So indifferent to the barest claims of humanity had the officials calling themselves the authorities now become that the men could barely call their souls their own. If they were allowed an ownership over their spiritual being, that was only to suit theoretical requirements, but in actual fact their personal liberty was more circumscribed than ever. They had always to remember that they were postal officials first, and men and husbands and fathers afterwards. Away from the office or otherwise they were to regard themselves as still on duty, at least when off duty they were to hold themselves always in readiness to respond to a telegram summoning them to the office; consequently they must never make appointments, except at their own risk. A man failing to respond to the call of extra duty was not only set down as a shirker and one unwilling to serve the department in an emergency, but he was very often punished and insulted into the bargain. Superintendents and the “heads of departments” in those days particularly were allowed unchecked to give fullest vent to their own personal predilections, their own particular likes and dislikes, and if it was that they were not allowed a larger discretion than in these days, it was mostly due to the fact that the men had no means of resenting such barefaced assertions of autocracy. While the men bore it without a combined protest, a superintendent of a branch might, if he chose, become a little despot, with the power to render miserable the hundreds of men under his control. For as is the master so are his stewards and bailiffs. The example set by one higher official is eagerly imitated by his immediate subordinates, and those over whom they have control are the sufferers.