Lord Of The Isles

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Lord Of The Isles

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 Lord Of The Isles

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.
fortress, the bands meanwhile keeping them in step with “The
Postman’s Knock” and “Rule, Britannia.”
The huge hall of the Cannon Street Hotel was filled to overflowing
within five minutes of the arrival of the procession; and the utmost
enthusiasm took possession of them. Sir John Bennett, who had
already distinguished himself as a friend of the postal workers, was
punctually in the chair. Sir John, with his snowy ringlets, his gold
spectacles, his velveteen jacket and Hessian boots, and his fresh,
clean-shaven, almost boyish features, which so belied his years, was
a familiar public character, and the postal employés felt that in
securing him for chairman they were favoured. Among those
supporting the platform were Henry Broadhurst—not yet M.P., but
only a working stonemason; George Potter, who then owned and
edited the Beehive newspaper; and Charles Bradlaugh, not yet either
so notorious or so distinguished as he afterwards became.
The speeches were stirring, and the keynote of almost every
speaker was that as postal employés enjoyed the right of every
citizen to petition Parliament, they had no need to fear the petty
restrictions of red-tape; and this inalienable right should be their
sheet anchor and their hope. At the same time the authorities were
violently denounced for so meanly visiting their resentment on the
leader Booth by suspending him without any assigned cause; and,
as may be surmised, the most capital was made out of the incident,
the action of the authorities being ascribed to his having dared to
exercise his right as a free-born Englishman; in which, on the whole,
the speakers were probably not far wrong. Mr. M. C. Torrens, M.P.,
and other well-known friends of the movement graced the platform,
and formed the necessary firing party. All the speaking from the
platform was done by the public friends and sympathisers; the
postal employés themselves significantly remaining dumb. They had
not yet the right of free speech, though they had asserted the liberty
of holding a public meeting in this fashion; that was to be tested
later on. The public press noticed the meeting at some length; and it
acted as a splendid advertisement for the postal claims. The next
day Booth was ordered back to the Chief Office, not, however, to
receive his sentence of dismissal as was surmised, but to be restored
to duty without suffering the loss of pay usual in such
circumstances.
For the purpose of discussing ways and means of raising funds to
keep the fire going and sustaining the enthusiasm of the men, there
were also one or two meetings held at a little hall known as the
Albion Hall, conveniently situated in London Wall, near to the
General Post-Office. Mr. George Potter took the chair, and Sir John
Bennett, of Cheapside fame, ably supported.
Sir John Bennett had proved himself one of the staunchest and
most industrious of their numerous public friends at this period. He
had an especial liking for the postmen, and any one of them in
uniform could purchase a three-guinea watch at his shop at
something like thirty-five per cent. discount. But they were doomed
to lose him in a somewhat peculiar manner. The postal volunteer
corps, the then 49th Middlesex, had been formed on the occasion of
the Fenian scare of 1868; and during a recurrence of a similar alarm
from the same causes, a number of the postmen and others joined
the corps in a body. Sir John Bennett was peculiar in his views of
postal patriotism, and dropped the postmen and their agitation from
that moment.
“If,” said he in his blunt fashion, “you who are agitating for better
hours and a better wage can find time to go ‘gallavanting’ about with
weapons of destruction in your hands, you have no reason to ask my
assistance.”
It was scarcely a fair statement of the position; but he was not to
be moved further, and kept his word.
That, however, was a loss not to be sustained till later.
Not long after the great public meeting, and probably resulting
from it to some extent, there was a slight revision in the scales of
pay of the London town letter-carriers. But it was a very niggardly
affair, and the entire benefit secured amounted to about £52 in a
period of fifteen years, or a rise of one shilling and fourpence per
week, no regular addition being made to the maximum or minimum,
while even this small benefit was confined to a small class of about
four hundred men only. This, in the circumstances, could not be
accepted as a complete settlement of all their various claims. It was
not only quite inadequate to meet the needs of the class it was
intended to satisfy, but entirely ignored the claims of the suburban,
auxiliary, and country letter-carriers, and also those of the sorters,
assistants, and porters, many of whom stood in even greater need
of an increase of salary than the limited number who received this
slight benefit. This small unsatisfactory scheme was rendered all the
more unsatisfactory by its giving to the inspectors a really
substantial increase amounting to 8 per cent. on their minimum, 25
per cent. on the annual increment, and 20 per cent. on the
maximum. The inspectors who thus mostly benefited were already
regarded as comparatively a well-paid class, besides which they as a
body had contributed neither funds nor sympathy to the agitation
which had secured these benefits for them. What was intended as a
sop was only another fresh cause for dissatisfaction; and in any case
it was deemed necessary to prosecute the agitation with renewed
vigour.
Thereupon Booth and his associates, with a view of strengthening
the Society and definitely proclaiming their character as trades
unionists pure and simple, got the Postal Union affiliated to the
London Trades Council. They hoped thereby to secure the co-
operation of the various trade societies, should at any time it be
deemed necessary or expedient to call for that assistance which they
themselves were prepared to render to others.
Again, some little time after this great public demonstration, the
leader of the agitation, Booth, found himself suspended from duty
by order of the Controller. It was not that impending dismissal had
any terrors for him, but he was determined to avoid if possible the
humiliation of it. With his usual readiness he decided to take the bull
by the horns in his own fashion. He conceived the idea that unless
some such step as he contemplated were taken at once, his
dismissal, which he knew had been recommended, would this time
be certain. He hurried off to the printers who usually did such work
for the movement in those days, but was told the men could not be
prevailed on to work after the usual time. Booth said he had a job
which would engage them all night, and being told that it was quite
impossible, asked to see the men in a body. He came, he saw, he
conquered, and the men agreed to stop the night through for the
production of a cartoon which had been roughly sketched out. It
took three hours to prepare the lithograph-stone, three draughtsmen
being simultaneously engaged on parts of the sketch. During the
night and early morning four or five thousand copies were printed
off, and by ten o’clock they were being sold like hot cakes in St.
Martin’s-le-Grand and all over the City. To ensure their sale and
circulation they were virtually given away to the street-hawkers, who
retailed them at a penny apiece. The first batch was soon
exhausted, and before the day was over as many thousands more
were sold. The pictorial lampoon had little of artistic merit to
recommend it; it was fearfully and wonderfully made; the drawing
was vile even for caricature; but the letterpress, the scriptural
quotations wittily applied, and the illustrations together, told. The
broadsheet contained four or five separate illustrations having
reference to the recent great procession of postal employés to
Cannon Street Hotel, “in defiance of official threats”; the question of
Sunday labour, hit off by the figure of a portly bishop offering a tract
on Sunday observance to an overladen postman; the recent postal
petition to Parliament, and cognate matters. Booth, suspended from
duty, was represented by a figure on a gibbet, intended as the
mental vision in the mind of the official who had ordered it; while
disposed about in odd corners of the cartoon was a “spy-glass,” “the
bullet,” “ye sack,” labelled “Post-Office persuaders.” It did not bear
criticism, but as the work of a single night it was interesting; and,
what was more, it had some of the effect intended. The suspended
leader was restored to duty the day following.
