[185] “Life,” ii. 122. On the famous 10th of April 1848 (Chartist day) Colonel Maberly likewise showed his martial spirit and strong sense of the virtue of discipline when he requested Rowland Hill to place his own clerks and those of the Money Order Office—in all about 250—under his, the Colonel's, command, thus making up a corps of special constables some 1,300 strong. All over London, on and before that day, there was great excitement; a large supply of arms was laid in, defences were erected at Governmental and other public buildings, very little regular work was done, and there was any amount of unnecessary scare, chiefly through the alarmist disposition of the Duke of Wellington—seldom, rumour said, averse from placing a town in a more or less state of siege, and ever ready to urge upon successive Governments the desirability of spending huge sums on fortifications whose destiny ere long was to become obsolete—though partly also because there were many people still living who could remember the Gordon riots immortalised in “Barnaby Rudge,” and who feared a repetition of their excesses. But the Chartists were a different set of men from Gordon's “tag, rag, and bobtail” followers. On the morning of the 10th, my father, driving to the Post Office, came up in Holborn with the long procession marching in the direction of Kennington Common (now a park), preparatory to presenting themselves with their petition at the Houses of Parliament. Calling on the cabman to drive slowly, my father watched the processionists with keen interest, and was much struck with their steady bearing, evident earnestness, and the bright, intelligent countenances of many of them. On close inspection, not a few terrible revolutionists are found to look surprisingly like other people, though the comparison does not invariably tell in favour of those other people. [186] The _Mercury's_ article (25th April 1850) was so good that it seems worth while to quote some of it. “Macaulay informs us that the post, when first established, was the object of violent invective as a manifest contrivance of the Pope to enslave the souls of Englishmen; and most books of history or anecdote will supply stories equally notable. But we really very much doubt whether any tale of ancient times can match the exhibition of credulity which occurred in our own country, and under our own eyes, within these last twelve months.... Nearly 6,000 people have been relieved from nearly six hours' work every Sunday by the operation of a scheme which was denounced as a deliberate encouragement to Sabbath-breaking and profanity.” [187] _À propos_ of never answering attacks in the Press and elsewhere, my father was not a little given to quote the opinion of one of the Post officials who “goes so far as to declare that if he found himself charged in a newspaper with parricide, he would hold his tongue lest the accusation should be repeated next day with the aggravation of matricide.”—“Life,” ii. 235.