CHAPTER X.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE POST-OFFICE.

From the year 1844 to the present time the progress of the Post-Office

institution has been great and unexampled. Among Mr. Hill's minor

proposals were those for the institution of day-mails, the establishment

of rural posts, and the extension of free deliveries. The period between

the passing of the Penny Postage Act and the year 1850 saw these useful

suggestions carried out to an extent which proved highly beneficial to

the public. With regard to the day-mails, Mr. Hill proposed that on the

_morning_ of each day, as well as evenings, mails should leave London

after certain country and continental mails had arrived, by which means

letters, instead of remaining nearly twenty-four hours in London, might

be at once forwarded to their addresses, and two mails per diem be thus

given to most English towns. The Earl of Lichfield would seem to have

seen the useful and practicable nature of these proposals, for, being

Postmaster-General at the time, he did not wait to adopt them till the

passing of the Act of 1839. As early as 1838 one or two day-mails were

established, running out of London. Before 1850 we find the list

included those of Dover, Southampton, Bristol, Birmingham, and

Cambridge. These day-mails are now established on every considerable

line of railway in the kingdom. London, in 1864, possesses not only

day-mails on all the lines running from the metropolis, but one to

Ireland, and two by different routes into Scotland. Further, a great

number of railways in the United Kingdom have stipulated to take mails

by any passenger-train.

Mr. Hill also contemplated the establishment of rural posts in every

village. In 1840, the number of village post-offices was about 3,000. At

that time nothing but "guarantee posts"--by means of which parties in

the country might obtain additional accommodation on their consenting to

bear the whole additional expense--were granted to new localities. Mr.

Hill urged upon the Post-Office authorities the abandonment of this

plan, and the gradual establishment of ordinary post-offices. He

calculated that an annual outlay of 70,000_l._ would suffice to give 600

additional daily posts to neglected districts, and he pledged his word

that the outlay would be remunerative. There are now more than 8,000

additional rural post-offices, the erection of which has done all for

the public and the Post-Office revenue that Mr. Hill anticipated.

The extension of free deliveries, also strongly urged by Mr. Hill, has

progressed fairly from that time to this. Round each provincial town

there used to be drawn a cordon, letters, &c. for places beyond which

had either to be brought by private messenger, or were charged an extra

sum on delivery as a gratuity to the postmaster. From year to year new

places have been included in these free deliveries; soon the most remote

and inaccessible parts of our country--the nooks and crannies of our

land--will enjoy nearly equal privileges with our large towns, more

rural messengers being appointed as this work approaches completion.

In 1848, the advantages of a book-post were granted to the country. By

the new rate, a single volume might be sent to any part of the United

Kingdom at the uniform rate of sixpence per pound. The privileges of

this book-post were gradually extended to the colonies. The railway

companies, at the time and subsequently, complained loudly that the

Post-Office, by establishing the book-post, had entered into an unfair

competition with them. This competition was described as very

injurious, on account of the low rates at which books and book-packets

were conveyed. It was answered, however--and in this answer the country

very generally agreed--that the railway companies had no legal or

equitable right to the monopoly of parcel-traffic; and if they had, the

exceptions taken in the case of the book-post were only to books and

printed matter intimately connected with objects such as the diffusion

of knowledge and the promotion of education--matters with which the

Post-Office was now most immediately concerned. The facts, however,

were, that very few indeed of the packets sent by the book-post were

such as had been previously sent by railway. The Post-Office, by

offering its vast machinery for the transmission of such articles,

especially to remote districts, gave facilities which had never before

been offered, and which caused books and documents to pass through the

Post-Office which otherwise, had no book-post existed, would not have

been sent through any other channel. A Select Committee, which sat in

1854, on the conveyance of mails by railway, took evidence on this

point, and in their report stated it as their opinion, that a large

proportion of the packets sent would not have been so forwarded but for

the facilities offered by the Post-Office in their distribution.

Any loss, however, which the railways might experience in this respect

was more than counterbalanced when the Executive abolished the

compulsory impressed stamp on newspapers, this arrangement giving rise

to a conveyance of newspaper-parcels by railway-trains to an enormous

extent, and proportionately lessening the work and profits of the

Post-Office.