What had now come to be known as the Postal Petition to
Parliament was from that moment never lost sight of by its
promoters and their followers. Booth and his little staff of lieutenants
worked night and day and every hour that their official duties spared
to them to keep the petition before the members of the House of
Commons. One result of their persistent efforts in this direction was
that they had soon quite a respectable number of Parliamentary
friends who promised to support the motion for inquiry when it came
to be raised on the estimates. And petitioners were not content
merely with verbal promises of support, for where possible they
obtained an autograph letter embodying the promise, which letters
were put on record in the Postman, the organ of the movement.
Booth during this time was untiringly ubiquitous. He was
everywhere, and his hand was in everything, from getting out
circulars to lobbying M.P.’s. He undertook the duties of the orderly as
well as those of the captain.
Among the petty annoyances to which Booth had been subjected
by his zealous superiors was his being made to finish up his evening
duty at the furthest possible point from his home, his last delivery of
letters being by the Angel, Islington, he living at Brixton. But he now
succeeded in getting on a walk by which he had to deliver the
Temple, where eminent counsel and the élite of the legal profession
most do congregate. He did this with a motive, knowing that he
might make friends among those who could command influence. He
soon found an opportunity of making himself known to every legal
M.P. who had chambers in this vicinity, while those who were
prospective candidates for Parliamentary honours no less escaped
his attention. In addition to making friends for the movement by this
means, Booth and his lieutenants—Hawkins, the secretary; Haley, a
fellow-sorter, and virtually second in command; and others,
interviewed eminent divines of every denomination on the sore
question of compulsory Sunday labour in the Post-Office.
Such were the number of promises of support they received from
M.P.’s, and such were their importunities, that at last it was resolved
to hold another conference in the tea-room of the House of
Commons to discuss the petition and decide on some action if
possible.
 Earl Percy took the chair, and among those present who had
pronounced favourably on the postal claims were Mr. Mundella, Mr.
W. H. Smith, and Mr. Roger Eykyn. A deputation of the aggrieved
postal employés had been invited to urge the points of the petition
for a Select Committee of the House, and these points provided
arguments for better pay and improved prospects of promotion, and
the abolition of the hated compulsory Sunday labour.
The conference listened attentively and sympathetically, as
conferences always do when they are composed of politicians out of
office. In the present instance the tea-room conference was
composed chiefly of Tories who coveted the seats on the Treasury
bench then occupied by the Liberals. There could be little doubt
about the honesty of the intentions of Mr. W. H. Smith, of Mr.
Mundella, or of Mr. Roger Eykyn; they each proved it in every
manner possible. They each by this time were well informed on the
postal grievances, having been interviewed privately on previous
occasions. But at this stage of the proceedings the agitators were
not quite sure how far the good intentions of these gentlemen would
be carried into practical effect. For it has ever been a common
practice with the party in opposition, Liberals and Tories alike, just
before the eve of a General Election to gather up all the elements of
discontent throughout the country and promise support to each in
turn. But at length the men, having pleaded their various points,
came away fully assured that in the Tory party lay their principal
hope of salvation, though they were aware that some time must
elapse before their petition could come to be considered by
Parliament. Their one aim now being a Select Committee of Inquiry,
their Parliamentary policy became more active than ever, every by-
election being assiduously watched and every candidate approached
by personal interview or by letter.
At this time, between 1872 and 1874, agitation was rife among all
classes of labour throughout the country, and the feeling of
discontent was principally due to the cost of the necessaries of life
being out of proportion to wages. This was followed by a general
rise in wages to meet the increased cost of living among the working
population, many employers, to their credit, voluntarily raising the
wages of their employés. This circumstance very materially
strengthened the postal claim for an increase on their wretched pay;
but the Post-Office as the greatest employer of labour would not
concede one farthing until compelled by the public and Parliament.
The officials with characteristic obstinacy defended the state of
stagnation as to wages and promotion prevailing in the Post-Office.
On one occasion, about this period, when the leaders of the
agitation had reason to interview the Controller on the matter, that
official, who considered his wisdom was none too well paid at £1200
a year, pointed to himself and reminded them even he had to cut
down his luxuries. This provoked the retort from one of the poorly-
paid men, that in his, the Controller’s, case it simply meant a denial
of luxuries, but in their case it meant a denial of the very necessaries
of life for themselves and wives and families. This might have been
dismissed with an official frown as only a mild impertinence; but the
Controller, a thick-set, burly, overfed man, unwittingly growled out
the brutal truth in his rejoinder, “We don’t engage your wives and
families; we only want the men!”
But the universal rise in wages everywhere outside the Post-Office
could not but provide them with a further justification for continuing
the agitation for an inquiry. They obtained further funds to carry on
the campaign, and more public friends rallied round them. Daily the
postmen were becoming more than ever objects of sympathy.
Subscriptions flowed in steadily from postal bodies all over the
country, and a list of these subscriptions was published in the
Beehive newspaper, which for some time past had opened its
columns to the budding literati of the movement. The postal
organisation had had for some time now an official organ of its own,
the Postman; but as it had not the weight and authority of a public
organ, circulating, as it did, among postal servants only, the
assistance rendered by the Beehive was not inconsiderable. Edited
by George Potter, who of course was in full sympathy with the
agitation, its columns placed at the disposal of the postal cause were
several times contributed to by Lloyd-Jones.
 One postal contributor to the Beehive, who was the literary
champion of the movement, was one of Booth’s lieutenants, a
postman, who wrote under the nom de plume of “Silverstick.” The
contributions of “Silverstick” betrayed no small amount of literary
merit, and were eagerly looked for every issue by the men.
The hospitality of the Beehive was fully taken advantage of at this
time (the official organ of the movement, the Postman, having now
fizzled out), and the agitation received no small support from its
powerful advocacy. George Potter, whose name will always be
associated with public reform, gave the postal advocates carte-
blanche in the use of his organ; and the secretary of the postal
movement, Hawkins, who was employed on it, was assisted in every
possible manner to bring postal grievances to the front. Besides the
Beehive there had been the Postman, which exclusively devoted
itself to the advocacy of their claims, and which, to an extent,
rendered valuable service by being circulated among their outside
public and Parliamentary friends. It may here be mentioned that the
Postman had been started some few years before, being originally
brought out as a small printer’s venture. It was started at the
instigation of a postman named March, who was associated with the
small printer’s business in question, situated in Clerkenwell Close,
and he was principally instrumental in making the Postman the
success it afterwards became. March, the postman agitator, was the
same March who, when he left the postal service built up a
flourishing business as a ballad printer, supplying hawkers and street
singers with topical rhymes, coupled with the publication of more
innocent toy-books and fairy stories for juveniles.
