Invoke their blessing, not their curse,
And thou wouldst never fare the worse.
There is reason to believe that the lines were produced by the printers of the Civil Service Gazette. The lines gave an immense amount of secret satisfaction among the class of men to whom the poet was supposed to belong. But better was in store. Following almost immediately on the publication of the verse, the Civil Service Gazette announced its early intention to ventilate the grievances of the “Fags” and “White Niggers” of the postal service. Great was the jubilation among the aggrieved men, for each confidently expected to borrow a copy from his neighbour when it came out. The Civil Service Gazette was a luxury few could afford ordinarily in those days, costing as it did fivepence, principally owing to the paper duty not being yet repealed.
It was the very first time that any public organ had shown the courage and independence to take up in this manner the little-known case of the sorters and letter-carriers. They were naturally delighted, and devoured the articles with avidity. Now that their grievances had at last found ventilation in all the glory of print, surely the day of their deliverance was close at hand.
But the articles fell short of the mark. They were forcible and telling enough—as all such articles of the Civil Service Gazette in those days were—and they showed no small justification for the discontent prevailing. Yet they convinced nobody but the aggrieved men themselves; the authorities were scarcely impressed, except with the impudence of it, while they were read with only a qualified sympathy by the other members of the Civil Service who chanced to take them up. The only effect the publication of the articles had on the heads of the department against whom they were more or less directed was to provoke an inquiry into the authorship of what they chose to regard as a gross literary impertinence. The usual voluntary spies and amateur detectives were set to work secretly to discover by their own methods who could have been guilty of communicating the facts, or, better still, who was the actual author, and if he had any connection with the service. If the men knew anything at all, they kept the secret loyally. The authorities never got beyond suspicions which they failed to justify, and so the matter blew over. If ever there was a postal Junius in connection with the case, none but a few and the Civil Service Gazette knew his identity.
Before leaving the matter of these articles, of which such high hopes and expectations were raised, it may be worthy of mention as a curious item that the interest and enthusiasm of the men was for some time before kept alive by the surreptitious distribution inside the office and elsewhere of handbills issued from the publishers. Let the handbill speak for itself, and break the silence of nearly half a century:—
Read the “Civil Service Gazette”
Unstamped 5d.—Stamped 6d.
July 24th, 1858,
ROWLAND HILL’S LAST UKASE!
BREAK DOWN OF THE GAGGING SYSTEM!
WHITE SLAVES OF THE POST-OFFICE.
31st,
ROWLAND HILL’S JOB FRUSTRATED:
HIS GREAT REVENGE:
The Screw and Gagging System of the General Post-Office.