The year 1849 is principally remarkable for the agitation which existed

with respect to Sunday labour at the General Post-Office. Previous to

this year no work was allowed in the London establishment, but now an

arrangement was proposed to receive the mails as on other days, officers

attending, though not during the period of Divine service, to assort

and dispose of the letters received. Public meetings were held in London

and many of the principal towns to protest against any increase of the

Post-Office work. Public opinion in the metropolis was pretty unanimous

against any change; in the provinces it was more divided. The

authorities gave way before the force of opinion, and the London office

has remained closed ever since on the first day of the week. In the

country different arrangements are made. In Scotland, and in one or two

English towns, no letter-delivery takes place from house to house, a

short time only being allowed for the public to apply for their letters

at the post-office windows. In the majority of English towns the early

morning delivery only is made. The day-mails, as a rule, do not run on

Sundays. The post-offices in the major part of our English and Scotch

villages are entirely closed on Sundays.

Wires having been laid down to St. Martin's-le-Grand from the different

railway stations, telegraph messages were first used to expedite

post-office business on the 31st of August, 1849. All important matters,

such as bag or registered letter irregularities, requiring prompt

notice, are made known or explained through the medium of the electric

telegraph.

Commissioners were appointed from about this year to secure the services

of railways on the most equitable terms, and to arbitrate for that

purpose between the Post-Office and the railway companies. The

Committee, on the conveyance of mails by railways, suggested this

course. On the debate which followed the report of the Committee to

which we have before alluded, Sir Robert Peel frankly acknowledged "the

enormous error" into which he, and the House generally "had fallen when

the railroad bills were under discussion. They ought to have foreseen,"

said he, "when these bills were before them, that they were in fact

establishing a monopoly, a monopoly in respect to which there could be

no future condition. They ought to have foreseen that, if the railroads

were successful, other modes of internal communication would almost

necessarily fall into disuse, and they ought, therefore, to have

stipulated--_as it would have been perfectly just and easy for them to

have done_--that certain public services should be performed at a

reasonable rate." However, as this had not been done, Parliament could

only fall back upon its inherent right to say on what terms such

services should be provided from time to time; for which purpose they

could not do better than employ arbitration, as it was the same course

pursued when the companies disputed with the owners of property the

value of land compulsorily taken for railway works. Sir James

Graham[130] moved a declaratory clause on the occasion, that arbitrators

should take into consideration the cost of the construction of the

particular lines in awarding the sums for different services. Mr.

Labouchere, the Vice-President of the Board of Trade, speaking for the

Government, wished the arbitrators to be wholly free, but he gave a

pledge on behalf of the Post-Office that no attempt would be made to

exclude the cost of construction from the consideration of the

arbitrators. With this assurance, the Opposition expressed themselves

satisfied.

In 1855, the Postmaster-General, the late Lord Canning, commenced the

practice of furnishing the Lords of the Treasury, and through them the

public, with annual reports on the Post-Office. These reports, which

have been continued up to the present time, show the progress of the

Department from year to year, and present to the general reader, as well

as to the statistician, a vast mass of interesting information. Compared

with the reports of the Committee of Revenue Inquiry or of the

Commissioners of Post-Office Inquiry, they are lucid and interesting in

their nature. Though constructed on the same plan and little varied from

year to year, they are much above the ordinary run of official

documents. Lord Canning, in recommending the adoption of the plan, gave

as one reason among many, that the Post-Office service was constantly

expanding and improving, but that information respecting postal

matters, especially postal changes, was not easily accessible. This

information, he believed, could be given without any inconvenience,

whilst many misapprehensions, and possibly complaints, might be avoided.

The public might thus see what the Post-Office was about; learn their

duty towards the Department, and find out--what half the people did not

then and perhaps do not even yet understand--what were the benefits and

privileges to which they were justly entitled at its hands.

The Duke of Argyll succeeded Lord Canning in the management of the

Post-Office in 1855, and his years of office are distinguished by many

most important improvements and reforms. One important change consisted

in the amalgamation of the two corps of London letter-carriers, effected

soon after the installation of the Duke of Argyll at the Post-Office.

The two classes of "General Post" and "London District" letter-carriers

were perhaps best known before 1855, by the former wearing a red, and

the latter a blue, uniform. The object of this amalgamation, for which

Mr. Hill had been sedulously striving from the period of penny postage,

was to avoid the waste of time, trouble, and expense consequent on two

different men going over the same ground to distribute two classes of

letters which might, without any real difficulty, be delivered together.