The Postman was almost wholly contributed by the leaders of the
agitation, assisted by notes and scraps of interest from various
correspondents of the different branches of the service. The
circulation was kept going at this time principally by Booth and the
others. It was never allowed to be openly sold in the Post-Office,
though means were found to evade the vexatious prohibition, and
the condemned publication was all the more anxiously looked for
when the day of issue arrived. Booth generally directed special
attention to it among the postmen. He always managed to obtain
advance copies, and, knowing the most important item of news,
gave the word to be passed round directly he came on duty, “Look
on page so-and-so of the Postman.” Before the duty was over it had
circulated all over the General Post-Office.
In connection with this organ of the movement it may be of
interest to mention that for a time it was machined at the same firm
as was the Court Circular or Journal; and there was a story to the
effect that these pages of the two very dissimilar publications being
of equal size, on one occasion two “formes” of type got mysteriously
mixed, and to the amazement of the Postman readers the next issue
informed them, after reporting some of the private doings of the
Queen and Court, that her Majesty had graciously seen fit to order
an inquiry into the postmen’s grievances.
The leaders now decided on a third big public demonstration. The
same preparations as before were made, bands engaged and public
men written to and interviewed to get their presence on the
platform. Exeter Hall was chosen this time as the place of meeting,
and when the date, November 18, 1873, arrived the principal anxiety
of Booth and his lieutenants was as to where they should find room
on the platform for all the brilliant notabilities who had promised to
attend. The chair was this time to be taken by Mr. Roger Eykyn, M.P.
for Windsor, while their old champion, Sir John Bennett, was once
more to appear with his well-known and ever-welcome “So here we
are once again, my postman friends!” The district contingents as
before met at Finsbury Square, and with brass bands playing and
colours flying they marched to St. Martin’s-le-Grand, where at eight
o’clock they were promptly joined by the men of the Chief Office.
Then defiantly striking up “Rule, Britannia,” they moved on towards
Fleet Street, the authorities meanwhile crowding at the windows of
the General Post-Office to watch the procession as it swept round
into Newgate Street. On reaching Fleet Street the greatest
excitement prevailed, the traffic had to be suspended, and crowds
from all parts joined in the congestion. The postal procession was
this time preceded by two red mail-vans, which, with the postmen in
uniform, gave it a tone of local colour. The band, during its slow
progress towards the place of meeting, improved the shining hour
with “The Postman’s Knock” and “Work, Boys, Work, and be
Contented,” a musical sarcasm in the circumstances much
appreciated. Exeter Hall was not large enough to hold the immense
throng who sought admission, and an overflow meeting had to be
held in a side street. Exeter Hall platform presented a distinguished
gathering of public men supporting the chair, which was filled by Mr.
Roger Eykyn, the member for Windsor. Among those who crowded
the platform was the midget-like figure of the redoubtable George
Odger, president of the London Trades Council, who had brought
with him a deputation of trades unionists. There were a large
number of members of Parliament, and the principal labour leaders
of the day, notably Mr. George Howell, who had already endeared
himself to the postal servants by doing an enormous amount of work
for them one way and another. The meeting was addressed by Sir
Antonio Brady and several distinguished M.P.’s, among the number
being W. Williams, M.P., W. Fowler, M.P., and A. Stavely Hill, M.P.
It was at this meeting that Booth determined to test once and for
all the right of postal servants to speak in public. He and one or two
others spoke, and Booth took means to get their utterances reported
among the speakers.
The result was as he had anticipated. He and the others were
carpeted before the Controller. That official said that his attention
having been drawn to the reported meeting, it was his duty to call
on them to explain. There was nothing very objectionable in the
language they were reported to have used, but the fact of speaking
at all sufficiently compromised them as Government servants. Booth
and his associates were called on for written statements, and they
each defended their conduct on the ground that they were
exercising a common citizen right in asking Parliament and the public
for a redress of those grievances which the department had refused
to consider.
 Within a few days they were again called up to listen to a severe
reprimand from the Postmaster-General. There was some protest to
a few public men, and Mr. Roger Eykyn interviewed the Permanent
Secretary on behalf of the men; but there the matter ended.
The men themselves, however, feeling that their speeches had
been so studiously modest and moderate, could not but regard such
notice being taken by the authorities as both arbitrary and
unconstitutional, and opposed to the spirit of English liberty.
Based on the resolutions passed at this public meeting, a monster
petition to the House of Commons was prepared on behalf of the
letter-carriers, sorters, porters’ assistants, rural messengers, and
others employed in the minor establishment of the Post-Office
throughout London, suburban, provincial, and rural districts. Having
regard to the increased cost of living and the rise in the value of
most classes of labour, they submitted that the time had arrived
when such an addition should be made to their pay as would
constitute a more adequate remuneration for their arduous and
responsible duties. A Commission of Inquiry was also strongly asked
for to receive evidence on the questions of promotion, Sunday
labour, and general grievances not specified but known to exist.
One of the principal planks in the platform of the postal movement
at this time was the abolition of compulsory Sunday labour for letter-
carriers; and in furtherance of this end Booth and the other agitators
interviewed the most eminent divines and religious leaders of the
day. Among those whose assistance was sought to procure a free
Sunday for postal workers was Cardinal Manning. A deputation of
Booth and two other postmen waited on his Eminence at his
residence. He was politic in discussing the question; he sympathised
with them in their laudable efforts to relieve Sunday labour; but he
hesitated to pledge himself to assist them; he must have time to
consider the matter. The deputation withdrew inspired with very little
hope from their diplomatic reception. The truth was Cardinal
Manning hesitated to in any way assist in hampering the
Government while Mr. Gladstone was tackling the Catholic University
question. They interviewed Dr. Parker at the City Temple, with a
vague sort of hope that he might denounce postal Sunday labour
from his own pulpit. But Dr. Parker did not prove the rigid Calvinistic
Sabbatarian they imagined; he thought that certain forms of labour
were very necessary even on the Lord’s Day, and it was desirable to
receive letters from distant friends and relations at least once on
Sunday. Even Professor Fawcett and Mr. Charles Bradlaugh both
concurred in thinking this a weak plank in their platform, and tried to
induce Booth to abandon it for a time at least. But Booth would not
be dictated to even by two such men as these, and expressed his
determination to try to carry it through in spite of all opposition.
