ASSERTING THE RIGHT OF PUBLIC MEETING—PUBLIC AND PARLIAMENTARY FRIENDS—CONFERENCE OF M.P.’S—THE ORGANS OF THE MOVEMENT—MEETING AT EXETER HALL—A MONSTER PETITION TO PARLIAMENT—ELUDING THE LAW OF CONSPIRACY.
ASSERTING THE RIGHT OF PUBLIC MEETING—PUBLIC AND PARLIAMENTARY FRIENDS—CONFERENCE OF M.P.’S—THE ORGANS OF THE MOVEMENT—MEETING AT EXETER HALL—A MONSTER PETITION TO PARLIAMENT—ELUDING THE LAW OF CONSPIRACY.
But it was not Booth’s way to take a defeat so tamely. Almost immediately the organisation was re-formed on a more definite basis than ever, with a new high-sounding title of the “United General Post-Office and Telegraph Service Benefit Society.” Rules were made and collections were started; Booth was appointed chairman, and a dismissed agitator, named Hawkins, was engaged as secretary. After the official rebuff the men felt it unsafe to join openly, but they none the less joined secretly, and cheerfully responded to the calls upon their purse. Booth animated the whole movement; and it is probable that but for him the department would have seen it crumble to pieces, yet they probably saw that his dismissal just then would only have strengthened his arm against them. The authorities, however, went so far as to suspend him from duty on some trivial pretext; and Booth was not slow to turn the fact to his advantage. He immediately set about organising a public meeting to be held at the Cannon Street Hotel, 16th July 1873. The objects of this meeting were twofold: it was to strengthen the hands of the members of Parliament who were supporting the postal petition, and it provided a means of protesting against the leader’s unjust suspension. But mainly it was intended as a hint to the Government, and as a parade of strength to show that their Parliamentary friends were well supported by a following in the postal service. A few days previous to the date of themeeting a conference had taken place in the tea-room of the House of Commons, attended by nearly every member pledged to their support, from whom the statement of grievances, made by Booth and several others, received a very attentive hearing. Among the members of Parliament who had interested themselves in the postal case were Mr. W. H. Smith, Mr. A. J. Mundella, Mr. Roger Eykyn, Mr. J. Locke, and several other influential members. And it was to give support to their friends in the House that this first Cannon Street Hotel meeting was called.
On the Post-Office vote being taken on Monday, 28th July, the claims of the aggrieved postal employés were strongly urged upon the attention of the Government by each of those members who had attended the tea-room conference, and the advocacy of Mr. W. H. Smith, Mr. Mundella, and others was particularly able. The reply of the Government was, however, unfavourable, or at least unsatisfactory.
The antagonism towards their claims, as voiced in the House by the Postmaster-General and other members of the Government on that occasion, caused Booth to decide on another public meeting. This meeting of protest against the decision of the Government was called also in Cannon Street Hotel, on Tuesday, 5th August, and was to be presided over by Sir John Bennett. The forthcoming meeting was officially “proclaimed,” and the men were warned against attending such public demonstrations; but it was looked forward to with enthusiasm. Elaborate preparations were made for the forthcoming meeting, and almost all the funds in hand were used to ensure its success. Five brass bands were engaged, and the procession of district men then off duty, marshalled by Booth, was to start from Finsbury Square so as to reach St. Martin’s-le-Grand a minute or so before eight o’clock, the hour when the staff at the General Post-Office would cease work. The district contingents turned out strong at the place of meeting, and by a quarter to eight the procession of postmen in uniform, followed by an enormous crowd of sightseers, moved in the direction of Cannon Street by way of St. Martin’s-le-Grand. The five brass bands blared out some stirring marching tunes, and the procession was animated with all the enthusiasm ofmen anxious of defying authority. On reaching the General Post-Office they were quickly joined by the letter-sorters, letter-carriers, and others, and their numbers now swollen to a big battalion, they marched to Cannon Street Hotel as if to capture a fortress, the bands meanwhile keeping them in step with “The Postman’s Knock” and “Rule, Britannia.”
