FORCED LABOUR—A GENERAL POST-OFFICE RIOT—A POSTAL POET—THE WANING OF THE MOVEMENT—THE PUBLICATION OF A MEMORIAL—WHOLESALE DISMISSALS.
FORCED LABOUR—A GENERAL POST-OFFICE RIOT—A POSTAL POET—THE WANING OF THE MOVEMENT—THE PUBLICATION OF A MEMORIAL—WHOLESALE DISMISSALS.
At this time, and for long previous, there was no definite eight-hour day officially recognised for the working staff at the General Post-Office. That was a privilege as yet definitely enjoyed by few besides the clerical establishment. If there was any official rule regulating and limiting the working hours of the rank and file, that rule and those regulations were vitiated by the practice of the supervising officials. The men were subjected to nothing less than forced labour; the hours which should have been given up to sleep and leisure were extorted from them; and forced contributions of their well-earned liberty were remorselessly levied upon them. They were liable to be summoned back for duty at any time during their intervals of rest. There was no assured time for rest or proper sleep. They were compelled to dispose of incoming foreign mails without remuneration of any kind. As the department had decided such mail matter must be disposed of without cost, at first the men had to rotate for this purpose, and it generally fell to their turn about once a month. In former days this practice may not have constituted a great hardship; but when, owing to the increased and improved means of transit across seas, foreign mails arrived several times a week, it became a very real grievance. American mails then arrived only about once a month, instead of daily as at present; but there were other mails to be taken account of, and their arrival and treatment were often delayed for disposal by this cheap method. If the practice had stopped at the monthly summons, or an extra attendance for every man everyweek or so, the strong discontent arising from it might have been averted. But the principle of extorting from men already too poorly paid and harshly treated, this disgraceful poll-tax in time was still further extended after a while.
The occasion which principally provided the officials with an excuse for imposing on the force still further was the introduction of the halfpenny post; and when this came to be recognised by the public as a boon, the men became the victims and the sufferers. The reduced rate for newspapers and circulars was soon taken advantage of by company promoters very largely. The notorious promoter, Baron Grant, who did everything on a colossal scale, sent in prospectuses, referring to the Emma Gold Mine, at the rate of half a million at a time, completely swamping the Newspaper Branch, where such correspondence was disposed of. The authorities’ only method of meeting the emergencies which so frequently arose was to get the extra work of the public (which already meant so much more profit to swell the revenue) done by forcing the overburdened and underpaid men to do it for nothing in the time which should otherwise have been theirs. The method of forced labour, so analogous to that form of slavery which aroused the righteous indignation of the civilised world when practised a few years later by the Boers on the unfortunate Kaffirs, was not only thought proper but persisted in by the officials of an English Government department. Whatever excuses, if any, that might be made for the rapacious East-End sweaters, could not be made for the profit-minting monopoly of St. Martin’s-le-Grand and those who guided its machinery.
The men protested again and again, but without avail. Refusal to comply with this form of tyranny or worse, imposed in the name of duty and discipline, would have meant rank insubordination, punishable with dismissal without character. Probably their protests never got beyond the branch superintendent, to whom they complained; but the authorities ought not to have been wholly blind to the men’s treatment. If there was no Treasury grant of money to cover the cost of extra duty of this nature, as was pointed out, then the parsimony and meanness of the authorities was only to be excusedby their utter laziness in not endeavouring to get such a demand met honestly and fairly.
