accustomed to remit considerable sums through the post office, to their poor relations at home.  In one year, twenty-two thousand pounds were thus sent from Aldershot,—­the average amount of each money order being twenty-one shillings and fourpence.  And if men with seven shillings and seven-pence a week can do so much, what might not skilled workmen do, whose earnings amount to from two to three pounds a week?

Soldiers serving abroad during arduous campaigns have proved themselves to be equally thoughtful and provident.  During the war in the Crimea, the soldiers and seamen sent home through the money order office seventy-one thousand pounds, and the army works corps thirty-five thousand pounds.  More than a year before the money order system was introduced at Scutari, Miss Nightingale took charge of the soldiers’ savings.  She found them most willing to abridge their own comforts or indulgences, for the sake of others dear to them, as well as for their own future well-being; and she devoted an afternoon in every week to receiving and forwarding their savings to England.  She remitted many thousand pounds in this manner, and it was distributed by a friend in London,—­much of it to the remotest corners of Scotland and Ireland.  And it afforded some evidence that the seed fell in good places (as well as of the punctuality of the post office), that of the whole number of remittances, all but one were duly acknowledged.