The huge hall of the Cannon Street Hotel was filled to overflowing within five minutes of the arrival of the procession; and the utmost enthusiasm took possession of them. Sir John Bennett, who had already distinguished himself as a friend of the postal workers, was punctually in the chair. Sir John, with his snowy ringlets, his gold spectacles, his velveteen jacket and Hessian boots, and his fresh, clean-shaven, almost boyish features, which so belied his years, was a familiar public character, and the postal employés felt that in securing him for chairman they were favoured. Among those supporting the platform were Henry Broadhurst—not yet M.P., but only a working stonemason; George Potter, who then owned and edited theBeehivenewspaper; and Charles Bradlaugh, not yet either so notorious or so distinguished as he afterwards became.
The speeches were stirring, and the keynote of almost every speaker was that as postal employés enjoyed the right of every citizen to petition Parliament, they had no need to fear the petty restrictions of red-tape; and this inalienable right should be their sheet anchor and their hope. At the same time the authorities were violently denounced for so meanly visiting their resentment on the leader Booth by suspending him without any assigned cause; and, as may be surmised, the most capital was made out of the incident, the action of the authorities being ascribed to his having dared to exercise his right as a free-born Englishman; in which, on the whole, the speakers were probably not far wrong. Mr. M. C. Torrens, M.P., and other well-known friends of the movement graced the platform, and formed the necessary firing party. All the speaking from the platform was done by the public friends and sympathisers; the postal employés themselves significantly remaining dumb. They had not yet the right of free speech, though they had asserted the liberty of holding a public meeting in this fashion;that was to be tested later on. The public press noticed the meeting at some length; and it acted as a splendid advertisement for the postal claims. The next day Booth was ordered back to the Chief Office, not, however, to receive his sentence of dismissal as was surmised, but to be restored to duty without suffering the loss of pay usual in such circumstances.
For the purpose of discussing ways and means of raising funds to keep the fire going and sustaining the enthusiasm of the men, there were also one or two meetings held at a little hall known as the Albion Hall, conveniently situated in London Wall, near to the General Post-Office. Mr. George Potter took the chair, and Sir John Bennett, of Cheapside fame, ably supported.
Sir John Bennett had proved himself one of the staunchest and most industrious of their numerous public friends at this period. He had an especial liking for the postmen, and any one of them in uniform could purchase a three-guinea watch at his shop at something like thirty-five per cent. discount. But they were doomed to lose him in a somewhat peculiar manner. The postal volunteer corps, the then 49th Middlesex, had been formed on the occasion of the Fenian scare of 1868; and during a recurrence of a similar alarm from the same causes, a number of the postmen and others joined the corps in a body. Sir John Bennett was peculiar in his views of postal patriotism, and dropped the postmen and their agitation from that moment.
“If,” said he in his blunt fashion, “you who are agitating for better hours and a better wage can find time to go ‘gallavanting’ about with weapons of destruction in your hands, you have no reason to ask my assistance.”
It was scarcely a fair statement of the position; but he was not to be moved further, and kept his word.
That, however, was a loss not to be sustained till later.
Not long after the great public meeting, and probably resulting from it to some extent, there was a slight revision in the scales of pay of the London town letter-carriers. But it was a very niggardly affair, and the entire benefit secured amounted to about £52 in a period of fifteen years, or a rise of one shilling and fourpence per week, no regular addition beingmade to the maximum or minimum, while even this small benefit was confined to a small class of about four hundred men only. This, in the circumstances, could not be accepted as a complete settlement of all their various claims. It was not only quite inadequate to meet the needs of the class it was intended to satisfy, but entirely ignored the claims of the suburban, auxiliary, and country letter-carriers, and also those of the sorters, assistants, and porters, many of whom stood in even greater need of an increase of salary than the limited number who received this slight benefit. This small unsatisfactory scheme was rendered all the more unsatisfactory by its giving to the inspectors a really substantial increase amounting to 8 per cent. on their minimum, 25 per cent. on the annual increment, and 20 per cent. on the maximum. The inspectors who thus mostly benefited were already regarded as comparatively a well-paid class, besides which they as a body had contributed neither funds nor sympathy to the agitation which had secured these benefits for them. What was intended as a sop was only another fresh cause for dissatisfaction; and in any case it was deemed necessary to prosecute the agitation with renewed vigour.
