repudiate all connection with its publication. The matter became the subject for special reference in the Post-Office Circular, and the two innocent men who had inadvertently allowed their names to be printed on the incriminating leaflet, were made to thus publicly renounce connection with it and to disavow all implication in the heinous design set forth. After that the two organisations went their separate ways, and they were not to meet again for some years afterwards. But though they went their separate ways it was always in the same direction and along almost parallel roads, and often so near to each other that they could occasionally catch the glimpse of their raised banners as they marched towards the common goal. CHAPTER XIX THE AFTER EFFECTS OF THE POSTMEN’S STRIKE—THE RAIKES SCHEME—FRESH DISSATISFACTION—AN ESTIMATE OF MR. RAIKES. If Mr. Raikes’ cautious nature made him slow to convince, he nevertheless at last came to realise that the rampant discontent throughout his domain called for some effective remedy other than coercion. It was not only the continual heckling in the House, or the numerous public meetings of postal servants themselves; but, as Sir John Puleston, M.P., himself a personal friend of Mr. Raikes, pointed out to the telegraphists at the Foresters’ Hall meeting at which he presided, the Postmaster-General was himself inwardly convinced that there were defects in the postal service which called for a speedy and effective remedy. But while the continuance of postal agitation everywhere must have hastened the conviction that something was radically wrong, it somewhat retarded the application of the remedy.