their case; and if they could not obtain redress from the department which had so far betrayed their confidence, they would revert to other and more drastic means. The old companies’ men were not so tame and submissive as perhaps the authorities had anticipated. They regarded the clause in the Telegraph Act as undoubtedly covering themselves, and at least, if it did not entitle them to being placed on an equality with the lower or second division of the Civil Service—upon which they maintained the framers of the Act intended them to be placed—they should be accorded better treatment in minor respects. The scant hospitality the new comers had received at the hands of the authorities for months rankled deeply within them. They found that they had been delivered into the house of bondage; and Mr. Frank Ives Scudamore, and the others of the authorities who wore their honours so thick upon them for effecting the transfer of the mighty business, were hard and inconsiderate taskmasters where their humbler servants were concerned. The disappointment increased with the realisation that the department repudiated its promise and its obligations as contained in the Act, and the mutterings of discontent swelled in volume. The first attempt at organisation for redress was made in 1871, the year following the transfer. If they came in like lambs, they preferred to go out, if they went out at all, like roaring lions. During the few months they had been in the employ of their new masters the thousands of company men had found a ready means of intercommunication and an exchange of news and ideas. Men became familiarised with each other from a distance all over the country, and the electric current of discontent ran freely along the wires from every large centre. In every large office throughout the kingdom there were eager spirits waiting for the opportunity to do something towards promoting the agitation and establishing a common line of action. They had the very instrument in their hands which most favoured their desire and their plans. The mine was laid; it wanted but the electric spark of a united purpose to fire the train. Exactly how the mine was prepared and sprung perhaps will never be definitely known. It was communicated from several of the large towns that the aggrieved men were animated with a single purpose and desire; each did their share in the way of convening meetings among the staff, in making collections for a general fund, and giving mutual help and encouragement. As is always the case, the leaders came forward as the occasion demanded it; but it is somewhat difficult to assign the authorship of this first movement to any particular individual. The agitation was less the result of any personality or quality of leadership than it was the spontaneous response to a widely-spread sense of injustice. One curious result of the unanimity of feeling, and the spontaneity of its translation