The two concessions to sentiment and humanity principally appreciated by the sorters and others were the acknowledgment of the insanitary conditions of the sorting-offices and the proposed reduction of the rigours of middle-of-the-night attendance and split duties. But other grievances almost as pressing were either ignored or glossed over, or wholly rejected as not sufficiently proved. In spite of the representations that had been made on every ground of proof that postal servants were overloaded with work and responsibility; that the growing strain and stress was a common cause of brain malady and nervous breakdown; that the conditions of postal life generally conduced to premature decay, and were becoming a prolific cause of consumption, especially among the indoor staffs, the Tweedmouth scheme was to supply no remedy. In spite of the evidence that the conditions of work and the disgraceful overcrowding during the performance of important duties were so largely responsible, it seemed that men were still to be punished and humiliated for errors next to unavoidable. The Tweedmouth scheme, moulded within the narrow groove of a mechanical economy, was to bring no relief for these things. The charges of favouritism in the service had been scouted as not proven; but if there were few well-defined cases of direct nepotism, there still obtained the kindred evil of the neglect, suppression, and humiliation of deserving merit for no other reason than that it was not accompanied with the prescribed abjectness and self-effacement. These evils, and the thousand and one grievances arising out of them, exhaustively and conclusively pleaded as they were before the inquiry, were practically left untouched by the scheme intended to provide a panacea for all postal ills. Hence the disappointment of all classes, both those who were included in the too meagre benefits and those who were not. It was regarded all round as a scheme more for the department than for the force. If the department had made a few concessions, it had exacted a heavy price for them. It had been confidently thought that if they would not concede they would not take away; but the result showed that in return for the little that had been given old privileges were to be ruthlessly cut away and old landmarks disturbed. The scheme reckoned so costly was found by this means to partly pay for itself, and even the hours of duty in some cases were so manipulated as to more than compensate the department for the three days’ increase in annual leave, the most costly item of the whole.