This question of compulsory Sunday labour, as it affected the rural
letter-carriers especially, was a very sore one. Some lines of verse
written by one of their number were about this time freely
circulated. The few lines selected will show that they possessed
tolerable poetic merit.
 THE POSTMAN’S DAY OF REST

We are toiling, we are toiling on each sunny Sabbath morn,

We are toiling when the dewdrops sparkle on the white-robed
thorn,
We are toiling when the sons of toil have found a Sabbath blest;
But for us no Sabbath dawning, no holy day of rest.

We are toiling thro’ the dewy fields ere peeps the eye of morn,
When the mist on pastures hanging makes the aspect so
forlorn;
Thro’ mud and mist, and mire, and rain we pick our toilsome
way,
While fellow-men are warmly housed upon the Sabbath day.

If in the annals of the world your names unrivalled stand,

Then cleanse so foul a blot from the escutcheon of our land,
And a thousand hands shall cease from toil, and find a day of
rest,
And the God of heaven shall bless you, as He has our country
blest.

F. K. (Letter-carrier).

[An appeal from the rural letter-carriers of England, who are

employed delivering letters, circulars, and newspapers on the
Sabbath day.]
While this question of Sunday labour was being pushed to the
front, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, M.P., desiring to become Mayor of
Birmingham, was approached by Booth, who promised him the
whole postal support of the town if Mr. Chamberlain would in return
direct his influence against Sunday duty imposed on postal officials.
The promise was given; Mr. Chamberlain became mayor, but he now
found it would be inexpedient in the commercial interests of
Birmingham especially to abolish Sunday labour in the Post-Office.
 Although the right to exercise the one privilege accorded to every
British citizen, that of presenting a petition to Parliament, had up to
now been their mainstay and the bulwark of their personal
protection, the agitators constantly found that they were the objects
of departmental attention. They had been particularly careful, for the
success of their movement, to proceed along thoroughly
constitutional lines, and nothing could have tempted Booth and his
associates to depart from this. As has already been shown, the
disappointment induced by the protracted methods of the
Government, and the antagonism of the officials to the agitation,
was such that it might easily have risen to the point of rebellion had
the leaders been so inclined; but they were not; and as it was they
had frequently to exercise to the utmost their restraining influence
on the men. It was scarcely to be supposed that the authorities
would give them any credit for this, and as was only natural,
perhaps the leaders were held wholly responsible for the strained
relations between the department and its subordinates. Booth and
his lieutenants therefore had no mercy to expect from their superiors
should they commit themselves. The very surveillance, the constant
spying, and every manner of testing and trap-laying to which Booth
especially was subjected, would have caused any other man with
less fortitude and with a more sensitive temperament to have given
up long before he did. But to all the insidious influences to which he
was exposed, Booth especially never showed the least concern, but
went about his work as though there were never an official to dog
his footsteps even to his own door, nor a band of the permanent
officials anxiously waiting and watching for the moment when they
might reasonably dismiss him with humiliation and degradation. In
the official mind in those days, whoever lent themselves to agitation
within the walls of a Government office could be little better than
desperadoes and conspirators, disloyal alike to the service and the
public. It was not to be wondered at, then, that they were regarded
as playing a desperate game, which, to go no further, even as yet
almost brought them within the clutches of the law. The agitators
were not blind to the position in which they stood, nor ignorant
altogether of the desire of the authorities to encompass their
destruction. Already Booth had been most unpleasantly made aware
that his private correspondence had been tampered with in its
passage through the post; that, before reaching his hands, the
letters addressed to him had been watched for and “Grahamed”—to
use an expression which signified the secret methods of opening and
overhauling suspected people’s correspondence then, as a survival of
the “Espionage Room,” more or less in vogue in the Confidential
Inquiry Branch of the General Post-Office. While the department had
such a piece of machinery as this at its disposal, it was not going to
confine its use to such men as Mazzini and political personages
disagreeable to the Government, and allow the postman Booth, and
others of its own household, to escape. He had had cause to more
than suspect that his letters, addressed to those who were assisting
the agitation, had been intercepted, and their purport conveyed to
the authorities who had ordered it. To evade the prying curiosity of
official detectives and the “Grahaming” process, the letters
exchanged through the post between the leaders, and touching on
questions of policy, were thereafter directed to a fictitious “Mrs.
Harvey” at various convenient addresses.
Nor did departmental antagonism, both open and concealed, to
the principle of combination rest here. That the ringleaders of the
agitation had all along pursued purely legitimate and constitutional
methods to obtain redress for their grievances, affording so few
technical loopholes through which they might be made answerable,
was almost sufficient in itself to cause the department to look on
them as mischievous breeders of wholesale contumacy and
discontent, and agitators of the most dangerous description. They
might have got rid of them one by one “on suspicion”—a process of
dismissal which carried with it an implication of common dishonesty
—only that the men had now too many powerful advocates, and,
moreover, there might have been an outcry in the press against such
an obviously hollow pretext. They were so far saved from such a fate
as had befallen others of a lesser calibre. But they had, almost
unknown to themselves, narrowly escaped losing their personal
liberty for the part they had taken. It was only owing to an
accidental hint dropped by an eminent member of the legal
profession and a member of Parliament, who at the time was
friendly disposed towards Booth and his movement, that the whole
of them were not made the subjects of a Government prosecution
under the odious law of conspiracy. Booth ferreted the matter out,
and learnt that the brief was already prepared. The postal leader
was given the comforting assurance that he stood to get two years’
imprisonment, and the others nine or six months apiece, and that
the writs would probably be issued within a few days. Such, at least,
was the information gathered, and circumstances made it extremely
probable that the Government contemplated delivering one blow
which would not only rid the postal service of a number of powerful
agitators, but completely demoralise and disorganise their followers
for years to come. If such was the motive, then the Government was
checkmated in one simple move. Booth at the time was on the
Temple “delivery,” and it was due to this fact principally that he
obtained the interest and assistance of several eminent counsel who
had either already obtained or had an eye on a seat in the House.
After piecing his information together, so as to be morally certain
that some such coup was intended, Booth the same day hastily
summoned a meeting of the executive of the postal organisation,
and before night handbills were in circulation advertising the fact
that Booth was now the sole official representative of the movement.
Next day he learnt the contemplated prosecution was to be
abandoned, for the sufficient reason that the Law of Conspiracy
could not very well be made to apply to one man only, it taking
three at least to become conspirators. After Booth’s adroit
manœuvre they could not with decency proceed against the
agitators by legal action, and so nothing more was heard of the
matter.
CHAPTER VIII
 A TEST OF “THE LABOUR MARKET”—THE UGLY
DUCKLING OF TRADES UNIONISM—MR. GEO.