The grievance speedily attained to the dimensions and importance of a grave scandal. Yet the authorities seemed determined that, kick and struggle against the pricks as the men might, they should submit to it. And the men, grown weary of complaining against the injustice, and losing all faith in the fairness of those over them, were equally resolved that it should not continue much longer without one last vigorous protest from them. The climax of indignation was reached one morning in March 1873, when the whole of the force were ordered as usual to stay behind their time. There were mails above and below in the Newspaper and Letter Branches, and tons of circulars waiting in reserve. The men rushed to their kitchens, and securing their articles of clothing, made for the principal exit leading to liberty and the Post-Office yard. This they found closed and bolted against them and guarded by a posse of overseers, the official doorkeeper, and numerous amateur policemen—constables disguised as sorters. They were sternly ordered back to their duties; but by this time, even if they would, they could not turn for those now pressing behind and thronging the lobby. The officials appeared on the scene and exhorted them not to disobey orders; but the murmurs that arose convinced them that at last the mutiny had come. The men demanded the door to be opened and the removal of the constables. They took it as an added insult that such Siberian methods should be put into force against them, for whatever their humble position in the public service, yet still they bore the name of free-born Englishmen. The officials, convinced they were acting within their right, refused and repeatedly ordered them to fall back. For half-an-hour or more the men, nearly a thousand strong by this time, endured it; the heat was oppressive in the closely-packed crowd, and the stubborn obstinacy of the men guarding the door was making the crowd excited. There were cries of execration, and from the rear came a hurricane of balls of twine with sticks of sealing-wax. The officials retreated to safer quarters, leaving the men guarding the door to carry out their duty or die. The lobby, which was a narrow neck of space leading from theLetter Branch to the coveted doorway, was becoming like the Black Hole of Calcutta, and many men were on the point of fainting. The doorkeepers were pale but determined, and stood with their backs to the coveted door. The situation was as serious to them as to the mutineers themselves. With the men the injustice of the official instruction to stay at their duties without pay might be sufficient to palliate their disobedience to it, especially when there were nearly a thousand of them to answer for it. But with those at the door it was slightly different; they had to do their duty, and they looked like men who were determined to sell their lives dearly if it came to it, though it is probable that if they could have trusted each other the bolt would have been quietly drawn. To those in the thick of the swaying, sweltering crowd of angry and excited men the heat was getting unbearable. Some one, or several at once, suggested rushing the doors; but to deliberately break down the barrier seemed to spell mutiny of the worst kind, and numbers of the front ranks held back at the prospect of afterwards being named as ringleaders. The responsible officials retired to a distance and watched with the grim satisfaction of schoolmasters who were “keeping in” a refractory class of school-children. The realisation that they were being kept prisoners at the behest of one or two of their superiors was intensifying the impatience and the excitement of the sweltering crowd behind, and impatience soon grew to desperation. The air was repeatedly filled with groans and hisses, and the storm of groans was presently turned by some one facetiously striking up a bar of “Britons never, never shall be slaves!” That was enough, for the men behind especially. They remembered they were Britons. A square of infantry with fixed bayonets could not have stopped them now. They were solidly packed several hundreds strong in one long stream, fed every moment by reinforcements as they gained courage to leave the sorting-tables. Fortunately some one by an adroit manœuvre had turned a line of heavy mail-trucks and trolleys, placed there either carelessly or purposely, or the result might have been disastrous to those in front. Menaces and shouts were directed towards the men who barred their way; but neither threats nor appeals would move them, and it seemed they would beflattened against the door they were so zealously guarding, for those in front could no longer hold against the mighty pressure of the hundreds behind. The crowd heaved and rocked like a huge billow. There were shouts and groans and some were real, a tremendous scuffle, a sound like the cracking of ribs, a crash of woodwork, a shattering of glass accompanied with a louder yell; the doors burst from their fastenings, and the hot perspiring stream of angry men vomited itself into the open air and the daylight. Then the wild mob’s several hundred feet scattered down the steps into the Post-Office yard, and the men who had broken their red-tape bonds to assert the liberty of the person again burst into such a roar of triumph that a jaded horse on the cab-rank outside in Aldersgate Street took fright and bolted. The untoward commotion stopped the stream of traffic in St. Martin’s-le-Grand, and crowds assembled outside the Post-Office railings while the police hurried to the scene from every by-turning. The general traffic was disordered for half-an-hour, till the last remnant of the imprisoned men issued from the gates.
As the result of the scrimmage several men got scratches and bruises, and there were one or two bloody noses. It ought to have been as much a matter for congratulation for the authorities as for the men that nothing more disastrous occurred. But the officials chose not to see it in that light, and several who had been grabbed in the rush by the doorkeepers were haled up like escaped convicts before the presiding superintendent and others of the smaller authorities to answer for the conduct of the whole. Six men were there and then suspended from duty without pay for an indefinite period, and with the prospect of dismissal before them.