Thereupon Booth and his associates, with a view of strengthening the Society and definitely proclaiming their character as trades unionists pure and simple, got the Postal Union affiliated to the London Trades Council. They hoped thereby to secure the co-operation of the various trade societies, should at any time it be deemed necessary or expedient to call for that assistance which they themselves were prepared to render to others.
Again, some little time after this great public demonstration, the leader of the agitation, Booth, found himself suspended from duty by order of the Controller. It was not that impending dismissal had any terrors for him, but he was determined to avoid if possible the humiliation of it. With his usual readiness he decided to take the bull by the horns in his own fashion. He conceived the idea that unless some such step as he contemplated were taken at once, his dismissal, which he knew had been recommended, would this time be certain. He hurried off to the printers who usuallydid such work for the movement in those days, but was told the men could not be prevailed on to work after the usual time. Booth said he had a job which would engage them all night, and being told that it was quite impossible, asked to see the men in a body. He came, he saw, he conquered, and the men agreed to stop the night through for the production of a cartoon which had been roughly sketched out. It took three hours to prepare the lithograph-stone, three draughtsmen being simultaneously engaged on parts of the sketch. During the night and early morning four or five thousand copies were printed off, and by ten o’clock they were being sold like hot cakes in St. Martin’s-le-Grand and all over the City. To ensure their sale and circulation they were virtually given away to the street-hawkers, who retailed them at a penny apiece. The first batch was soon exhausted, and before the day was over as many thousands more were sold. The pictorial lampoon had little of artistic merit to recommend it; it was fearfully and wonderfully made; the drawing was vile even for caricature; but the letterpress, the scriptural quotations wittily applied, and the illustrations together, told. The broadsheet contained four or five separate illustrations having reference to the recent great procession of postal employés to Cannon Street Hotel, “in defiance of official threats”; the question of Sunday labour, hit off by the figure of a portly bishop offering a tract on Sunday observance to an overladen postman; the recent postal petition to Parliament, and cognate matters. Booth, suspended from duty, was represented by a figure on a gibbet, intended as the mental vision in the mind of the official who had ordered it; while disposed about in odd corners of the cartoon was a “spy-glass,” “the bullet,” “ye sack,” labelled “Post-Office persuaders.” It did not bear criticism, but as the work of a single night it was interesting; and, what was more, it had some of the effect intended. The suspended leader was restored to duty the day following.
What had now come to be known as the Postal Petition to Parliament was from that moment never lost sight of by its promoters and their followers. Booth and his little staff of lieutenants worked night and day and every hour that their official duties spared to them to keep the petition before themembers of the House of Commons. One result of their persistent efforts in this direction was that they had soon quite a respectable number of Parliamentary friends who promised to support the motion for inquiry when it came to be raised on the estimates. And petitioners were not content merely with verbal promises of support, for where possible they obtained an autograph letter embodying the promise, which letters were put on record in thePostman, the organ of the movement. Booth during this time was untiringly ubiquitous. He was everywhere, and his hand was in everything, from getting out circulars to lobbying M.P.’s. He undertook the duties of the orderly as well as those of the captain.
Among the petty annoyances to which Booth had been subjected by his zealous superiors was his being made to finish up his evening duty at the furthest possible point from his home, his last delivery of letters being by the Angel, Islington, he living at Brixton. But he now succeeded in getting on a walk by which he had to deliver the Temple, where eminent counsel and the élite of the legal profession most do congregate. He did this with a motive, knowing that he might make friends among those who could command influence. He soon found an opportunity of making himself known to every legal M.P. who had chambers in this vicinity, while those who were prospective candidates for Parliamentary honours no less escaped his attention. In addition to making friends for the movement by this means, Booth and his lieutenants—Hawkins, the secretary; Haley, a fellow-sorter, and virtually second in command; and others, interviewed eminent divines of every denomination on the sore question of compulsory Sunday labour in the Post-Office.
