64 THE FREEDMEN’S SAVINGS BANK 
tacles . . . Brother Boston, young, airy, dressed 
in the height of fashion, and the color of Java 
coffee, moves lightly among the dingy and di- 
lapidated customers . . . Boston is fond of 
finery and fond of showing it. Finery and high 
sounding words are Boston’s weakness. . . . 
Daddy Wilson got his wisdom in financial mat- 
ters by keeping a little nick-nack shop on Fif- 
teenth Street. Daddy Wilson and Brother Bos- 
ton are mere figure-heads kept there in dumb 
show by cunning fellows who work the machin- 
ery from behind the scenes and are filling their 
own pockets.”’’ 
The one case of fraud proved against the two 
was a small and mean one. Boston had been 
“borrowing” small sums from an ignorant de- 
positor named Watkins, without giving security, 
Watkins for his part thinking that none was 
necessary. Boston had also been checking out 
Watkins’ money without the knowledge of the 
latter, who could not read his pass book. Wilson, 
the cashier, allowed this practice and paid the 
money to Boston, so that in this way about 
$1,000 was stolen before Watkins discovered it. 
His losses were far greater than the losses of the 
average sufferer, but over the South many 
others had similar experiences. The following 
account from Watkins’ deposition may be taken 
as typical of the feelings of thousands of Negroes 
who lost their money: 
About a week after the bank closed [1874] I carried my 
passbook up there, and also my little boy’s. My little boy 
had $60 in the bank, I think, and I had nine hundred odd. 
Dis Sovagoal Morning News, Dec. 9, 1871; in Washington Patriot,