them from attaining a reasonable wage within a reasonable time, and they declared that they better required a present living wage than the far-off prospect of reaching £400 a year at the moment of being forced through old age to retire from the service. Such a “prospect” was nothing more than a cruel _ignis fatuus_ while this delusive system of classification was sustained. One curious result of the Fawcett scheme was that the telegraphists declared that they were not placed on an equality with the postal side, as was intended by the spirit and letter of it, while the postal agitators a little later adopted similar arguments to prove that they had not been placed on an equality with the telegraphists, as was also intended. Dissatisfaction with their position in the service, despite the late scheme, gradually became acute once more among the telegraphists. On July 17, 1881, one month from the issuing of Mr. Fawcett’s intended remedy and stop-gap for further agitation, a conference held at Liverpool resolved that a permanent organisation covering the whole of the United Kingdom was an absolute necessity to prevent further encroachments upon them and to preserve what little they had already gained. December 3, 1881, saw the Postal Telegraph Clerks’ Association launched into existence. Immediately from all over the country support was forthcoming, the greater part of the provincial offices rallying round the standard set up at Liverpool. Mr. Fawcett, as may be imagined, was not pleased at the manner in which his well-intended scheme was received by the telegraphists, but he met all criticism and all opposition with that unflinching courage of the philosopher which was his chiefest trait. An utterance made by him at this period, when speaking at Hackney, November 2, 1881, affords an interesting glimpse into his mind on this question. On that occasion he said, “All experience shows that the sense of wrong remains long after a grievance has been redressed and an injustice remedied.” Whether or not the grievances had been redressed and the injustices remedied, as he honestly intended they should be so far as lay in his power, certainly the original sense of wrong was to remain long afterwards. This surviving sense of wrong, Mr. Fawcett probably hoped, would gradually die out as his remedy applied its healing balm. But it was to survive longer than he anticipated, and to be fostered till it developed into almost a passionate outburst which, in a few years to come, another equally great and strong man, Mr. Raikes, had eventually to calm and temporarily check by yet another measure of relief. CHAPTER XIV SEVEN YEARS OF STAGNATION—THE POST-OFFICE AND GUTTER JOURNALISM—REVIVAL OF POSTAL JOURNALISM—A CHRISTMAS STRIKE AVERTED—FIRST GLIMPSE OF A NOTABLE AGITATOR—THE PETITION “THAT HELD THE FIELD.”