It was only to be expected that the public would take an exaggerated view of the incident; and the idea gained credence that a veritable riot had taken place inside the Post-Office. Some, indeed, thought it meant a postal strike. The evening paper came out with an account of the “Riot at the General Post-Office,” which, it need hardly be said, was scarcely accurate.
The humour of the situation was skilfully hit off a day or two later by a parody on “The Light Brigade,” by one TomGlamorgan, already recognised as a postal poet. It was said the verses were scribbled hurriedly on his shirt-cuff during moments snatched from the duty the same evening; and being printed next day were sold for a penny a copy amongst the sorters and postmen and others, the small sum realised being sent to some charity. The actual verses perhaps would interest but few, but the printed paragraph introducing the lines epitomised the whole incident The print formed one of a short series of “Postal Fly-sheets,” and the paragraph in question read as follows:—
“Insubordination at the General Post-Office.“On Monday morning, 31st March 1873, a large quantity of ‘Circulars,’ the postage of which amounted to some hundreds of pounds, were required to be sorted and despatched to their various destinations. The men, assistants, and boys worked well till 9A.M.(having been on duty since 4.30A.M.), at which time the juniors struck work and congregated around the lobby door to depart; several of the older officers were stationed there to prevent their exit, the ‘Acting Superintendent’ on duty declaring they should not go till all the work was done. The assistants and boys replied to this by tremendous shouting, hooting, hissing, groaning, and pushing, declaring they would do no more that morning unless paid extra for it. At length some of the ringleaders, assisted by the crowd around, continued to push against the officers guarding the doors, striking at one of the ‘overseers’—breaking hose from all order, discipline, and control.…”
“Insubordination at the General Post-Office.
“On Monday morning, 31st March 1873, a large quantity of ‘Circulars,’ the postage of which amounted to some hundreds of pounds, were required to be sorted and despatched to their various destinations. The men, assistants, and boys worked well till 9A.M.(having been on duty since 4.30A.M.), at which time the juniors struck work and congregated around the lobby door to depart; several of the older officers were stationed there to prevent their exit, the ‘Acting Superintendent’ on duty declaring they should not go till all the work was done. The assistants and boys replied to this by tremendous shouting, hooting, hissing, groaning, and pushing, declaring they would do no more that morning unless paid extra for it. At length some of the ringleaders, assisted by the crowd around, continued to push against the officers guarding the doors, striking at one of the ‘overseers’—breaking hose from all order, discipline, and control.…”
The six sorters, innocent or guilty of the charge against them, were still suspended, but the resentment of the authorities did not stop here. One of the official doorkeepers was pounced on to account for his not successfully resisting the several hundred determined men who so forcibly objected to be made prisoners of. The doorkeeper was rather a small man, and built more on the lines of a jockey than of a gladiator. But it was useless to urge such a fact on the official mind bent on inflicting condign punishment. So the poor littleman was pronounced guilty of failing to perform a feat which would have baffled Hercules. He was in consequence reduced to an inferior position entailing greater responsibility; and failing to become competent in a duty which was entirely new to him, he was incontinently bundled out of the service on a starvation pension of six shillings a week. He did not long survive his defeat, but died a little while afterwards of a sheer broken heart.
That the so-called riot at the General Post-Office was only one of the straws which showed the way of the wind may be taken for granted. Whether it could have occurred in a better-regulated service is perhaps doubtful.
The scheme which with its small benefits had given so much satisfaction to the letter-carriers as to induce them, if not to remain satisfied, to abandon agitation for the present, had caused corresponding dissatisfaction to the letter-sorters. The only benefit derived from the Manners scheme, if it could be called such, was the increase of sixpence a year in the increment. The keenest disappointment prevailed, and a movement was already afoot to find expression for that disappointment in a memorial to the author, Lord John Manners. Yet, though the feelings of the men were scarcely concealed, it had been officially represented to the Postmaster-General and the Controller that the demands of the sorting force were now fully satisfied, and that the men themselves acknowledged it. This official misrepresentation was followed by an anonymous note being pinned on the notice-board in the retiring-room. It was to the effect: “Who thus misrepresents the spirit of the Inland Branch? As mild a mannered man as ever scuttled ship or cut a throat.” The note was detached and taken to the superintendent; and one of the men, Glamorgan, who had already distinguished himself in the line of a satirical verse-maker, was suspended for some days on suspicion of being its author.
