If the Postmaster-General had been shot at with a popgun he was going to return it with a bomb; and the bomb, being ready, was primed for the 11th of December. On the morning of that date it was thrown. It took the form of a Postmaster-General’s minute, and was sent the rounds of the Circulation Department by means of the general-order book. It started innocently enough, but the sting, like that of the scorpion, was in its tail. It was to the effect that the Postmaster-General had received the memorial from the sorters, but not until it had been improperly published in the newspapers. It proceeded to criticise the terms of the memorial, and to remind them that in the previous July the wages of the memorialists were readjusted by the Treasury, “after very full and careful consideration.” A comparison between the sorters of 1854 and 1874 was then drawn to show that they were no worse off, and that the reduction in the maximum was more than compensated for by the creation of a new overseer’s class. So far, so good, or bad, as they chose to think it; but now comes the cruellest part of it. The Postmaster-General could not stay his hand here. In view of the recent settlement he felt it incumbent on him not only to oppose and check the spirit which the terms of the memorial and the course it had taken exhibited, but “to evince in some unmistakable manner” that he would “not yield to clamour what reasoned justice to the public would withhold.” Accordingly he desired that the memorialists be informed that if their present conditions of service were not suitable to them they were at liberty to seek for other employment. And further, he would understand it to be their intention to do so unless within three days they asked, in writing, for permission to remain. This permission, however, he should not give to those who, having signed the memorial, bore an “indifferent character,” and were “not recommended by their superior officers for retention in the service.” He understood that among those who signed the wicked memorial there were a number of younger men who had “no claims on the department, either on the score of service or otherwise”; and for daring to become dissatisfied already, their names were to be brought specially before him, in order that he might consider whether any, and if so, which of them, should be retained in the service as an act of grace. His lordship furthermore implied that the precious privilege accorded to the more poorly paid of being allowed to add to their miserable incomes by overtime, should relieve them of any cause for complaint in regard to insufficient wages. His reference to their “liberty to seek for other employment” was the bitterest mockery to men who had given so many years to the public service, and for the first time gave expression to that heartless theory of the department that the best cure for grievances was the dismissal of those who dared to complain of them; for that practically was its meaning.