The application of the Raikes scheme to the London and provincial telegraphists, however, was not proportionately beneficial in point of pay, and fell far short of their demands. The maxima for provincial male telegraphists under the new revision were, according to the class of office employed in: 56s., 54s., 52s., 50s., 40s., 38s., 35s., and 32s. a week, as against 50s., 38s., 36s., 32s., and 30s. The maximum of the London men, which was £190 a year—enjoyed, however, only by a limited and exclusive class—was not affected; and the only benefit accruing to them was that the annual rise of £5 was increased to £6. But apart from the question of pay, the scheme left other considerations almost wholly untouched. Classification still remained to taunt and cheat them. The banality of winter holidays still oppressed them, while they complained they were not treated fairly in the matter of full pay in sickness. And the curious irony of this mixed and complicated situation was that the sorters envied the telegraphists, and the telegraphists envied the sorters. On the whole, however, considering the time and the circumstances in which it was drafted, it was a fairly good scheme; but it was far from a perfect one. Not even the sorters, who benefited most, could regard it as a perfect scheme, and the less so when they came to closely examine it. The consideration of the very kindly treatment they had received from Mr. Raikes, and the desire he had expressed to them to give them some pleasing souvenir by which to remember his term of office, took the edge off their criticism. They remembered, too, that he had strongly urged that their maximum should be raised to 58s. a week instead of only 56s., and that he had been supported in this by the then Controller; also that he had shown a desire to give them practical equality with the telegraphists. That the scheme did not meet with their entire approval, or cover all their just demands, Mr. Raikes was not wholly responsible for. All things considered, it was a good scheme, and a generous one for the sorters at any rate.