Such were the number of promises of support they received from M.P.’s, and such were their importunities, that at last it was resolved to hold another conference in the tea-room of the House of Commons to discuss the petition and decide on some action if possible.
Earl Percy took the chair, and among those present who had pronounced favourably on the postal claims were Mr. Mundella, Mr. W. H. Smith, and Mr. Roger Eykyn. A deputation of the aggrieved postal employés had been invitedto urge the points of the petition for a Select Committee of the House, and these points provided arguments for better pay and improved prospects of promotion, and the abolition of the hated compulsory Sunday labour.
The conference listened attentively and sympathetically, as conferences always do when they are composed of politicians out of office. In the present instance the tea-room conference was composed chiefly of Tories who coveted the seats on the Treasury bench then occupied by the Liberals. There could be little doubt about the honesty of the intentions of Mr. W. H. Smith, of Mr. Mundella, or of Mr. Roger Eykyn; they each proved it in every manner possible. They each by this time were well informed on the postal grievances, having been interviewed privately on previous occasions. But at this stage of the proceedings the agitators were not quite sure how far the good intentions of these gentlemen would be carried into practical effect. For it has ever been a common practice with the party in opposition, Liberals and Tories alike, just before the eve of a General Election to gather up all the elements of discontent throughout the country and promise support to each in turn. But at length the men, having pleaded their various points, came away fully assured that in the Tory party lay their principal hope of salvation, though they were aware that some time must elapse before their petition could come to be considered by Parliament. Their one aim now being a Select Committee of Inquiry, their Parliamentary policy became more active than ever, every by-election being assiduously watched and every candidate approached by personal interview or by letter.
At this time, between 1872 and 1874, agitation was rife among all classes of labour throughout the country, and the feeling of discontent was principally due to the cost of the necessaries of life being out of proportion to wages. This was followed by a general rise in wages to meet the increased cost of living among the working population, many employers, to their credit, voluntarily raising the wages of their employés. This circumstance very materially strengthened the postal claim for an increase on their wretched pay; but the Post-Office as the greatest employer of labour would not concede one farthing until compelled by the public and Parliament.The officials with characteristic obstinacy defended the state of stagnation as to wages and promotion prevailing in the Post-Office. On one occasion, about this period, when the leaders of the agitation had reason to interview the Controller on the matter, that official, who considered his wisdom was none too well paid at £1200 a year, pointed to himself and reminded them even he had to cut down his luxuries. This provoked the retort from one of the poorly-paid men, that in his, the Controller’s, case it simply meant a denial of luxuries, but in their case it meant a denial of the very necessaries of life for themselves and wives and families. This might have been dismissed with an official frown as only a mild impertinence; but the Controller, a thick-set, burly, overfed man, unwittingly growled out the brutal truth in his rejoinder, “Wedon’t engage your wives and families;WEonly want the men!”
But the universal rise in wages everywhere outside the Post-Office could not but provide them with a further justification for continuing the agitation for an inquiry. They obtained further funds to carry on the campaign, and more public friends rallied round them. Daily the postmen were becoming more than ever objects of sympathy. Subscriptions flowed in steadily from postal bodies all over the country, and a list of these subscriptions was published in theBeehivenewspaper, which for some time past had opened its columns to the budding literati of the movement. The postal organisation had had for some time now an official organ of its own, thePostman; but as it had not the weight and authority of a public organ, circulating, as it did, among postal servants only, the assistance rendered by theBeehivewas not inconsiderable. Edited by George Potter, who of course was in full sympathy with the agitation, its columns placed at the disposal of the postal cause were several times contributed to by Lloyd-Jones.