The greatest objection in the Post-Office itself to completing the

change, arose from the different _status_ of the two bodies of men, the

one class being paid at a much higher rate of wages and with better

prospects than the other class. This difficulty was at length

surmounted, when the benefits of this minor reform became clearly

apparent in earlier and more regular deliveries of letters. Inside the

Post-Office the work was made much more easy and simple, and the gross

inequality existing between two bodies of public servants whose duties

were almost identical, was done away.[131]

Still more important was the division of London into ten postal

districts, carried out during the year 1856. The immense magnitude of

the metropolis necessitated this scheme; it having been found impossible

to overcome the obstacles to a more speedy transmission of letters

within and around London, or properly to manage without some change, the

ever increasing amount of Post-Office business. Under the new

arrangements, each district was to be treated in many respects as a

separate town, district post-offices to be erected in each of them.

Thus, instead of all district post-letters being carried from the

receiving houses to the chief office at St. Martin's-le-Grand, there to

be sorted and re-distributed, the letters must now be sent to the

principal office of the district in which they were posted; sorted

there; and distributed from that office according to their address. The

time and trouble saved by this arrangement is, as was expected,

enormous. Under the old system, a letter from Cavendish Square to

Grosvenor Square went to the General Post-Office, was sorted, and then

sent back to the latter place, travelling a distance of four or five

miles: whereas, at present, with hourly deliveries, it is almost

immediately sent from one place to the other.[132] An important part of

the new scheme was, that London should be considered in the principal

provincial post-offices as ten different towns, each with its own centre

of operations, and that the letters should be assorted and despatched on

this principle. Country letters would be delivered straightway--without

any intermediate sorting--to that particular part of London for which

they were destined; whilst the sorters there having the necessary local

knowledge, would distribute them immediately into the postmen's walks.

With respect to the _smaller_ provincial towns, it was provided that

their London correspondence should be sorted into districts on the

railway during the journey to the metropolis. Thus, on the arrival of

the different mails at the several railway termini, the letters would

not be sent as formerly to the General Post-Office, but direct to each

district office, in bags prepared in the course of the journey. It was a

long time before this new and important plan was thoroughly carried out

in all its details; but now that it is in working order, the result is

very marked in the earlier delivery of letters, and in the time and

labour saved in the various processes. In fact, all the anticipated

benefits have flowed from the adoption of the measure.

In the same year a reduction was made in the rates for book-packets. The

arrangement made at this time, which exists at present, charges one

penny for every four ounces of printed matter; a book weighing one pound

being charged fourpence. A condition annexed was, that every such packet

should be open at the ends or sides, and if closed against inspection,

should be liable to be charged at the unpaid letter rate of postage.

This penalty was soon found to be unreasonably heavy and vexatious, and

was therefore reduced to an additional charge of sixpence only. At the

present time, the conditions under which such packets may be sent

through the post are the same, but the fines inflicted for infringements

are still further reduced.

In 1857, a new regulation provided that a book-packet might consist of

any number of sheets, which might be either printed or written, provided

there was nothing in it of the nature of a letter. If anything of the

sort should be found in the packet on examination, it was to be taken

out and forwarded separately as a letter, and charged twopence as a fine

in addition to the postage at the letter rate. The packet might consist

of books, manuscripts, maps, prints with rollers, or any literary or

artistic matter, if not more than two feet wide, long, or deep.

In the same year, the letter-rate to all the British Colonies (which

were not previously under the lower rates) was reduced to the uniform

one of sixpence for each half-ounce, payable in advance. The privileges

of the English book-post were also extended to the Colonies; the rate at

which books &c. might be sent being threepence for every four ounces.

Exceptions were made in respect to the following places, viz.--Ascension

Island, East Indies, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, and the Gold

Coast, to which places the rate charged was fourpence for four ounces,

the weight being restricted to three pounds.

Another important improvement was made when, about the same time, the

postage on letters conveyed by private ship between this country and all

parts of the world, was reduced to a uniform rate of sixpence the

half-ounce.

Nor were these reforms the only results of the wise rule of the Duke of

Argyll. Through his exertions, a postal convention was concluded with

France, resulting not only in a considerable reduction of postage on

letters passing between the two countries, but in the lowering of the

rate to all European countries, letters for which _went by way of

France_. An attempt was made to arrange a postal convention with the

United States during the year 1857, but like so many previous ones, it

came to nothing.

The Duke of Argyll is also favourably remembered in the metropolitan

offices, for having granted--to the major establishment at any rate--the

boon of a Saturday half-holiday.

But perhaps his Grace laboured most arduously to bring about a more

satisfactory relation between the railway companies and the Post-Office.