At the end of November 1874 the dissatisfied sorters drew up a respectful and moderate memorial to the Postmaster-General, pointing out that “whilst grateful for the recent improvements made in … pay and prospects of promotion, they were yet unable to accept so small a revision as a satisfactorysettlement of their claims to increased remuneration,” and giving some very valid reasons for a reconsideration of their case. The petition was signed by 140 men as representative of the entire sorting force, and presented through their immediate superior. To the startling surprise of every one, a copy of this memorial appeared in theTimesand other morning papers the next day, and from that moment the most discerning could see that it was doomed to failure from the fact of being published in the press before the Postmaster-General had had time to consider it. For in those days especially such a thing was regarded as a most unforgivable breach of official etiquette, to say the least. Its publication at this juncture was therefore generally thought to be the last blow to all their hopes of further revision. But few dreamed what was to follow.
The text of that memorial is here reproduced, the better to mark the perverted sense of justice of the Postmaster-General who could read treason and conspiracy in an innocent appeal so temperately worded, and exact so cruel a penalty for so small an offence as that of prayerfully submitting that they still had grievances to remedy.
“Petition to the Postmaster-Generalfrom the Sorters of the Inland Branch, G.P.O., presented through their Superintendent on November 25th, 1874.“To the Right HonourableLord John Manners, M.P.,Her Majesty’s Postmaster-General.“My Lord,—We, the undersigned sorters attached to the Inland Branch, beg most respectfully to inform you that, whilst grateful for the recent improvements made in our pay and prospects of promotion, we are yet unable to accept it as a satisfactory settlement of our claims to increased remuneration; we, therefore, beg to call your Lordship’s attention to the following facts: Prior to 1867 the scale of pay for our class was as follows: Minimum of second-class,23s., by an annual increment of 1s. to a maximum of 38s.; minimum of first-class, 40s., by an annual increment of 1s. to a maximum of 50s. After the revision made in June 1867, it stood thus: Minimum, 24s., by an annual increment of 1s. for six years, and then by 1s. 6d. to a maximum of 45s. In 1872 the minimum was increased to 26s., and in July of the present year the scale was again altered to the following: Minimum 26s., with an annual increment of 1s. 6d. for six years, and then by 2s. to a maximum of 45s. Thus it will be seen that whilst the minimum and annual increment have been increased in amount, the maximum has been reduced 5s. per week. The only benefit derived from the last revision was an addition of 6d. to the annual increment. In former memorials we have asked that the increased increment of 2s. per week may begin at the minimum of the scale instead of after six years, as at present; and also, that the maximum may be restored to the sum of 50s. per week, at which it originally stood, in accordance with the recommendation of the Commission of 1854, of which the present Chancellor of the Exchequer was a member. The scale would then have stood thus: Minimum, 26s., by an annual increment of 2s. to a maximum of 50s. We respectfully submit to your lordship that, having regard to our length of service (most of us have served over nine years), the increased value of labour, and the enhanced cost of commodities generally, the above would not be more than a reasonable remuneration for the important duties we perform. We therefore pray your Lordship to give this Memorial your favourable consideration, and earnestly hope you will see fit to grant our Prayer. We are, my Lord, your obedient servants.”[Here follow Names.]
“Petition to the Postmaster-Generalfrom the Sorters of the Inland Branch, G.P.O., presented through their Superintendent on November 25th, 1874.
“To the Right HonourableLord John Manners, M.P.,Her Majesty’s Postmaster-General.