One postal contributor to theBeehive, who was the literary champion of the movement, was one of Booth’s lieutenants, a postman, who wrote under thenom de plumeof “Silverstick.” The contributions of “Silverstick” betrayed no small amount of literary merit, and were eagerly looked for every issue by the men.
The hospitality of theBeehivewas fully taken advantage of at this time (the official organ of the movement, thePostman, having now fizzled out), and the agitation received no small support from its powerful advocacy. George Potter, whose name will always be associated with public reform, gave the postal advocates carte-blanche in the use of his organ; and the secretary of the postal movement, Hawkins, who was employed on it, was assisted in every possible manner to bring postal grievances to the front. Besides theBeehivethere had been thePostman, which exclusively devoted itself to the advocacy of their claims, and which, to an extent, rendered valuable service by being circulated among their outside public and Parliamentary friends. It may here be mentioned that thePostmanhad been started some few years before, being originally brought out as a small printer’s venture. It was started at the instigation of a postman named March, who was associated with the small printer’s business in question, situated in Clerkenwell Close, and he was principally instrumental in making thePostmanthe success it afterwards became. March, the postman agitator, was the same March who, when he left the postal service built up a flourishing business as a ballad printer, supplying hawkers and street singers with topical rhymes, coupled with the publication of more innocent toy-books and fairy stories for juveniles.
ThePostmanwas almost wholly contributed by the leaders of the agitation, assisted by notes and scraps of interest from various correspondents of the different branches of the service. The circulation was kept going at this time principally by Booth and the others. It was never allowed to be openly sold in the Post-Office, though means were found to evade the vexatious prohibition, and the condemned publication was all the more anxiously looked for when the day of issue arrived. Booth generally directed special attention to it among the postmen. He always managed to obtain advance copies, and, knowing the most important item of news, gave the word to be passed round directly he came on duty, “Look on page so-and-so of thePostman.” Before the duty was over it had circulated all over the General Post-Office.
In connection with this organ of the movement it may beof interest to mention that for a time it was machined at the same firm as was theCourt CircularorJournal; and there was a story to the effect that these pages of the two very dissimilar publications being of equal size, on one occasion two “formes” of type got mysteriously mixed, and to the amazement of thePostmanreaders the next issue informed them, after reporting some of the private doings of the Queen and Court, that her Majesty had graciously seen fit to order an inquiry into the postmen’s grievances.
The leaders now decided on a third big public demonstration. The same preparations as before were made, bands engaged and public men written to and interviewed to get their presence on the platform. Exeter Hall was chosen this time as the place of meeting, and when the date, November 18, 1873, arrived the principal anxiety of Booth and his lieutenants was as to where they should find room on the platform for all the brilliant notabilities who had promised to attend. The chair was this time to be taken by Mr. Roger Eykyn, M.P. for Windsor, while their old champion, Sir John Bennett, was once more to appear with his well-known and ever-welcome “So here we are once again, my postman friends!” The district contingents as before met at Finsbury Square, and with brass bands playing and colours flying they marched to St. Martin’s-le-Grand, where at eight o’clock they were promptly joined by the men of the Chief Office. Then defiantly striking up “Rule, Britannia,” they moved on towards Fleet Street, the authorities meanwhile crowding at the windows of the General Post-Office to watch the procession as it swept round into Newgate Street. On reaching Fleet Street the greatest excitement prevailed, the traffic had to be suspended, and crowds from all parts joined in the congestion. The postal procession was this time preceded by two red mail-vans, which, with the postmen in uniform, gave it a tone of local colour. The band, during its slow progress towards the place of meeting, improved the shining hour with “The Postman’s Knock” and “Work, Boys, Work, and be Contented,” a musical sarcasm in the circumstances much appreciated. Exeter Hall was not large enough to hold the immense throng who sought admission, and an overflow meeting had to be held in a side street.Exeter Hall platform presented a distinguished gathering of public men supporting the chair, which was filled by Mr. Roger Eykyn, the member for Windsor. Among those who crowded the platform was the midget-like figure of the redoubtable George Odger, president of the London Trades Council, who had brought with him a deputation of trades unionists. There were a large number of members of Parliament, and the principal labour leaders of the day, notably Mr. George Howell, who had already endeared himself to the postal servants by doing an enormous amount of work for them one way and another. The meeting was addressed by Sir Antonio Brady and several distinguished M.P.’s, among the number being W. Williams, M.P., W. Fowler, M.P., and A. Stavely Hill, M.P.