Since the advent of cheap postage, nothing had so much impeded the

progressive development of the Post-Office, as the adverse attitude of

the companies who must convey the mails, now that all other modes of

conveyance had been virtually superseded by the power of steam. Although

the Postmaster-General failed in this instance, he is none the less

entitled to the gratitude of the country for his well-meant attempt to

repair the mistake which the Executive originally made in not carefully

providing for the public service. Few could say that the existing law

was, and is, not defective. The gain to the Post-Office through railways

is certainly enormous: besides the advantage of increased speed, they

make it possible to get through the sorting and the carrying of the

mails at the same time. But here the gain ends; and the cost for the

service really done is heavy beyond all proportion. The cost of carrying

mails by coaches averaged twopence farthing a mile; the average cost

under railways is tenpence a mile, some railways charging nearly five

shillings per mile for the service they render. The cost of running a

train may be reckoned, in most cases, at fifteen pence per mile; and

thus the Post-Office, for the use of a fraction of a train, may be said

constantly to be paying at the rate of from sixty to three hundred per

cent. in excess of the whole cost of running! The Postmaster-General

stated that the terms upon which one railway company would undertake

postal service was totally disproportionate to those of a neighbouring

company. On the other hand, all the companies were alike dissatisfied,

however dissimilar the contracts, or the terms imposed and agreed

to.[133] Moreover, it was declared next to impossible to secure

regularity and punctuality in the conveyance of mails, and to agree to

amicable arbitration for the services which were done, until the

Legislature should lay down reasonable laws, binding all the companies

alike. A Bill was introduced into the House of Lords regulating the

arrangements between the Post-Office and the different companies. Though

it was carefully prepared, it was strongly opposed by the railway

interest in Parliament. The opposition was all the more unreasonable,

inasmuch as many of its clauses sought to remove objections to the

existing law which railway companies had frequently complained of. As

far as the Post-Office was concerned, it seems to have been the extent

of the wish of the authorities that the question of remuneration might

be based on the actual cost of running the trains, making due allowance,

on the one hand, for the benefits accruing to the companies from their

connexion with the mail service, and adding, on the other hand,

compensation for any special extra expenses to which the companies might

be subjected by the requirements of that service, _together with a full

allowance for profit_.[134] The Bill also provided for the more

extensive employment of ordinary passenger trains,--not, however, to the

supercession of the regular mail-trains--for the _exclusive_ employment

of certain trains for postal purposes, for penalties, &c. The measure

had been brought in late in the session, and was eventually withdrawn.

The Bill itself, with its twenty-one clauses, forms part of the Appendix

to the Postmaster-General's fourth report; and as the basis of

arrangements between the two interests is still unsettled and uncertain,

the Duke of Argyll there commends it to the careful attention of the

public, as well as to the fair consideration of the railway authorities

themselves.

In 1858, on the accession of Lord Derby to power, Lord Colchester was

appointed to the Post-Office without a seat in the Cabinet. Improvements

continued during his short administration, both as regards inland,

foreign, and colonial postages; but nothing calls for special mention

here except an attempt on the part of the Post-Office to render the

payment of inland letters compulsory. The plan cannot be said to have

had a fair trial. Its benefits and advantages were not clearly apparent,

except to those who were acquainted with the machinery of the

Post-Office. While, without doubt, the principles upon which it was

based were sound, the objections to the arrangement lay on the surface,

and were such as could not be overcome except by the exercise of great

patience on the part of the public: the measure pressed heavily on

certain interests: a great portion of the less thoughtful organs of the

public press manifested considerable repugnance to it, and, in

consequence, the Postmaster-General was led to recommend to the

Treasury the withdrawal of the order after the expiration of a few weeks

of partial trial. As pointed out by Mr. Hill at the time, compulsory

prepayment of letters was a part of the original plan of penny postage;

it was one of the recommendations which he made having for their object

the simplification of accounts, and the more speedy delivery of letters.

The Secretary of the Post-Office in urging a fair trial of the

measure,[135] argued that after the lapse of a few months it would be

productive of good even to letter-writers, not to speak of the saving of

time, trouble, and expense to the Department. He very truly added that

there were no difficulties attributable to the new rule which might not

be surmounted by a little care or ingenuity. As it was, the public

preferred an immediate termination of the experiment to the possible and

problematical advantages that might arise from its continuance; and in

this instance the country was indulged by an early return to the old

plan.

In the following year, Lord Colchester was succeeded by the late Earl of

Elgin as Postmaster-General, with a seat in Lord Palmerston's Cabinet.

