"The affair was immediately investigated. Harrington and the secret-service officials involved themselves in an inextricable mass of perjury, and then the detective first employed by Harrington came forward and revealed the whole conspiracy. The feeling against the scoundrels who had thus plotted to ruin the character of an upright and honourable man was very bitter. The masks were torn from their faces and they stood revealed in their true colours. The few honest men who had been deceived by their pretences into defending their acts repudiated them utterly. This exposure of the wrong-doings of the Secret Service led to the refusal of Congress to make any appropriations for its pay, with the exception of a small force attached to the Treasury Department. The old Capitol prison was converted into dwelling-houses and nearly all the agents were scattered over the country, many of them becoming connected with private secret-service organisations. As a general rule, these fellows are inferior in intellect and ability, if not in honesty, to the professional rascals whom they occasionally arrest. They often lay traps for weak men in crimes designed for them, and find vulgar employment by those seeking divorce from matrimonial bonds. Secret Service is certainly not a necessity in a Republic in times of peace, and when their virtues and their weaknesses during the War for the suppression of the Rebellion are impartially summed up, it will be difficult to decide whether those who professedly served the Union were a blessing or a curse to it."