It was at this meeting that Booth determined to test once and for all the right of postal servants to speak in public. He and one or two others spoke, and Booth took means to get their utterances reported among the speakers.
The result was as he had anticipated. He and the others were carpeted before the Controller. That official said that his attention having been drawn to the reported meeting, it was his duty to call on them to explain. There was nothing very objectionable in the language they were reported to have used, but the fact of speaking at all sufficiently compromised them as Government servants. Booth and his associates were called on for written statements, and they each defended their conduct on the ground that they were exercising a common citizen right in asking Parliament and the public for a redress of those grievances which the department had refused to consider.
Within a few days they were again called up to listen to a severe reprimand from the Postmaster-General. There was some protest to a few public men, and Mr. Roger Eykyn interviewed the Permanent Secretary on behalf of the men; but there the matter ended.
The men themselves, however, feeling that their speeches had been so studiously modest and moderate, could not but regard such notice being taken by the authorities as both arbitrary and unconstitutional, and opposed to the spirit of English liberty.
Based on the resolutions passed at this public meeting, a monster petition to the House of Commons was prepared on behalf of the letter-carriers, sorters, porters’ assistants, rural messengers, and others employed in the minor establishment of the Post-Office throughout London, suburban, provincial, and rural districts. Having regard to the increased cost of living and the rise in the value of most classes of labour, they submitted that the time had arrived when such an addition should be made to their pay as would constitute a more adequate remuneration for their arduous and responsible duties. A Commission of Inquiry was also strongly asked for to receive evidence on the questions of promotion, Sunday labour, and general grievances not specified but known to exist.
One of the principal planks in the platform of the postal movement at this time was the abolition of compulsory Sunday labour for letter-carriers; and in furtherance of this end Booth and the other agitators interviewed the most eminent divines and religious leaders of the day. Among those whose assistance was sought to procure a free Sunday for postal workers was Cardinal Manning. A deputation of Booth and two other postmen waited on his Eminence at his residence. He was politic in discussing the question; he sympathised with them in their laudable efforts to relieve Sunday labour; but he hesitated to pledge himself to assist them; he must have time to consider the matter. The deputation withdrew inspired with very little hope from their diplomatic reception. The truth was Cardinal Manning hesitated to in any way assist in hampering the Government while Mr. Gladstone was tackling the Catholic University question. They interviewed Dr. Parker at the City Temple, with a vague sort of hope that he might denounce postal Sunday labour from his own pulpit. But Dr. Parker did not prove the rigid Calvinistic Sabbatarian they imagined; he thought that certain forms of labour were very necessary even on the Lord’s Day, and it was desirable to receive letters from distant friends and relations at least once on Sunday. Even Professor Fawcett and Mr. Charles Bradlaugh both concurred in thinking this a weak plank in their platform, and tried to induce Booth to abandon it fora time at least. But Booth would not be dictated to even by two such men as these, and expressed his determination to try to carry it through in spite of all opposition.
This question of compulsory Sunday labour, as it affected the rural letter-carriers especially, was a very sore one. Some lines of verse written by one of their number were about this time freely circulated. The few lines selected will show that they possessed tolerable poetic merit.
THE POSTMAN’S DAY OF RESTWe are toiling, we are toiling on each sunny Sabbath morn,We are toiling when the dewdrops sparkle on the white-robed thorn,We are toiling when the sons of toil have found a Sabbath blest;But for us no Sabbath dawning, no holy day of rest.We are toiling thro’ the dewy fields ere peeps the eye of morn,When the mist on pastures hanging makes the aspect so forlorn;Thro’ mud and mist, and mire, and rain we pick our toilsome way,While fellow-men are warmly housed upon the Sabbath day.If in the annals of the world your names unrivalled stand,Then cleanse so foul a blot from the escutcheon of our land,And a thousand hands shall cease from toil, and find a day of rest,And the God of heaven shall bless you, as He has our country blest.F. K. (Letter-carrier).