When Lord Elgin was sent on the special mission to the East in 1860, the

Duke of Argyll held the joint offices of Lord Privy Seal and

Postmaster-General until a permanent successor was appointed in the

person of Lord Stanley of Alderley, who now (March, 1864) holds the

office.

In 1859, the Money-order Office in London, and the money-order system

generally, were remodelled. By a process meant to simplify the accounts,

and other judicious alterations, a saving of 4,000_l._ a-year was

effected, while the public were benefited by some concessions that had

been much desired, such as the granting of money-orders up to the amount

of 10_l._ instead of 5_l._ The money-order system was likewise extended

to the colonies, the first connexion of the kind having been opened with

Canada and our European possessions of Gibraltar and Malta. It has

subsequently been extended to the principal British colonies, including

the whole of Australia.

Important improvements were also made in the department charged with the

transmission of mails. Several accelerations--in one case a most

important one--were made in the speed of the principal mail-trains; the

number of travelling post-offices was increased; the construction of the

whole of them was improved; and the apparatus-machinery, attached to the

carriages for the exchange of mail-bags at those stations where the

mail-trains do not stop, was called more and more into requisition.

Under the Earl of Elgin, the British Post-Office endeavoured to form

conventions with foreign countries, the object in all cases being the

increase of postal facilities. In the case of Spain and Portugal, the

authorities seem to have been successful, and partially so with the

German Postal Union. An attempt to renew negotiations with the United

States calls for mention here. The advocates of ocean penny postage (of

which so much was heard some years previously--not only a desirable, but

a practicable scheme) may thus obtain some idea of the difficulty of

coming to any reasonable arrangement between the two countries. We have

already stated that a former Postmaster-General urged upon the

Government of the United States the necessity of reduction in the rates

of postage of letters circulating from one country to the other, but was

unsuccessful at the time.[136] In 1859, the Postmaster-General of the

United States (Mr. Holt) communicated to the English Department his

concurrence in the principle of a reduction in the postage of British

letters from twenty-four to twelve cents, providing that England would

give America the lion's share of the proposed postage! The United

States' Government would agree to the change provided the new rate be

apportioned as follows, viz.:--

United States' Inland Postage 3 cents.

Sea Rate of Postage 7 "

British Inland Postage 2 "

The Earl of Elgin objected to this proposal as not equitable. He argued,

with perfect truth and fairness, that each country ought to be

remunerated according to the value of the service it rendered, and that,

whether the inland service was considered (where the three items of

collection, conveyance,[137] and delivery must be taken into account),

or the sea service (undoubtedly better worked and regulated with us than

in America), this country had a fair claim to a larger share of postage

than the United States. As, however, an unrestricted intercourse between

the two countries was far more important than a nice adjustment in the

revision of the postage, the English Postmaster-General would only press

for equality, and proposed the following division:--

British Inland Postage 1_d._ or 2 cents.

Sea Postage 4_d._ " 8 "

United States' Inland Postage 1_d._ " 2 "

----- ---------

6_d._ 12 cents.

----- ---------

In the event of the American Government not being prepared to agree,

Lord Elgin proposed that a disinterested third party should be called

in, to whom the whole matter might be amicably referred. To this

communication no answer whatever was returned, and the English

Department had to wait until the next report of the United States

Post-Office was published, in order to ascertain how the proposals had

been received. It was found that Mr. Holt here complained that a

reasonable offer that he had made to England had been declined there,

"_and for reasons so unsatisfactory_, that for the present no

disposition is felt to pursue the matter further." It is sincerely to be

regretted that this great improvement, which would have been gladly

hailed by thousands on both sides of the Atlantic, should have been so

arrested, and especially that the United States' Government should have

been deaf to the proposition to send the matter to arbitrament.

Unquestionably, the present results, as well as the responsibility of

future exertion, lies at the door of the United States; and it is to be

hoped that, in justice to the thousands whom the Americans have

eagerly invited to populate their country--not to mention other

considerations--they will soon renew their efforts to obtain the boon of

a sixpenny postage, and be prepared to meet the mother-country on

reasonable grounds with equal terms.

The postal service with Ireland being considered deficient, so much so,

that frequent mention was made of the subject in the House of Commons, a

new and special service was brought into operation on the 1st of

October, 1860. Night and day mail-trains have, on and from that date,

been run specially from Euston Square Station to Holyhead, and special

mail-steamers employed, at enormous expense, to cross the Channel.

