Happily, however,--for happy, in one sense, it was,--these schemes and the hitherto abortive attempts to carry them into execution, did not reach the public ear, or others might have desisted from entertaining similar plans. As it was, it was still open to any one else to take up the matter _de novo_; and this is what actually did happen. We can well believe, without the assurance with which he has favoured us, that the next adventurer in these apparently difficult seas had no notion that they had been previously navigated. This circumstance does not take from his merit; but it certainly increased his difficulties. How the matter was eventually brought about in the face of the adverse decisions which we have just given, though somewhat better known, is within our province to tell. In the hands of Mr. Sikes, of Huddersfield, any matter once taken up was not likely to fail for want of thorough ventilation and earnest advocacy. This gentleman had for years interested himself in the extension of Savings Banks. We have already spoken of the fruits of his industrious pen; and now he was once more to propose in a similar manner, and with his accustomed eagerness, another new scheme which he had carefully thought over and developed in his own mind. Once sure of it himself, he resolved to devote himself to its advocacy; to bring it not only before the proper authorities, "but before the public, at the proper time." Mr. Sikes evidently did not dally with the matter. As he made no sort of mention of the Post Office in his evidence before the Savings Bank Committee of 1858, we may fairly assume that at that time the idea of using the Post Office had not occurred to him. He himself states, that, occupied with a favourite idea which he had long cherished, of bringing a Savings Bank "within less than an hour's walk of the fireside of every working man in the kingdom," the organization of the Post Office suddenly occurred to him, and he dwelt upon it till he had struck upon some scheme for applying the one to the other.