The Life of Sir Rowland Hill and the

1855-9] DISCONTENTS IN THE OFFICE. 321
CHAPTER XXV.
DISCONTENTS IN THE OFFICE. (1855-1859.)
WHILE, however, content thus prevailed at the
Post Office, and while reports from all quarters spoke
in its
highly of the general conduct of those employed
service, it was inevitable that amongst so large a body
of men discontent should arise somewhere or other.
Promotion by merit, however satisfactory to the de-
those who had no merit
serving, did little to gratify
to show, and was yet more distasteful to any whose
conduct positively shrunk from examination. Even
less gratification was doubtless felt by men who found
themselves deprived of extra pay long received but
never earned, nay, accorded where, instead of ad-
ditional service, even ordinary duty had been so
remitted as to become little more than nominal.
Of course, too, the officials of the Post Office, high
and low, like all other persons employed in whatever
service, hold themselves constantly open to an offer of
increased salary or other improvement in condition ;
and as, in the nature of things,
does not always come so frequently as desired, are not
a little disposed to give the matter a helping hand
when convenient. It will readily be imagined that
such movements are most frequent in the lower
such advancement
branches of the service ; or at least take there their
most troublesome form. Sorters and letter-carriers,
like other handicraftsmen, are more struck with the
amount of their own work than able to appreciate the
superior skill and incomparably greater labour required
in the higher operations ; and thus their inequality of
condition, though the natural result of inferiority in
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