Letter-sorting is carried on not only in the trains, but on board the

packets; nearly all the Post-Office work, including the preparation of

the letters for immediate delivery at London and Dublin respectively,

being accomplished on the journey between London and Dublin, and _vice

versâ_--a journey which is now accomplished in about twelve hours. By

means of this new service, a great saving of time is also effected on

the arrival and departure of most of the American and Canadian mails.

It cannot but be interesting to the reader who may have followed us as

we have endeavoured to trace the progress of post communication in this

country, to know how much is really possible under the improved

facilities of our own day. A better instance could not be afforded than

that occurring at the beginning of the year 1862, when the important

news on which depended peace or war was hourly expected from the United

States. Before the packet was due, the Inspector-General of Mails took

steps to expedite the new Irish mail service, to the greatest possible

extent, in its passage from Queenstown to London, and the result is so

clearly and accurately given in the _Times_ of the 8th of January, 1862,

that we cannot do better than quote the account entire:--

"The arrangements for expressing the American mails throughout from

Queenstown to London, which we described as being so successfully

executed with the mails brought by the _Africa_ last week, have been

repeated with still more satisfactory results in the case of the mails

brought by the _Europa_. These results are so exceptional that we record

them in detail. The _Europa_ arrived off Queenstown, about five miles

from the pier, at 9 P.M. on Monday night. Her mails and the despatches

from Lord Lyons were placed on board the small tender in waiting, and

arrived at the Queenstown Pier at 10.5 P.M., at which point they were

transferred to an express steamboat for conveyance by river to Cork.

Leaving Queenstown Pier at 10.10 P.M., they arrived alongside the quay

at Cork at 11.15 P.M. and thirteen minutes afterwards the special train

left the Cork station for Dublin, accomplishing the journey to Dublin

(166 miles) in four hours and three minutes, _i. e._ at a speed of about

41 miles an hour, including stoppage. The transmission through the

streets between the railway termini in Dublin and by special train to

Kingstown occupied only thirty-six minutes, and in four minutes more the

special mail-boat _Ulster_ was on her way to Holyhead. The distance

across the Irish Channel, about sixty-six statute miles, was performed

by the _Ulster_, against a contrary tide and heavy sea, in three hours

and forty-seven minutes, giving a speed of about seventeen and a half

miles an hour. The special train, which had been in waiting for about

forty-eight hours, left the Holyhead Station at 8.13 A.M., and it was

from this point that the most remarkable part of this rapid express

commenced. The run from Holyhead to Stafford, 130½ miles, occupied

only 145 minutes, being at the rate of no less than fifty-four miles an

hour; and although so high a speed was judiciously not attempted over

the more crowded portion of the line from Stafford to London, the whole

distance from Holyhead to Euston, 264 miles, was performed by the London

and North-Western Company in exactly five hours, or at a speed of about

52-2/3 miles an hour, a speed unparalleled over so long a line, crowded

with ordinary traffic. The entire distance from Queenstown Pier to

Euston Square, about 515 miles, was thus traversed in fifteen hours and

three minutes, or at an average speed of about thirty-four and a quarter

miles an hour, including all delays necessary for the several transfers

of the mails from boat to railway, or _vice versâ_.... By means of the

invention for supplying the tender with water from a trough _in

transitu_, the engine was enabled to run its first stage of 130½

miles, from Holyhead to Stafford, without stopping."

During the session of 1860-1, an Act was passed through Parliament for

the establishment of Post-Office Savings' Banks on a plan proposed by

Mr. Sykes, of Huddersfield.

In order to encourage the registration of letters containing coin or

valuable articles, the registration fee was reduced, in 1862, from 6_d._

to 4_d._ each letter. At the same time, the plan of compulsory

registration of letters was revived, and applied to all letters passing

through the _London Office_ which contained, or were supposed to

contain, coin. Last year the plan was found to have been so successful

in its results, that it was extended to _all inland letters_. The public

may judge of the benefits and blessings of this proscriptive

measure--to the officers of the Post-Office at any rate--when we state

that the convictions for letter-stealing, since the plan was fully

adopted, have been reduced more than ninety per cent.

In 1862, the Pneumatic Conveyance Company set up a branch of their

operations at the Euston Square Station, London. The Post-Office took

advantage of this new mode of conveyance to send the mail-bags to the

North-Western District Office from this important railway terminus. The

work is, of course, accomplished with marvellous expedition. The

machinery for other localities is in course of construction, and may

ultimately extend all over the metropolis, to the supercession, as far

as the Post-Office is concerned, of the existing mail-vans.