“My Lord,—We, the undersigned sorters attached to the Inland Branch, beg most respectfully to inform you that, whilst grateful for the recent improvements made in our pay and prospects of promotion, we are yet unable to accept it as a satisfactory settlement of our claims to increased remuneration; we, therefore, beg to call your Lordship’s attention to the following facts: Prior to 1867 the scale of pay for our class was as follows: Minimum of second-class,23s., by an annual increment of 1s. to a maximum of 38s.; minimum of first-class, 40s., by an annual increment of 1s. to a maximum of 50s. After the revision made in June 1867, it stood thus: Minimum, 24s., by an annual increment of 1s. for six years, and then by 1s. 6d. to a maximum of 45s. In 1872 the minimum was increased to 26s., and in July of the present year the scale was again altered to the following: Minimum 26s., with an annual increment of 1s. 6d. for six years, and then by 2s. to a maximum of 45s. Thus it will be seen that whilst the minimum and annual increment have been increased in amount, the maximum has been reduced 5s. per week. The only benefit derived from the last revision was an addition of 6d. to the annual increment. In former memorials we have asked that the increased increment of 2s. per week may begin at the minimum of the scale instead of after six years, as at present; and also, that the maximum may be restored to the sum of 50s. per week, at which it originally stood, in accordance with the recommendation of the Commission of 1854, of which the present Chancellor of the Exchequer was a member. The scale would then have stood thus: Minimum, 26s., by an annual increment of 2s. to a maximum of 50s. We respectfully submit to your lordship that, having regard to our length of service (most of us have served over nine years), the increased value of labour, and the enhanced cost of commodities generally, the above would not be more than a reasonable remuneration for the important duties we perform. We therefore pray your Lordship to give this Memorial your favourable consideration, and earnestly hope you will see fit to grant our Prayer. We are, my Lord, your obedient servants.”
[Here follow Names.]
The resentment of the department showed itself almost immediately after the illicit publication of the memorial in the public press. The signatories were sent for by the Controller, and catechised as to what they knew about its appearance in print before it had actually reached the hand of the Postmaster-General. They were told it was a gross breachof official confidence, only a little less heinous than offering personal insult to the public head of the department. They would be held responsible for sending it to the press for publication, and nothing now remained but to go home and pray for forgiveness and await developments. In vain the men protested their innocence, and pointed out that copies of the proposed memorial freely circulated among the men for their approval before it was submitted through the official channel; indeed any one but themselves might have forwarded a copy to theTimes. But it was to no purpose they sought to defend themselves on these grounds, and they were practically found guilty on the spot. That was one indictment only in regard to this unfortunate memorial. The second was that they had dared as the humblest servants of her Majesty’s Postmaster-General to convey to him, by means of this aforesaid illicitly-published memorial, that they could not accept as fully satisfying all their claims, the scheme which he had so beneficently prepared for them. What right had they to say they could not accept the scheme, or anything else which a Postmaster-General had so condescended to provide them with?
The poor menials withdrew from the light of the official cadi’s presence, abashed and crestfallen. They predicted that something was about to happen to them, guilty wretches that they were; but they did not know what.
While the case was pending, a paragraph appeared in one of the papers to the effect that the indignation of the men in the General Post-Office had now reached such a point that they had decided to petition for the removal of certain supervising officials who had rendered themselves brutally obnoxious to the men throughout. The ringleaders were again, as a natural consequence, suspected of this fresh paragraphic insult to the department; but the men themselves were as indignant as might be the authorities themselves. They all solemnly protested to each other that this foolish blunder was not theirs. The appearance of such a thing at this moment could certainly effect no good purpose, and it seemed difficult to believe that any one of them, knowing that suspicion would most certainly fall on them, and discredit them still further, could have beenguilty of such foolishness. Still, repudiate it as they might, they knew the shot would rebound on themselves. There were several among them who did not hesitate to think, that both the memorial and the offensive paragraph had been sent to the press by some one of the creatures of the department with a malignant ulterior motive.
If the Postmaster-General had been shot at with a popgun he was going to return it with a bomb; and the bomb, being ready, was primed for the 11th of December. On the morning of that date it was thrown.
