was in the bond. When at last public opinion compelled the resumption of payment for Sunday work, the department with unconscious irony granted it as a “concession,” and afterwards pointed to it as a reason for continuing an inadequate scale of wages. At the introduction of the scheme the London force consisted of 688 men and 1038 women. To seven-tenths of the male staff it gave an average mean wage of 23s. 5d. a week, and to the remaining three-tenths, 55s. 4d., or 32s. a week more than the others. The reason for such a striking difference on so trifling a wage-scale was not made public. The female section met with similar Shylock-like generosity. Eighty-one per cent got between 16s. and 17s. weekly, and the rest 31s. The actual scale in the Central Telegraph Office was:— Senior Class £140 to £160 by £5 per annum. First Class £100 to £130 ” ” Second Class £70 to £90 ” ” Third Class £45 to £65 ” ” What has always been derisively referred to as “Scudamore’s Folly,” condemned the London telegraphist to a life of poverty; but it condemned his fellow in the provinces to something worse. The provincial male force numbered 3507, and out of this number the generous author of the scheme placed 213 male officers on fixed wages of 7s., 8s., and 10s. a week; while to 151 young men it gave 12s. a week, rising by annual increments of 6d. to 15s.—a state of things closely analogous to the disgraceful boy-sorter system in vogue on the postal side at the same period. The rest of the provincial male officers were divided into small groups, but it is sufficient to say that the greatest money-making department of the State had the effrontery to fix the average mean pay of 3012, or 88.4 per cent. of the whole staff, at less than a guinea a week. Only 405 received the weekly wage of 50s. By the great majority the “Scudamore Folly” was received with resentment; and it was not long before it produced a plentiful crop of petitions, protests, and appeals, which, however, were only received politely to be pigeon-holed indefinitely. A Select Committee of the House of Commons sat in 1876, to inquire into the whole working of the telegraphs, and in their report to the House strongly recommended the desirability of training the operators in the scientific and technical knowledge of the complex and delicate apparatus by which they had to perform their official duties. This was expected to procure some further official acknowledgment of the value and importance of telegraph work. But the importance and signification of this recommendation does not appear to have struck the official mind till June 1880, when the Secretary notified that in future promotion would to a considerable extent be dependent on the acquisition of this technical knowledge. The invitation was responded to very largely in the hope that some benefit would accrue; but all the time energy and confidence were wasted completely.