HOWELL’S ASSISTANCE—FURTHER
DEMONSTRATIONS—THE DEPARTURE OF BOOTH.

Notwithstanding the numerous strong expressions of public

opinion evoked by the recent meeting of the 18th November 1873,
the Government showed no disposition to meet the moderate
demands put forward in the petition to the House of Commons. The
authorities particularly seemed bent on resisting the claims of the
men. Acting on instructions issued in a Treasury Minute issued under
the previous Government, they extensively advertised for persons to
fill the places of the letter-carriers. Yet, as a matter of fact, there
were no such vacancies as alleged in the public advertisements,
unless the department contemplated dismissing the existing staff
wholesale. The ostensible reason given was an experiment to “test
the labour market.” There was a rush of applications, but there was
a cruel insincerity in the whole business. A large proportion failed to
pass the medical examination, while others who had passed were so
disgusted at the neglect they received, and the time they were kept
waiting in suspense, that they refused to attend for final approval.
There had been something like twelve hundred applicants originally,
and of these only nineteen were finally passed as suitable for the
situations. The fact spoke for itself, and confirmed the opinion,
generally entertained, that it was nothing more than an attempt to
damage and discredit the case of the men, and intimidate and
discourage the “agitators.”
If this experiment to “test the labour market” did nothing more, it
tended to promote still further the feeling of misunderstanding in the
minds of the general public, and assisted to obscure the issue.
However, the aggrieved postal employés, as represented on the
London Trades Council, were accredited trades unionists. The trades
unionists of the Metropolis, little as they understood their case, were
compelled to take them into partnership.
By this time the efforts made by the postal employés had attracted
considerable attention from every quarter; but trades unionists
generally were almost as much at a loss to understand the precise
nature of their claims as were most people, and there was much
need for information. From the press reports and allusions to the
matter in Parliament from time to time, a vague notion existed that
postal employés were badly paid, and wanted better treatment, but
little was known as to the real objects sought, or of the means by
which they were to be obtained. The peculiarity of their position, the
fact of their not being handicraftsmen in the generally-accepted
sense of the term, caused their movement still to be looked on as
the ugly duckling of trades unionism, and many were against
allowing its claim for kinship. It was principally due to Mr. George
Howell that this feeling of misunderstanding was removed. The
condition of the postal employés and their battle for liberty was for
the first time brought prominently before the trades unionists of the
country at the Sheffield Trades Union Congress, January 1874. Mr.
George Howell was secretary of the “Trades Parliamentary
Committee,” and as a special delegate of the Postal Society, he read
a paper which most clearly and convincingly showed that postal
servants were in need of sympathy and moral assistance from the
organised labour of the country. To the majority present it came as a
revelation that those in Government employ were so restricted in the
matter of civil rights. In thanking Mr. Howell for his valuable paper,
they desired to express their sympathy with the movement of the
postal employés for increased pay, better regulation of the hours of
labour, the abolition of Sunday work, and a just system of
promotion. The Congress recommended their cause to the trades
societies of the United Kingdom, as well worthy of support.
The first General Election of 1873-4 had come and gone, and Mr.
Gladstone found himself again returned to power, but with a
majority of only forty. He immediately dissolved the House, and
forthwith appealed to the country a second time.
 The country was again in the throes of a General Election, and
towards the fag-end, and before the result was certain for either
party, another meeting of postal employés was called again at Exeter
Hall. Meantime a written letter was sent by the Society’s secretary,
Hawkins, to every Parliamentary candidate, asking for support in
their demands. Nearly one hundred of those who gave their pledge
were eventually returned to the new Parliament.
When it became known that preparations were in progress for
holding another meeting, the authorities issued an official edict
threatening with the penalties of insubordination any one found
attending. They liked the Cannon Street Hotel meeting but little for
the unenviable publicity it gave the department, but the prospect of
the Exeter Hall meeting they liked still less. The meeting was again
“proclaimed,” but a full two thousand attended, notwithstanding.
Again there was music and banners, and a procession through the
streets, and two thousand or more filled the vast space confronting
the historic platform. Mr. Mundella took the chair on this occasion,
and was supported by several Tory M.P.’s just returned triumphant
from the poll. There was among them Mr. Ritchie, Mr. William
Forsyth, Captain Bedford Pim, and Sir Charles Dilke. There were a
number of eminent clergymen, among them the Rev. John Kennedy,
D.D., and the Rev. Hugh Allen. The latter reverend gentleman
generally prefaced his remarks at postal meetings with the words,
“Those who distribute the correspondence of the country, distribute
the wealth of the country, and their pay should be in proportion to
their responsibility.” This agreeable sentiment was at once
appropriated as the motto of the movement, and it figured on the
stationery, and more than once on their banner. There was also the
Rev. John Murphy, well known at the time as the “Bishop of
Lambeth,” who had assisted right through the struggle till now.
Altogether the platform presented a gathering of eminent men of
almost every degree.
Mr. Mundella, as chairman, was just about finishing his address
when the herculean form of Charles Bradlaugh was seen hurriedly
pressing his way on to the platform. As the heretic agitator took his
seat not far from that region of the platform sanctified by the
presence of so many clerics of different denominations, there were
some signs of dissent among some of the postmen in front. It
almost immediately subsided with a wave of the chairman’s hand;
and at Booth’s request Mr. Bradlaugh was given fourth place among
the speakers, as he had to leave early. The several other speakers
spoke, and it came to Bradlaugh’s turn. But immediately his huge
form rose from the chair there was a hostile demonstration which
gradually swelled in volume. Mr. Mundella requested the postal
leader, who was sitting beside him, not to insist on Mr. Bradlaugh
being heard. Charles Bradlaugh himself, always considerate in the
interests of his friends and those whom he wanted to assist, thought
his speaking might mar the success of the meeting, and made as if
to leave the platform; the “booing” and groaning continuing
meanwhile. They had not till now been ashamed to listen to and
take counsel from the freethought lecturer “Iconoclast,” and many
who now groaned at him had cheered him to the echo when it
suited them. The hostile demonstration was probably only their way
of paying a compliment to their reverend friends on the platform,
though there were one or two, at least, among them who had come
to assist in this good cause who would not have hesitated there and
then to burn the heretic amidst a bonfire of his own godless
pamphlets kindled with the light of sacred truth.
“You see, Mr. Booth, they will not hear him,” said Mr. Mundella,
rather testily. But “Bulldog” Booth, as he was now known among his
intimates, was not to be beaten. “Then dissolve the meeting, sir,”
said he stoutly. “But they will hear him.”
The chairman rose and succeeded in calming the storm; and Mr.