It took the form of a Postmaster-General’s minute, and was sent the rounds of the Circulation Department by means of the general-order book. It started innocently enough, but the sting, like that of the scorpion, was in its tail. It was to the effect that the Postmaster-General had received the memorial from the sorters, but not until it had been improperly published in the newspapers. It proceeded to criticise the terms of the memorial, and to remind them that in the previous July the wages of the memorialists were readjusted by the Treasury, “after very full and careful consideration.” A comparison between the sorters of 1854 and 1874 was then drawn to show that they were no worse off, and that the reduction in the maximum was more than compensated for by the creation of a new overseer’s class. So far, so good, or bad, as they chose to think it; but now comes the cruellest part of it. The Postmaster-General could not stay his hand here. In view of the recent settlement he felt it incumbent on him not only to oppose and check the spirit which the terms of the memorial and the course it had taken exhibited, but “to evince in some unmistakable manner” that he would “not yield to clamour what reasoned justice to the public would withhold.”
Accordingly he desired that the memorialists be informed that if their present conditions of service were not suitable to them they were at liberty to seek for other employment. And further, he would understand it to be their intention to do so unless within three days they asked, in writing, for permission to remain. This permission, however, he should not give to those who, having signed the memorial, bore an “indifferent character,” and were “not recommended by their superiorofficers for retention in the service.” He understood that among those who signed the wicked memorial there were a number of younger men who had “no claims on the department, either on the score of service or otherwise”; and for daring to become dissatisfied already, their names were to be brought specially before him, in order that he might consider whether any, and if so, which of them, should be retained in the service as an act of grace. His lordship furthermore implied that the precious privilege accorded to the more poorly paid of being allowed to add to their miserable incomes by overtime, should relieve them of any cause for complaint in regard to insufficient wages. His reference to their “liberty to seek for other employment” was the bitterest mockery to men who had given so many years to the public service, and for the first time gave expression to that heartless theory of the department that the best cure for grievances was the dismissal of those who dared to complain of them; for that practically was its meaning.
Such was the message of Lord John Manners to the men who had been guilty of asking for a redress of their grievances and a small increase of pay. Such was the manner in which he requited the confidence reposed in him by his humble subordinates, and such was the manner in which he set about redeeming the fair promises of the party which had so sustained the agitation while they were in opposition. The Postmaster-General’s minute was almost as vile an instrument as that with which the late Government had contemplated crushing combination and smothering the claims of the aggrieved by prosecution, only that their heart failed them at the last moment. It was virtually a demand for the heads of the ringleaders. It provided a warranty for wholesale dismissal, and placed a weapon in the hands of minor officials which, apart from their inclination, they were fully authorised and expected to use against a certain number.
They were told that they were to consider they had relinquished the service, but applications to be retained would be considered, though there would be no guarantee. As was only natural in the circumstances, the men, thinking of their wives and families, and knowing that refusal to accept thehumiliation meant instant dismissal, complied, and wrote their applications as directed. An overseer was sent round to collect them into a bunch, and then it was the poor men found themselves, as if drawn into an ambush, basely betrayed. Their last lingering confidence in the honour of the aristocrat who made blue blood only the criterion of nobility was rudely shattered. The whole thirty men who as representing their fellows had been induced to sign the memorial were suspended from duty, with the prospect of dismissal, the forced humiliation of their applications notwithstanding.
A fortnight before Christmas one hundred and forty men of the sorting force were called up before the Controller for admonishment. These included the thirty suspended men, who were taken last. They were all admonished in much the same terms in the name of the Postmaster-General, and to the majority it was intimated that the granting of their applications would depend on their future conduct. But five of the men, those regarded as more or less prominent in the recent agitation, were to be dismissed; and the five condemned men were accordingly marched out of the office, with a bitter winter and the world before them.
Lord John Manners triumphed, and the smaller officials had their revenge. There was no doubt about that; the men went back to their duties thoroughly cowed. It must have been a glorious hour for the Postmaster-General, and doubtless he felt that he had routed the enemies of society for ever. And so that the victory of the Postmaster-General should be fully complete, a subscription to provide the dismissed sorters with a Christmas dinner was stopped by order of the authorities. Cowed as the men were, an attempt was made to send round a subscription-sheet, but the movers were warned of the consequences, and they were officially terrorised into doing nothing for the victims of Lord John Manners’s discipline.