During the month of May, 1863, a Postal Congress--the first of the

kind--originated, we believe, by Mr. Rasson of the United States,

assembled at the _Bureau des Postes_, in the Rue Jean Jacques, Paris,

under the presidency of the French Postmaster-General, M. Vandal. The

object of the Congress was "the improvement of postal communication

between the principal commercial nations of the world." As we find that

the little republic of Ecuador was represented, the postal affairs of

_little_ kingdoms were also not overlooked. Each civilized nation was

asked to send a delegate, and all the most important States responded.

Mr. Frederic Hill, brother of Sir Rowland Hill, and Assistant Secretary,

was the English representative; the President represented France; M.

Metzler, Prussia; Mr. Rasson, the United States; M. Hencke, Hamburg, &c.

&c. The prepayment of foreign letters was one of the most difficult

subjects discussed. The Congress came to the conclusion that it would be

best to leave it optional with the writer of the letter whether the

postage should be paid to its destination, or paid on receipt; in the

latter case, however, it was thought desirable that a moderate

additional postage should be charged. Another important matter was

settled in a conclusive manner. It was first decided that the postage

of foreign letters should be regulated by weight: it then became highly

necessary, in order to the carrying out of this decision, that the

postage should be calculated by a common standard; hence the following

resolution, which was agreed to--"The metrical decimal system, being of

all systems of weighing that which is best suited to the requirements of

the postal service, it is expedient to adopt it for the international

postal relations, to the exclusion of every other system." Other

subjects of lesser importance, such as the route of foreign letters, the

division of postage rates, the transmission of coin in letters (which

they agreed to allow), were discussed very fully and, we are

assured, very amicably. The Congress seems to have arrived at a good

understanding of the principles of postal reciprocity, and good will

doubtless be the result. The Postal Congress of last year was a Peace

Congress of the most efficient kind, and in every sense of the term.

Within the last ten years the facilities offered to letter-writers by

the Post-Office have materially increased. Four thousand additional

persons have had to be employed in the service, one half, at least, of

whom are engaged on account of the facilities and improvements in

question, whilst the remainder may be said to have been required by the

gradual increase of work in the establishment. The establishment of

mid-day mails, increasing the number of daily deliveries in almost every

provincial town; the acceleration of night-mails, allowing more time for

posting in some places, and earlier deliveries in all; the increase in

the number of village posts, to the extent of between three and four

hundred every year; the gradual extension of free deliveries; the

establishment of pillar letter-boxes as receptacles for letters;

reductions in the rate of foreign and colonial letters, and also in the

registration fee for home letters; the division of London, and to some

extent other large towns, like Liverpool, into districts; and above all,

the establishment of thousands of new savings' banks on safe principles,

in connexion with improved money-order offices; are some of the

principal advantages and facilities to which we refer. The past ten

years have been years of great, gradual, and unexampled improvement. Nor

is there anything but progress and advancement in prospect. The fact is,

that the Post-Office is capable of infinite extension and growth:

besides it belongs to the nation, and the people will expect the

development of the utmost of its utilities. At the present time the

experiment is being tried whether, without impairing its efficiency or

the performance of its more proper business, the Post-Office can

undertake the distribution of stamps; and it is not impossible,

considering that it has at its command an organization which penetrates

the entire kingdom, as no other private or public institution does, that

the Stamp Department may be transferred to the control of the

Postmaster-General.

Further, there is no doubt but that Mr. Gladstone's Bill, if passed

through Parliament, "to amend the law relating to Government Annuities,"

will have a most important effect upon the Post-Office institution.[138]

It is true that under the Savings' Bank Act any person may purchase a

deferred annuity through the Post-Office, only the clause making it

necessary to pay the purchase-money in one sum has a direct deterrent

effect upon the measure. The provisions of the new Bill, on the

contrary, allow the purchase-money to be paid in even weekly

instalments. Equally important is the second part of the Bill, which

empowers the Government to assure a person's life for 100_l._ It is

proposed to draft all this extra business on to the Post-Office

establishment, and no interest, except the insurance company interest,

is likely to say nay. Until assurance or other companies can appoint

agents, and open out offices in every town and village, the Government

is likely to have a monopoly of any business it chooses to undertake.

FOOTNOTES:

[130] _Life of Sir James Graham._ By Mr. T. MacCullagh Torrens, vol. ii.

[131] Postmaster-General's _First Report_, p. 35.

[132] So late as the year 1842, a letter posted at any London

receiving-house after _two_ in the afternoon was not delivered at

Islington until the next morning.--Postmaster-General's _Second Report_.

