The trade unions and education were not Mundella’s sole concerns in his early years as a backbencher. Over time he attacked the War Office for its antiquated system for issuing army contracts, and advocated short army and navy service, more volunteers and better organisation. He joined in an attempt to modernise the Patent Laws (for a long time these had been his concern as an industrialist). He spoke against what he called the "absurdity" of the complicated and inconsistent postal rates. He denounced the obsolete game laws, whose savage punishments for poaching jailed many thousands of men. And he attacked the inconsistent treatment of men and women in the Contagious Disease Acts of the 1860s which in ports and garrison towns subjected female prostitutes (or those suspected of being such) to arrest, inspection, and (if they were found to be infected) incarceration for up to one year, while no provision was made for the examination of their male customers. He also pressed for the legal age of sexual intercourse to be raised to 16, since over 25 per cent of those with sexually transmitted infections were under that age.