Such was the message of Lord John Manners to the men who had been guilty of asking for a redress of their grievances and a small increase of pay. Such was the manner in which he requited the confidence reposed in him by his humble subordinates, and such was the manner in which he set about redeeming the fair promises of the party which had so sustained the agitation while they were in opposition. The Postmaster-General’s minute was almost as vile an instrument as that with which the late Government had contemplated crushing combination and smothering the claims of the aggrieved by prosecution, only that their heart failed them at the last moment. It was virtually a demand for the heads of the ringleaders. It provided a warranty for wholesale dismissal, and placed a weapon in the hands of minor officials which, apart from their inclination, they were fully authorised and expected to use against a certain number. They were told that they were to consider they had relinquished the service, but applications to be retained would be considered, though there would be no guarantee. As was only natural in the circumstances, the men, thinking of their wives and families, and knowing that refusal to accept the humiliation meant instant dismissal, complied, and wrote their applications as directed. An overseer was sent round to collect them into a bunch, and then it was the poor men found themselves, as if drawn into an ambush, basely betrayed. Their last lingering confidence in the honour of the aristocrat who made blue blood only the criterion of nobility was rudely shattered. The whole thirty men who as representing their fellows had been induced to sign the memorial were suspended from duty, with the prospect of dismissal, the forced humiliation of their applications notwithstanding. A fortnight before Christmas one hundred and forty men of the sorting force were called up before the Controller for admonishment. These included the thirty suspended men, who were taken last. They were all admonished in much the same terms in the name of the Postmaster-General, and to the majority it was intimated that the granting of their applications would depend on their future conduct. But five of the men, those regarded as more or less prominent in the recent agitation, were to be dismissed; and the five condemned men were accordingly marched out of the office, with a bitter winter and the world before them.