THE POSTMAN’S DAY OF RESTWe are toiling, we are toiling on each sunny Sabbath morn,We are toiling when the dewdrops sparkle on the white-robed thorn,We are toiling when the sons of toil have found a Sabbath blest;But for us no Sabbath dawning, no holy day of rest.We are toiling thro’ the dewy fields ere peeps the eye of morn,When the mist on pastures hanging makes the aspect so forlorn;Thro’ mud and mist, and mire, and rain we pick our toilsome way,While fellow-men are warmly housed upon the Sabbath day.If in the annals of the world your names unrivalled stand,Then cleanse so foul a blot from the escutcheon of our land,And a thousand hands shall cease from toil, and find a day of rest,And the God of heaven shall bless you, as He has our country blest.F. K. (Letter-carrier).
THE POSTMAN’S DAY OF REST
We are toiling, we are toiling on each sunny Sabbath morn,We are toiling when the dewdrops sparkle on the white-robed thorn,We are toiling when the sons of toil have found a Sabbath blest;But for us no Sabbath dawning, no holy day of rest.
We are toiling, we are toiling on each sunny Sabbath morn,
We are toiling when the dewdrops sparkle on the white-robed thorn,
We are toiling when the sons of toil have found a Sabbath blest;
But for us no Sabbath dawning, no holy day of rest.
We are toiling thro’ the dewy fields ere peeps the eye of morn,When the mist on pastures hanging makes the aspect so forlorn;Thro’ mud and mist, and mire, and rain we pick our toilsome way,While fellow-men are warmly housed upon the Sabbath day.
We are toiling thro’ the dewy fields ere peeps the eye of morn,
When the mist on pastures hanging makes the aspect so forlorn;
Thro’ mud and mist, and mire, and rain we pick our toilsome way,
While fellow-men are warmly housed upon the Sabbath day.
If in the annals of the world your names unrivalled stand,Then cleanse so foul a blot from the escutcheon of our land,And a thousand hands shall cease from toil, and find a day of rest,And the God of heaven shall bless you, as He has our country blest.
If in the annals of the world your names unrivalled stand,
Then cleanse so foul a blot from the escutcheon of our land,
And a thousand hands shall cease from toil, and find a day of rest,
And the God of heaven shall bless you, as He has our country blest.
F. K. (Letter-carrier).
F. K. (Letter-carrier).
[An appeal from the rural letter-carriers of England, who are employed delivering letters, circulars, and newspapers on the Sabbath day.]
While this question of Sunday labour was being pushed to the front, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, M.P., desiring to become Mayor of Birmingham, was approached by Booth, who promised him the whole postal support of the town if Mr. Chamberlain would in return direct his influence against Sunday duty imposed on postal officials. The promise was given; Mr. Chamberlain became mayor, but he now found it would be inexpedient in the commercial interests of Birmingham especially to abolish Sunday labour in the Post-Office.