Bradlaugh essayed to speak. He had always been an active
sympathiser with the postmen and the postal movement. It was not
the first time he had stood before them. Once on his feet with a
determination to make himself heard, he would not be denied. A
towering figure, a leonine head, and huge, pale, clean-shaven face,
with its mastiff’s mouth, he looked as ugly as Mirabeau, and as
tremendous. Yet there was the charm of simplicity and a conviction
of earnestness in his utterance, which made them feel ashamed at
his reception. He spoke for four minutes, and adjured them to
maintain the principle of combination; to stick together, to exercise
their rights as citizens and to use their votes, and to support those
who supported them. When he had finished, Bradlaugh received
probably as loud an ovation as any who followed. A number of the
clerical friends of the postmen naturally took the line of denunciation
against forced Sunday labour, and their utterances for the most part
were curiously reminiscent of those speeches on the self-same topic
on that same platform twenty-five years before.
Among other eminent labour leaders and Radical politicians of the
day there figured George Howell, who never failed the postmen in
their need, and who had interviewed perhaps more members of
Parliament and the heads of the Government than any other public
man; for at this period it had particularly fallen to Mr. Howell’s lot to
represent their case in this manner.
Shortly after this great Exeter Hall meeting the society published a
balance-sheet, which clearly showed the enormous amount of work
involved in the previous two years’ crusade. During the two years of
agitation, numerous meetings, both reported and unreported, had
been held; they had carried the war into almost every part of the
kingdom, they had interviewed public men innumerable, prepared
and got signed three monster petitions to Parliament, and attained
to the dignity and importance of occupying the time and attention of
the House of Commons more than once. The general
correspondence of the society during the two years of its existence
had involved the writing of no less than 2546 letters; while to the
public press communications to the tune of nearly 2000 had been
sent out. But, altogether, during the two years nearly 14,000
communications were addressed to Parliamentary candidates, M.P.’s,
public men, and others. Truly, the Post-Office had been made to
direct its hand against itself. Among the list of subscribers were the
names of several public men, including Canon Liddon and Sir Charles
Dilke.
 The organisation of combined postal servants was now being
perfected in various ways. Interviewing members of Parliament, both
privately and at the House, was now almost of daily occurrence; and
Booth and the various others were on terms of intimacy with most of
the prominent men of the day.
It was this time a Conservative Government in power, and those
members who wished to show a desire to redeem their promises
convened a conference of the known Parliamentary friends to the
postal cause. For the Exeter Hall meetings had had a marked effect
on the press and the public. The conference was therefore called at
the Westminster Palace Hotel, a stone’s-throw from the House itself.
It was to be quite public, and reporters admitted. A deputation of
the aggrieved men attended to urge their case once more. Mr.
Roebuck was this time in the chair; and Mr. Stavely Hill and
numerous other influential and well-known M.P.’s formed the self-
appointed jury. Booth once more went over the old ground of their
grievances; and Haley, another postal agitator, also gave an able
exposition of their simple claims, which appeared to impress them
favourably. The immediate result of the conference was that Mr.
Roebuck, on behalf of his colleagues, promised to do an indefinite
something as soon as found convenient.
They so far redeemed their pledge and showed their confidence in
the justice of the postal claims as to privately urge the Government
to take up the matter. For a month or so there was a superficial
quietude among the discontented men. There were no meetings, but
the postmen and the letter-sorters were subscribing to the general
fund. There was no further interference on the part of the officials,
probably from the fact that they were now beginning to recognise
that the movement was too strong, and rendered stronger by press
sympathy and public support. Eventually Mr. Roebuck—“Tear ’em,” as
he was called in reference to his pugnacity in the House—brought up
the matter of the postal case for inquiry on the Estimates. Booth,
Haley, and the rest of the leaders of the agitation were found a place
under the gallery, by the side of Sir John Tilly, the secretary, and Mr.
Scudamore; for in some things the House is no respecter of persons.
The debate was eminently interesting, and brought out all the points
of the postal case in a marked degree.
The reply of the Government was unfavourable; and the
argument, which has done duty so many times since, that there was
really no just cause for complaint, was then used for the first time,
and set an easy precedent, which nearly all succeeding Postmasters-
General faithfully followed.
After the debate the leaders of the agitation crowded round the
members in the lobby, Roebuck particularly was besieged by the
disappointed men; but he shook himself free of them with the air of
a man who had done his duty, and was determined to court failure
no further. “Tear ’em” Roebuck was evidently chagrined and as
annoyed as his clients, and he turned on them almost with a snarl.
“You see I can do no more; the Government won’t interfere,” said
he, and strutted away. The Government had left them to their fate;
but pressure was privately brought to bear on Lord John Manners,
who was now Postmaster-General. The refusal of the Government to
interfere on behalf of the oppressed and aggrieved postal employés
after all the promises of the Tory party, and after all the patronage
extended to them publicly, resulted in such a feeling of resentment
and disappointment among all classes of the service, that Booth the
leader had the utmost difficulty in holding his followers in check.
There was, indeed, one abortive attempt at a strike among the Hull
postmen, and the spark might have ignited the whole had Booth and
his associates given encouragement to it. It wanted but a breath
from the agitators at this moment to fan the whole into a blaze.
Booth during this time never lost heart; he was as indefatigable as
ever; scarcely a day passed but what he interviewed somebody or
was himself interviewed. He had carried the art of interviewing to
such an extent that he several times personated the secretary of the
postal movement, Hawkins, for the purpose of getting editors and
pressmen to say a word or two in behalf of the baffled, but as yet
not defeated, agitation. By personating his own secretary in getting
himself interviewed he thus evaded the official rule which forbade
any postal servant communicating with the press, and which there is
little doubt would have been mercilessly enforced against any one in
the service caught doing it too openly. But however little they had to
expect from the permanent officials, they felt that with a
Postmaster-General as representative of the party from which only
recently they had received so much sympathy and patronage, active
hostility would not be allowed to be carried too far. Moreover, they
felt pretty safe in conjecturing that, come what may, what the law
officers of the late administration had hesitated to carry to a
completion would not in a hurry be resorted to under the new
Government of the party which included so many tried and pledged
friends of postal reform. True, the Conservative Government, which
the postal vote had in some measure helped to bring back to power,
had so far disappointed them in not at once taking up their case as
they were led to believe it would. But they were aware that their
grievances were still occupying the attention of a large number of
the members on both sides of the House, and that a large amount of
influence was being brought to bear on the Postmaster-General.
From Lord John Manners there was still something to be hoped for.
And this hope was sustained by the plausible rumour that the
Government’s refusal to inquire into their grievances was only a
diplomatic way of empowering the Postmaster-General to do all that
might be found to be necessary towards ameliorating the conditions
of the service over which he had been put to rule. Yet the cloven
hoof peeped out in an unexpected manner, and sooner than was to
be looked for.
