Thus it will be seen that nearly everything which the agitation had set out to do, all the reforms which it had promised, were left for a future generation. A long period of stagnation had set in, and but for the faint echo of agitation occasionally coming from the telegraphists, the Post-Office, so far as uttered discontent was concerned, might have been wrapped in slumber. Lord John Manners had departed for good, unwept, unhonoured, and unsung. His advent and departure had witnessed no change in the conditions of the service. Time in the Post-Office dragged its slow weary length along till the year 1881 was reached. That year was to witness a glad surprise for the dejected sorting staff at least. If Lord John Manners was the one man who was to be bitterly remembered as having battened down the hatches on the galley-slaves, set a seal on their freedom of action, and put a premium on official exaction, Professor Henry Fawcett was the one who came at last to offer them a fuller share of air and liberty. Lord John Manners, belonging to the political party which had encouraged their demands, and, in the persons of some of its most prominent men, almost, it might be said, aided and abetted the agitation, so far from carrying out the reforms which had been confidently expected of him, had discouraged their aspirations by means of a whip of scorpions. They had asked for bread, and he had given them something worse than a stone. Professor Henry Fawcett had scarcely been approached, certainly not by those who figured in the late agitation, yet remembering his promises of bygone years, and with a generous desire to meet the necessities of their case, he of his own free will, and almost spontaneously, offered reparation for the long disappointment they had sustained. Mr. Fawcett, though never taking a prominent part, or figuring too largely in the letter-carriers’ and sorters’ three years’ agitation, yet had associated himself with it to an extent, often giving his wise counsel to Booth and the others, and always his sympathy and best wishes for bettering the conditions of the service. He showed that he was not likely to forget now. Discontent among the telegraphists had reached a somewhat acute stage, and the new Postmaster-General busied himself for some time in arriving at the inner facts of their case. He rose from his study of the telegraphists’ troubles with a conviction that something must be done to meet the justice of their demands. It was not clamour that weighed with him, but a genuine inclination to do the right thing so far as in him lay, and to put in order the household which his predecessors had more or less neglected. He had the fullest desire to mete out justice to the telegraphists, but there was the sister branch of the service to be considered likewise. That portion of the Augean stable was, if anything, in a worse condition, and he decided to ascertain for himself.