Mr. Alfred Boulden presented the telegraphists' grievances as to pensions. He demanded that retirement on pension should be optional at the age of fifty; and that if a man died in harness, such deduction as had been made from his salary toward the pension fund, should be paid to his heir-at-law. Mr. H. C. Fischer, Controller London Central Telegraph Office, replied that "optional retirement at 50 years of age would result in the more healthy members of the staff retiring at that age, and seeking other employment to add to their income, leaving the less healthy and less useful persons to hang on in the service as long as they could."[416] Mr. A. W. North presented another grievance, namely, that a female telegraph clerk can become a female superintendent in 21 years, whereas a male telegraph clerk can reach the corresponding position only after 27 years of service.[417] [Sidenote: _The Malingerers' Grievance_] Mr. J R. Lickfold appeared as the representative of the postal employees to demand that in the case of an employee having failed to appear for duty, the Department should accept without any inquiry whatever the medical certificate of any physician. At this time it was the practice of the Department to doubt the genuineness of the illness and the _bona fides_ of a medical certificate only in case "the man had a bad record for frequent short sick absences," "though it was a well known fact that private [physicians' as distinguished from departmental physicians'] certificates could be obtained for 12 cents without even the doctor seeing the patient, but on a mere statement of his symptoms from somebody else." In support of this request, Mr. Lickfold, as the instructed representative of the postal employees, could make no better argument than to cite the dismissal, early in 1894, of two railway Post Office sorters, W---- and J----. In the evidence in rebuttal, Mr. J. C. Badcock, Controller London Postal Service, gave the following account of the episode in question. W---- and J---- were absent from duty from January 8 to 11 inclusive. On January 10 they sent in medical certificates dated the 8th, but the date of one of the certificates had apparently been changed from the 9th. W----'s landlady testified that W---- and J---- had returned to W----'s lodgings on the 8th, shortly after the departure of the mail train, saying that they had missed the mail, but saying nothing of illness. She added that both men had been repeatedly at W----'s lodgings on the 8th and 9th. Both W---- and J---- were absent from their lodgings during the greater part of the three days from the 8th to the 10th. The Post Office inspector found J---- in bed on the night of the 10th. J---- told him he had not seen W---- since the 6th, gave evasive answers, and contradicted himself. The inspector also found W---- on the night of the 10th, and gave an equally unfavorable report upon W----'s answers. On the 11th,