Several Parliamentary friends of the postal cause immediately set to work to induce the Postmaster-General to reverse his harsh decision. Particularly assiduous was Mr. A. J. Mundella, but he was doomed to get nothing but humiliation for his pains. Mr. Mundella used the whole weight of his personal influence with the Postmaster-General and the permanentauthorities, only to find himself bandied about from one to the other till his sensitive nature became wounded and disgusted. The studied discourtesy shown him by the permanent officials especially he made a matter for some complaint inside the House, as he felt that more consideration than had been accorded him was due to his position and dignity as a public man.
These arbitrary dismissals destroyed the last vestige of confidence in the Tory party for some years to come among the letter-sorters. If the men had been dealt with merely for signing and sending forward a memorial, there was no justification for such harsh punishment. There would have been no justification for any kind of punishment, beyond the refusal to accede to their request. But it was rendered too patent to every one that it was seized on simply as a pretext for taking a revenge for the part they had played in the recent agitation. There was no discipline that demanded such a cowardly reprisal. It was worthy only of the narrow-minded aristocrat whose principal claim to distinction was his cherished little drop of blue blood, and whose contempt of the masses, of all who worked for their living, and all that was plebeian, was rendered shamefacedly notorious by his published lines. For Lord John Manners was the author of that silly and impudent pretence at an epigram—which shook the world with laughter, and covered the writer with derision and scorn—even from critics of his own party. His disgraceful lines, which ran—
“Let Arts and Commerce, Laws and Learning, die,But leave us still our old Nobility!”—
“Let Arts and Commerce, Laws and Learning, die,But leave us still our old Nobility!”—
“Let Arts and Commerce, Laws and Learning, die,But leave us still our old Nobility!”—
“Let Arts and Commerce, Laws and Learning, die,
But leave us still our old Nobility!”—
of which he was so distinguished an ornament—were as much a perpetration on decency and the canons of poetry, as his very first act as an administrator was arbitrary. Where he had failed as a poet his party had generously given him a chance to succeed as an autocrat. And his one idea of autocracy presumably was to persecute the weak, as the only way to convince them he was powerful.
Lord John Manners was a poet, and a poetic revenge was to be wreaked on him by one of his victims. The generousimpulse which had prompted the defeated men to subscribe for a Christmas dinner for those who had suffered for them, had been promptly strangled by the officials acting under the direction of the Postmaster-General. So it was attempted to raise a small sum for the distressed men by the sale outside the Post-Office gates of a leaflet bearing the following impression:—
THE LOCKED-OUT SORTERS OF THE GENERAL POST-OFFICETo Lord John Manners, Her Majesty’s Postmaster-GeneralWhat ails my lord to seek his doom,Why hurl into the winter gloomHis slaves of Want and Pain?Art thou not of noble blood—And noble only to be good?—Then why insult thy name?Didst thou not write with poet’s flameTo save our ancient nobles’ name,Their rank and chivalry;Then why disgrace that ancient shrineThe only fount totheedivine,Whydamntheir memory?Democracy will laugh with scornAnd know a noble fool is bornTo curse his pedigree.’Tis this oppression and this shame,Deeds done beneath anoblenameWill kill thy line for thee?Art thou of human love possest,With heart beneath thy silken vest,To claim thyself a man?Art thou a husband, father, say,Withhomethat none can take away,To bless thy earthly span?Bright jewels deck thy lady’s head,Thy children never wanted bread,Born into luxury.Thy princely mansion so secure,Thy hands norheadcould ne’er procureThis gift ofdestiny.…The want and suffering that your handHas brought a helpless, martyr’d band,Will cry against yourdeed;The orphan’s tears willburnyour soul,And curse you to the final goal,Where mercy you will plead!Thomas Henry Glamorgan(one of the men).London,January 1875.
THE LOCKED-OUT SORTERS OF THE GENERAL POST-OFFICE
To Lord John Manners, Her Majesty’s Postmaster-General
What ails my lord to seek his doom,Why hurl into the winter gloomHis slaves of Want and Pain?Art thou not of noble blood—And noble only to be good?—Then why insult thy name?Didst thou not write with poet’s flameTo save our ancient nobles’ name,Their rank and chivalry;Then why disgrace that ancient shrineThe only fount totheedivine,Whydamntheir memory?Democracy will laugh with scornAnd know a noble fool is bornTo curse his pedigree.’Tis this oppression and this shame,Deeds done beneath anoblenameWill kill thy line for thee?Art thou of human love possest,With heart beneath thy silken vest,To claim thyself a man?Art thou a husband, father, say,Withhomethat none can take away,To bless thy earthly span?Bright jewels deck thy lady’s head,Thy children never wanted bread,Born into luxury.Thy princely mansion so secure,Thy hands norheadcould ne’er procureThis gift ofdestiny.…The want and suffering that your handHas brought a helpless, martyr’d band,Will cry against yourdeed;The orphan’s tears willburnyour soul,And curse you to the final goal,Where mercy you will plead!
