492 HISTORY OP THE GRANGE MOVEMENT; OR, 



prospect of increase, his large family increased but too 

 fast. His remuneration for this piece of extra service 

 was the ourplus tea (some three or four pounds) con- 

 tained in each chest, beyond the nominal amount. 



" Our success in tea led us on to buy coffee ; and 

 each time that our list went round the office more and 

 more men asked leave to join. Our poor cupboard soon 

 became too small for our ever-increasing stocks, to 

 which moreover we thought of adding sugar and other 

 groceries. With no small anxiety we found ourselves 

 constrained to hire a store-room outside the building, a 

 step that we felt could not be safely taken .unless we 

 formed ourselves into a regular association. Hence 

 arose the Post-Office Supply Association, which, being 

 afterwards extended to the whole of the Civil Service, 

 in the end took the title of the ' Civil Service Supply 

 Association.' Our first impulse was to call ourselves 

 the ' Post-Office Cooperative Society," but even the 

 boldest of us shrank from so hazardous an avowal so 

 strong only eight short years ago was the prejudice 

 against cooperation, regarded as it was by many as 

 identical with socialism. In a word, we took the thing, 

 but not the name. 



" A small committee of Post-Office men was formed ; 

 and after much anxious deliberation they resolved, and 

 a daring step they thought it, to take a little room at a 

 rent of twelve shillings a week, in the perhaps not 

 over-fashionable neighborhood of Bridgewater-square, 

 Barbican. 



" The following is an extract from the original pros- 

 pectus of the Association, now a very scarce and highly- 

 prized document : 



" l This Association has been formed for the purpose 