Lord John Manners, so long as he was in opposition, had not
declined to be counted among the Tory supporters of Booth and the
postal agitation, he having replied in favourable terms to letters and
circulars soliciting his support towards obtaining the asked-for
inquiry. There is perhaps always some allowance to be made for one
newly taking office, and inconsistency is to an extent allowable, if
not to be looked for. But it came as a surprise and something of a
shock to Booth especially to learn that the new Postmaster-General,
resisting all overtures from those of his own party, was about to set
his face uncompromisingly against their claims and against the
representatives who might urge them. Certainly, on the face of it, it
seemed a wonderfully gracious act in a Postmaster-General to
consent to receive a deputation of the men for the purpose of
hearing once more from their own lips the story of their grievances
he was already so well acquainted with. An application for an
interview had been sent forward, in itself perhaps a piece of audacity
almost unheard of, and to the surprise of the men themselves it was
intimated that the interview would be granted. It was granted, but
only with the condition that Booth should not be present. By the
time that this was announced Booth had got over his first surprise,
and was quite prepared for the intended snub, but scarcely for the
unjustifiable insult which followed. It had been previously arranged
that he should lead the deputation, but it was now officially
conveyed to him that the Postmaster-General, while willing to see a
deputation of the letter-carriers and sorters, must refuse to receive
Booth “on account of his official bad character.” There was a feeling
among the force that if the Postmaster-General would not see the
leader the deputation ought not to go forward, but Booth put himself
out of the question, and advised them to meet the head of the
department and to obtain what advantage was possible. It was
therefore decided to do so; but the undeserved insult, though
inflicted on the man, was none the less felt to be aimed at the
principle of combination, and their hopes were overshadowed with
the suspicion that the interview was granted mainly for the purpose
of better marking the agitators for future reference. The Postmaster-
General’s treatment of Booth was scarcely likely to reassure them or
to maintain their confidence in his fairmindedness. Throughout the
agitation Booth had been careful not to run foul of his superiors on
official matters, and his official character had been good enough to
please Lord John Manners and his party before the last General
Election.
The deputation to the Postmaster-General was memorable if only
from the fact that this was the very first occasion the public head of
the department had ever consented to receive representatives of the
working staff. It looked like a concession, and as such would read
well in the Tory press especially. But the men in their hearts were
prepared for the disappointment which was to follow, and
anticipated that it was the Postmaster-General himself who intended
to get the most out of the interview.
A few weeks afterwards, about the beginning of August, a scheme
was announced. But it proved to be nothing more than an inflated
bubble which, when pricked, contained only a few paltry advantages
for the letter-carriers. The advantages were small enough in all
conscience, amounting to some small increase in pay and benefits as
to stripes for good conduct.
But small as were the benefits, the letter-carriers so appreciated
them that they decided to continue the agitation no further, and
Booth, not without reluctance, resigned his position as the postmen’s
leader. The only return Booth got for all the labour and all the
responsibility he had taken on himself was that he was left with a
debt of £35—a no insignificant amount to one in his position. By the
aid of one of his friends he was able to obtain a loan, and with a
characteristic independence paid it off without troubling the men
with his private affairs. It was not that his followers proved
ungrateful; they simply did not know the condition in which the
agitation had stranded him; and perhaps he was too proud to inform
them. There was the usual effort to testimonialise him and those
who had most assisted him; but the thing was badly managed. An
illuminated address was already prepared for Booth, and it was
shown to him at his private house. There was also a purse of money
subscribed, which would have proved a little fortune to him in the
predicament, but there was some little sordid dispute among one or
two who fancied themselves entitled to an equal share. This
treatment so aroused the contempt of Booth that, seizing the
illuminated address, which he regarded as more than conventionally
insincere in the circumstances, he passionately tore it to fragments
before them and flung it into their faces, ordering them to leave the
house immediately. He refused to touch a penny-piece of the money
subscribed; but instead set himself steadily to work to pay off the
debts he had incurred on account of his connection with the
agitation. So far, if the department wanted its revenge, it had it now.
Booth having freed himself from debt, shortly afterwards, owing to
failing health, applied for and obtained the small pension of about
eight shillings a week he was entitled to. And so departed one of the
most persistent as well as one of the most courageously-consistent
agitators the Post-Office or any other Government department has
ever been troubled with. Booth’s career as an agitator had been a
brief one, but it had been as brilliant as it was brief. And perhaps,
after all, there was some truth in his claim that he had largely
assisted to overturn two Governments and put in another.
CHAPTER IX
 FORCED LABOUR—A GENERAL POST-OFFICE RIOT—A
POSTAL POET—THE WANING OF THE MOVEMENT
—THE PUBLICATION OF A MEMORIAL—
WHOLESALE DISMISSALS.

At this time, and for long previous, there was no definite eight-
hour day officially recognised for the working staff at the General
Post-Office. That was a privilege as yet definitely enjoyed by few
besides the clerical establishment. If there was any official rule
regulating and limiting the working hours of the rank and file, that
rule and those regulations were vitiated by the practice of the
supervising officials. The men were subjected to nothing less than
forced labour; the hours which should have been given up to sleep
and leisure were extorted from them; and forced contributions of
their well-earned liberty were remorselessly levied upon them. They
were liable to be summoned back for duty at any time during their
intervals of rest. There was no assured time for rest or proper sleep.
They were compelled to dispose of incoming foreign mails without
remuneration of any kind. As the department had decided such mail
matter must be disposed of without cost, at first the men had to
rotate for this purpose, and it generally fell to their turn about once
a month. In former days this practice may not have constituted a
great hardship; but when, owing to the increased and improved
means of transit across seas, foreign mails arrived several times a
week, it became a very real grievance. American mails then arrived
only about once a month, instead of daily as at present; but there
were other mails to be taken account of, and their arrival and
treatment were often delayed for disposal by this cheap method. If
the practice had stopped at the monthly summons, or an extra
attendance for every man every week or so, the strong discontent
arising from it might have been averted. But the principle of
extorting from men already too poorly paid and harshly treated, this
disgraceful poll-tax in time was still further extended after a while.
