its use to such men as Mazzini and political personages disagreeable to the Government, and allow the postman Booth, and others of its own household, to escape. He had had cause to more than suspect that his letters, addressed to those who were assisting the agitation, had been intercepted, and their purport conveyed to the authorities who had ordered it. To evade the prying curiosity of official detectives and the “Grahaming” process, the letters exchanged through the post between the leaders, and touching on questions of policy, were thereafter directed to a fictitious “Mrs. Harvey” at various convenient addresses. Nor did departmental antagonism, both open and concealed, to the principle of combination rest here. That the ringleaders of the agitation had all along pursued purely legitimate and constitutional methods to obtain redress for their grievances, affording so few technical loopholes through which they might be made answerable, was almost sufficient in itself to cause the department to look on them as mischievous breeders of wholesale contumacy and discontent, and agitators of the most dangerous description. They might have got rid of them one by one “on suspicion”—a process of dismissal which carried with it an implication of common dishonesty—only that the men had now too many powerful advocates, and, moreover, there might have been an outcry in the press against such an obviously hollow pretext. They were so far saved from such a fate as had befallen others of a lesser calibre. But they had, almost unknown to themselves, narrowly escaped losing their personal liberty for the part they had taken. It was only owing to an accidental hint dropped by an eminent member of the legal profession and a member of Parliament, who at the time was friendly disposed towards Booth and his movement, that the whole of them were not made the subjects of a Government prosecution under the odious law of conspiracy. Booth ferreted the matter out, and learnt that the brief was already prepared. The postal leader was given the comforting assurance that he stood to get two years’ imprisonment, and the others nine or six months apiece, and that the writs would probably be issued within a few days. Such, at least, was the information gathered, and circumstances made it extremely probable that the Government contemplated delivering one blow which would not only rid the postal service of a number of powerful agitators, but completely demoralise and disorganise their followers for years to come. If such was the motive, then the Government was checkmated in one simple move. Booth at the time was on the Temple “delivery,” and it was due to this fact principally that he obtained the interest and assistance of several eminent counsel who had either already obtained or had an eye on a seat in the House. After piecing his information together, so as to be morally certain that some such _coup_ was intended, Booth the same day