3 FEBRUARY 1872, Page 3

The Postmaster. General has forbidden the Telegraph Depart- ment to

tamper with private telegrams any more. He says in an official note on the subject that Mr. Scudamore, in stopping the messages about the strike among the signallers, was influenced "exclusively by a sense of public duty ;" but that the Act of Parliament is BO clear, and the necessity of securing public confi- dence to the department so paramount, that he "cannot sanction" such proceedings, and they must not be repeated. That is a most reasonable and considerate settlement of the dispute. The merchants and the Press must have fought till the question was settled, even at the risk of expelling Mr. Seudamore from his pout; but the inviolability of the messages once guaranteed, no one wanted him to be punished or even censured for an act dic- tated by public: zeal. We imagine, moreover, from some slightly obscure notices in the Dublin papers—though we are still not -quite sure—that the remainder of the telegraph clerks have been reinstated without signing the falsehood originally demanded of them,—that they were sorry for their rebellion, when they were -only sorry for its failure.