 The occasion which principally provided the officials with an
excuse for imposing on the force still further was the introduction of
the halfpenny post; and when this came to be recognised by the
public as a boon, the men became the victims and the sufferers. The
reduced rate for newspapers and circulars was soon taken
advantage of by company promoters very largely. The notorious
promoter, Baron Grant, who did everything on a colossal scale, sent
in prospectuses, referring to the Emma Gold Mine, at the rate of half
a million at a time, completely swamping the Newspaper Branch,
where such correspondence was disposed of. The authorities’ only
method of meeting the emergencies which so frequently arose was
to get the extra work of the public (which already meant so much
more profit to swell the revenue) done by forcing the overburdened
and underpaid men to do it for nothing in the time which should
otherwise have been theirs. The method of forced labour, so
analogous to that form of slavery which aroused the righteous
indignation of the civilised world when practised a few years later by
the Boers on the unfortunate Kaffirs, was not only thought proper
but persisted in by the officials of an English Government
department. Whatever excuses, if any, that might be made for the
rapacious East-End sweaters, could not be made for the profit-
minting monopoly of St. Martin’s-le-Grand and those who guided its
machinery.
The men protested again and again, but without avail. Refusal to
comply with this form of tyranny or worse, imposed in the name of
duty and discipline, would have meant rank insubordination,
punishable with dismissal without character. Probably their protests
never got beyond the branch superintendent, to whom they
complained; but the authorities ought not to have been wholly blind
to the men’s treatment. If there was no Treasury grant of money to
cover the cost of extra duty of this nature, as was pointed out, then
the parsimony and meanness of the authorities was only to be
excused by their utter laziness in not endeavouring to get such a
demand met honestly and fairly.
 The grievance speedily attained to the dimensions and importance
of a grave scandal. Yet the authorities seemed determined that, kick
and struggle against the pricks as the men might, they should
submit to it. And the men, grown weary of complaining against the
injustice, and losing all faith in the fairness of those over them, were
equally resolved that it should not continue much longer without one
last vigorous protest from them. The climax of indignation was
reached one morning in March 1873, when the whole of the force
were ordered as usual to stay behind their time. There were mails
above and below in the Newspaper and Letter Branches, and tons of
circulars waiting in reserve. The men rushed to their kitchens, and
securing their articles of clothing, made for the principal exit leading
to liberty and the Post-Office yard. This they found closed and bolted
against them and guarded by a posse of overseers, the official
doorkeeper, and numerous amateur policemen—constables disguised
as sorters. They were sternly ordered back to their duties; but by
this time, even if they would, they could not turn for those now
pressing behind and thronging the lobby. The officials appeared on
the scene and exhorted them not to disobey orders; but the
murmurs that arose convinced them that at last the mutiny had
come. The men demanded the door to be opened and the removal
of the constables. They took it as an added insult that such Siberian
methods should be put into force against them, for whatever their
humble position in the public service, yet still they bore the name of
free-born Englishmen. The officials, convinced they were acting
within their right, refused and repeatedly ordered them to fall back.
For half-an-hour or more the men, nearly a thousand strong by this
time, endured it; the heat was oppressive in the closely-packed
crowd, and the stubborn obstinacy of the men guarding the door
was making the crowd excited. There were cries of execration, and
from the rear came a hurricane of balls of twine with sticks of
sealing-wax. The officials retreated to safer quarters, leaving the
men guarding the door to carry out their duty or die. The lobby,
which was a narrow neck of space leading from the Letter Branch to
the coveted doorway, was becoming like the Black Hole of Calcutta,
and many men were on the point of fainting. The doorkeepers were
pale but determined, and stood with their backs to the coveted door.
The situation was as serious to them as to the mutineers
themselves. With the men the injustice of the official instruction to
stay at their duties without pay might be sufficient to palliate their
disobedience to it, especially when there were nearly a thousand of
them to answer for it. But with those at the door it was slightly
different; they had to do their duty, and they looked like men who
were determined to sell their lives dearly if it came to it, though it is
probable that if they could have trusted each other the bolt would
have been quietly drawn. To those in the thick of the swaying,
sweltering crowd of angry and excited men the heat was getting
unbearable. Some one, or several at once, suggested rushing the
doors; but to deliberately break down the barrier seemed to spell
mutiny of the worst kind, and numbers of the front ranks held back
at the prospect of afterwards being named as ringleaders. The
responsible officials retired to a distance and watched with the grim
satisfaction of schoolmasters who were “keeping in” a refractory
class of school-children. The realisation that they were being kept
prisoners at the behest of one or two of their superiors was
intensifying the impatience and the excitement of the sweltering
crowd behind, and impatience soon grew to desperation. The air
was repeatedly filled with groans and hisses, and the storm of
groans was presently turned by some one facetiously striking up a
bar of “Britons never, never shall be slaves!” That was enough, for
the men behind especially. They remembered they were Britons. A
square of infantry with fixed bayonets could not have stopped them
now. They were solidly packed several hundreds strong in one long
stream, fed every moment by reinforcements as they gained courage
to leave the sorting-tables. Fortunately some one by an adroit
manœuvre had turned a line of heavy mail-trucks and trolleys,
placed there either carelessly or purposely, or the result might have
been disastrous to those in front. Menaces and shouts were directed
towards the men who barred their way; but neither threats nor
appeals would move them, and it seemed they would be flattened
against the door they were so zealously guarding, for those in front
could no longer hold against the mighty pressure of the hundreds
behind. The crowd heaved and rocked like a huge billow. There were
shouts and groans and some were real, a tremendous scuffle, a
sound like the cracking of ribs, a crash of woodwork, a shattering of
glass accompanied with a louder yell; the doors burst from their
fastenings, and the hot perspiring stream of angry men vomited
itself into the open air and the daylight. Then the wild mob’s several
hundred feet scattered down the steps into the Post-Office yard, and
the men who had broken their red-tape bonds to assert the liberty of
the person again burst into such a roar of triumph that a jaded
horse on the cab-rank outside in Aldersgate Street took fright and
bolted. The untoward commotion stopped the stream of traffic in St.
Martin’s-le-Grand, and crowds assembled outside the Post-Office
railings while the police hurried to the scene from every by-turning.
The general traffic was disordered for half-an-hour, till the last
remnant of the imprisoned men issued from the gates.
As the result of the scrimmage several men got scratches and
bruises, and there were one or two bloody noses. It ought to have
been as much a matter for congratulation for the authorities as for
the men that nothing more disastrous occurred. But the officials
chose not to see it in that light, and several who had been grabbed
in the rush by the doorkeepers were haled up like escaped convicts
before the presiding superintendent and others of the smaller
authorities to answer for the conduct of the whole. Six men were
there and then suspended from duty without pay for an indefinite
period, and with the prospect of dismissal before them.
It was only to be expected that the public would take an
exaggerated view of the incident; and the idea gained credence that
a veritable riot had taken place inside the Post-Office. Some, indeed,
thought it meant a postal strike. The evening paper came out with
an account of the “Riot at the General Post-Office,” which, it need
hardly be said, was scarcely accurate.
The humour of the situation was skilfully hit off a day or two later
by a parody on “The Light Brigade,” by one Tom Glamorgan, already
recognised as a postal poet. It was said the verses were scribbled