Her Majesty's Mails

What party speeches failed in doing, the clamour and popular tumult outside at length accomplished. Popular ridicule settled upon the subject; pencil and pen set to work upon it with a will. Newspapers were unusually, and sometimes unreasonably, free in their comments, and all kinds of stories about the Post-Office went the round of the press. Sir James Graham had to bear the brunt of the whole business; whereas the entire Cabinet, but especially Lord Aberdeen, the Foreign Secretary, ought equally to have shared the opprobrium. As it was, the bearing of the Home Secretary in the House of Commons was singularly unwise and unadroit. The subject had now come to be regarded as of too great public importance to be suffered to rest; besides, it was an attractive one for the Opposition side of the House. Mr. Duncombe renewed his motion towards the end of July in the same session. It was in a slightly altered form, inasmuch as he now moved for a select committee "to inquire into a department of Her Majesty's Post-Office commonly called 'the secret or inner office,' the duties and employment of the persons engaged therein, and the authority under which the functions of the said office were discharged." Mr. Duncombe made some startling statements as to the mode and extent of the practice of letter-opening, all of which he declared he could prove if the committee was granted.