The officials profited little by the experience of that occasion a year or so previous when the men, goaded beyond the limits of forbearance, took the law into their own hands and boldly broke through the imprisoning doors, and asserted their liberty as free men in a free country. These disgraceful rushes for liberty—disgraceful only on the part of the authorities, who sought to imprison them like convicts, forgetful that they were public servants in the service of the most freedom-loving country in the world—were several times repeated. And the men who dared to protest in this primitive fashion, which was now the only one left to them, were as frequently threatened and punished. The officials apparently thought that by singling out a few individuals here and there they would terrorise the rest into an acceptance of this unjust system of forced and compulsory labour without pay, and bolster up their own authority. Whatever extra duty that was paid for was paid for on the lowest scale possible, and, coupled with that, was in most cases rendered compulsory between most inconvenient hours, so as to deprive the men of either rest or recreation. After completing the half of their day’s work they would find themselves, perhaps on their arrival home, suddenly summoned back on duty right in the middle of the day, between 10 A.M. and 2 P.M. This, it will be seen, meant a serious loss of time to them, as they were on duty again at 4.30 P.M., and for all this they were rewarded with nothing better than payment equal to the “docker’s tanner”—sixpence per hour.