What ails my lord to seek his doom,Why hurl into the winter gloomHis slaves of Want and Pain?Art thou not of noble blood—And noble only to be good?—Then why insult thy name?Didst thou not write with poet’s flameTo save our ancient nobles’ name,Their rank and chivalry;Then why disgrace that ancient shrineThe only fount totheedivine,Whydamntheir memory?Democracy will laugh with scornAnd know a noble fool is bornTo curse his pedigree.’Tis this oppression and this shame,Deeds done beneath anoblenameWill kill thy line for thee?Art thou of human love possest,With heart beneath thy silken vest,To claim thyself a man?Art thou a husband, father, say,Withhomethat none can take away,To bless thy earthly span?Bright jewels deck thy lady’s head,Thy children never wanted bread,Born into luxury.Thy princely mansion so secure,Thy hands norheadcould ne’er procureThis gift ofdestiny.…The want and suffering that your handHas brought a helpless, martyr’d band,Will cry against yourdeed;The orphan’s tears willburnyour soul,And curse you to the final goal,Where mercy you will plead!
What ails my lord to seek his doom,Why hurl into the winter gloomHis slaves of Want and Pain?Art thou not of noble blood—And noble only to be good?—Then why insult thy name?
What ails my lord to seek his doom,
Why hurl into the winter gloom
His slaves of Want and Pain?
Art thou not of noble blood—
And noble only to be good?—
Then why insult thy name?
Didst thou not write with poet’s flameTo save our ancient nobles’ name,Their rank and chivalry;Then why disgrace that ancient shrineThe only fount totheedivine,Whydamntheir memory?
Didst thou not write with poet’s flame
To save our ancient nobles’ name,
Their rank and chivalry;
Then why disgrace that ancient shrine
The only fount totheedivine,
Whydamntheir memory?
Democracy will laugh with scornAnd know a noble fool is bornTo curse his pedigree.’Tis this oppression and this shame,Deeds done beneath anoblenameWill kill thy line for thee?
Democracy will laugh with scorn
And know a noble fool is born
To curse his pedigree.
’Tis this oppression and this shame,
Deeds done beneath anoblename
Will kill thy line for thee?
Art thou of human love possest,With heart beneath thy silken vest,To claim thyself a man?Art thou a husband, father, say,Withhomethat none can take away,To bless thy earthly span?
Art thou of human love possest,
With heart beneath thy silken vest,
To claim thyself a man?
Art thou a husband, father, say,
Withhomethat none can take away,
To bless thy earthly span?
Bright jewels deck thy lady’s head,Thy children never wanted bread,Born into luxury.Thy princely mansion so secure,Thy hands norheadcould ne’er procureThis gift ofdestiny.
Bright jewels deck thy lady’s head,
Thy children never wanted bread,
Born into luxury.
Thy princely mansion so secure,
Thy hands norheadcould ne’er procure
This gift ofdestiny.
…
…
The want and suffering that your handHas brought a helpless, martyr’d band,Will cry against yourdeed;The orphan’s tears willburnyour soul,And curse you to the final goal,Where mercy you will plead!
The want and suffering that your hand
Has brought a helpless, martyr’d band,
Will cry against yourdeed;
The orphan’s tears willburnyour soul,
And curse you to the final goal,
Where mercy you will plead!
Thomas Henry Glamorgan(one of the men).
London,January 1875.
Glamorgan’s verse was as the last vehement cry of despairing freedom in the Post-Office. The forces of discontent had been humbled and demoralised, if not wholly scattered; and liberty, cowering in a corner, was to remain dumb for many a day to come.