Then there were even more disturbing objections. Could the defenders at the English end always be relied on as absolutely loyal Englishmen? _The Field_, without naming any names, wrote of "proof that in the United Kingdom itself ... there are numbers of daring and reckless persons" who, "to gain their sinister ends ... would not hesitate to sacrifice the independence of the country." Frankly, the paper feared possible acts of treachery in the tunnel by "a handful of unprincipled desperadoes." And the _Spectator_, visualizing the thing in more detail, suggested that its readers "consider ... the danger of treachery ... the rush on the tunnel being made by Irish Republicans in league with the French, while the wires of the telegraph were cut, and all swift communications between Dover and London suddenly suspended." Taking all the risks of the tunnel into account, the _Spectator_ said it could not bring itself to believe that "even in this age, with its mania for rapid riding and comfortable locomotion, such a project will be tolerated." The _Sunday Times_, for its part, pointed out that, as things stood, "the silver streak is a greater bar to the movements of Nihilists [and] Internationalists ... than is generally believed." But, it added, "with several trains a day between Paris and London, we should have an amount of fraternising between the discontented denizens of the great cities of both countries, which would yield very unsatisfactory results on this side of the Channel." Meetings and debates to discuss the tunnel menace were held all over England, and even at a meeting of so progressive an organization as the Balloon Society of Great Britain, which was held in the lecture room of the Royal Aquarium at Westminster, the subject was discussed with "some warmth of feeling ... on both sides." There was a wide circulation of sensational pamphlets, written in pseudohistorical style, that purported to chronicle the sudden downfall of England at the end of the nineteenth century through the existence of a Channel tunnel—Dover taken, the garrison butchered, the English end of the tunnel incessantly vomiting forth armed men, London invaded, and England enslaved—all of this in a few hours' time.