Although the right to exercise the one privilege accorded to every British citizen, that of presenting a petition to Parliament, had up to now been their mainstay and the bulwark of theirpersonal protection, the agitators constantly found that they were the objects of departmental attention. They had been particularly careful, for the success of their movement, to proceed along thoroughly constitutional lines, and nothing could have tempted Booth and his associates to depart from this. As has already been shown, the disappointment induced by the protracted methods of the Government, and the antagonism of the officials to the agitation, was such that it might easily have risen to the point of rebellion had the leaders been so inclined; but they were not; and as it was they had frequently to exercise to the utmost their restraining influence on the men. It was scarcely to be supposed that the authorities would give them any credit for this, and as was only natural, perhaps the leaders were held wholly responsible for the strained relations between the department and its subordinates. Booth and his lieutenants therefore had no mercy to expect from their superiors should they commit themselves. The very surveillance, the constant spying, and every manner of testing and trap-laying to which Booth especially was subjected, would have caused any other man with less fortitude and with a more sensitive temperament to have given up long before he did. But to all the insidious influences to which he was exposed, Booth especially never showed the least concern, but went about his work as though there were never an official to dog his footsteps even to his own door, nor a band of the permanent officials anxiously waiting and watching for the moment when they might reasonably dismiss him with humiliation and degradation. In the official mind in those days, whoever lent themselves to agitation within the walls of a Government office could be little better than desperadoes and conspirators, disloyal alike to the service and the public. It was not to be wondered at, then, that they were regarded as playing a desperate game, which, to go no further, even as yet almost brought them within the clutches of the law. The agitators were not blind to the position in which they stood, nor ignorant altogether of the desire of the authorities to encompass their destruction. Already Booth had been most unpleasantly made aware that his private correspondence had been tampered with in its passage through the post; that, before reaching his hands, the letters addressed to him hadbeen watched for and “Grahamed”—to use an expression which signified the secret methods of opening and overhauling suspected people’s correspondence then, as a survival of the “Espionage Room,” more or less in vogue in the Confidential Inquiry Branch of the General Post-Office. While the department had such a piece of machinery as this at its disposal, it was not going to confine its use to such men as Mazzini and political personages disagreeable to the Government, and allow the postman Booth, and others of its own household, to escape. He had had cause to more than suspect that his letters, addressed to those who were assisting the agitation, had been intercepted, and their purport conveyed to the authorities who had ordered it. To evade the prying curiosity of official detectives and the “Grahaming” process, the letters exchanged through the post between the leaders, and touching on questions of policy, were thereafter directed to a fictitious “Mrs. Harvey” at various convenient addresses.
Nor did departmental antagonism, both open and concealed, to the principle of combination rest here. That the ringleaders of the agitation had all along pursued purely legitimate and constitutional methods to obtain redress for their grievances, affording so few technical loopholes through which they might be made answerable, was almost sufficient in itself to cause the department to look on them as mischievous breeders of wholesale contumacy and discontent, and agitators of the most dangerous description. They might have got rid of them one by one “on suspicion”—a process of dismissal which carried with it an implication of common dishonesty—only that the men had now too many powerful advocates, and, moreover, there might have been an outcry in the press against such an obviously hollow pretext. They were so far saved from such a fate as had befallen others of a lesser calibre. But they had, almost unknown to themselves, narrowly escaped losing their personal liberty for the part they had taken. It was only owing to an accidental hint dropped by an eminent member of the legal profession and a member of Parliament, who at the time was friendly disposed towards Booth and his movement, that the whole of them were not made the subjects of a Government prosecutionunder the odious law of conspiracy. Booth ferreted the matter out, and learnt that the brief was already prepared. The postal leader was given the comforting assurance that he stood to get two years’ imprisonment, and the others nine or six months apiece, and that the writs would probably be issued within a few days. Such, at least, was the information gathered, and circumstances made it extremely probable that the Government contemplated delivering one blow which would not only rid the postal service of a number of powerful agitators, but completely demoralise and disorganise their followers for years to come. If such was the motive, then the Government was checkmated in one simple move. Booth at the time was on the Temple “delivery,” and it was due to this fact principally that he obtained the interest and assistance of several eminent counsel who had either already obtained or had an eye on a seat in the House. After piecing his information together, so as to be morally certain that some suchcoupwas intended, Booth the same day hastily summoned a meeting of the executive of the postal organisation, and before night handbills were in circulation advertising the fact that Booth was now the sole official representative of the movement. Next day he learnt the contemplated prosecution was to be abandoned, for the sufficient reason that the Law of Conspiracy could not very well be made to apply to one man only, it taking three at least to become conspirators. After Booth’s adroit manœuvre they could not with decency proceed against the agitators by legal action, and so nothing more was heard of the matter.