[133] See Address by the late Mr. Robert Stephenson on his election to

the Presidency of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1855, given in

the Appendix to the larger edition of Mr. Smiles' _Life of George

Stephenson_, and also a reply to it from the Inspector-General of

Mails.--Postmaster-General's _Second Report_, pp. 45-55.

[134] Appendix to Postmaster-General's _Second Report_, p. 51.

[135] _Fifth Report_, Appendix, pp. 43-8.

[136] During the progress of one of these negotiations the following

memorandum, written by Mr. Bancroft, American Minister, is so

characteristic of his people that we are tempted to amuse our readers

with its reproduction entire.--Postmaster-General's _First Report_,

Appendix, p. 83. "Approved as far as 'the rate for sea.' What follows is

superfluous and objectionable. Make your rates (England) to your

colonies and possessions, and foreign countries, what you please, high

or low, one sea-rate or a dozen, or none at all; one inland rate or a

dozen, or none at all. What your people pay we are willing to pay, but

not more, and _vice versâ_. Our security is, that we pay what your

people pay from the same place for the same benefit, and _vice versâ_."

[137] In America letters are certainly carried much greater distances,

at the uniform charge of three cents, than with us for a penny; but it

must be borne in mind that there are no official deliveries of letters

in the United States.

[138] It is possible that this useful measure may be delayed. However it

is, the Post-Office machinery is ready for this incidental application,

and it is surely thrifty to make the most of available resources, though

they may have been originally provided for very different purposes.

PART II.

DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT OF THE POST-OFFICE.

"It has often struck me that some pains should be taken to make the main

features of the Post-Office system intelligible to the people."--_Speech

of Mr. Rowland Hill at Liverpool_, 1847.

PREFATORY.

It is scarcely possible to over-estimate the importance of the postal

regulations of this country. Every section of society, and, to some

extent, every individual, participates in the benefits--commercial,

social, and moral--bestowed by our cheap Post-Office. It is not our

purpose here to urge the value and utility of the Post-Office

institution--which most of our readers gratefully admit--but rather to

furnish some general information relative to the organization and

ordinary working of the Department, sensible that an intelligible

account of the principal features in the system will increase the

interest already felt in the Post-Office, as a mighty engine spreading

the influences of commerce, education, and religion throughout the

world. The Postmaster-General for 1854, in starting an annual report of

the Post-Office, stated that "many misapprehensions and complaints arise

from an imperfect knowledge of matters which might, without any

inconvenience, be placed before the public;" and also, "that the

publicity thus given will be an advantage to the Department itself, and

will have a good effect upon the working of many of its branches."

Endeavouring to exclude all matter that is purely technical, and

presenting the reader with no more statistical information than is

necessary to a proper understanding of the subject, and only premising

that this information--for the correctness of which we are alone

responsible--has been carefully collated from a mass of official

documents not easily accessible, and others presented to the public from

time to time, we will first describe--

CHAPTER I.

THE ORGANIZATION OF THE POST-OFFICE.

The Post-Office being a branch of the public service, instituted by

statute, is, of course, under the control of the Government of the

country in every respect. The principal Acts of Parliament which now

regulate the Post-Office are those of 1 Vict. c. 32-36, entitled "An Act

to repeal the several laws relating to the Post-Office;" "An Act for the

management of the Post-Office;" "An Act for consolidating the laws

relative to offences against the Post-Office;" one to which we have

previously referred, 2 Vict. c. 98, "An Act to provide for the

conveyance of mails by railway;" 3 & 4 Vict. c. 96, "An Act for the

regulation of the duties of Postage." Besides these more important Acts,

there are others of later date relating to the Money-order Office,

colonial posts, and, more recently, one relating to the Post-Office

Savings' Banks.

According to the latest returns,[139] there are 11,316 post-offices in

the United Kingdom, of which 808 are head-offices, and 10,508

sub-offices. To these must be added a great number of road letter-boxes,

making a total of 14,776 public receptacles for letters, or more by

10,000 than the total number before penny postage. The total number of

letters passing through the Post-Office during the year 1863 was

642,000,000, or, in the proportion of letters to population, no less

than 22 to each person in the three kingdoms. As contrasted with the

last year of dear postage, the number of letters show an _eightfold_

increase. The distance over which the mails travel with this enormous

amount of correspondence, in the United Kingdom alone, is nearly 160,000

miles per day. Of the mails conveyed by railway, a distance of 50,000

miles is accomplished every working-day; 72,000 miles per diem are

traversed on foot; and the rest are carried by mail-coaches, mail-carts,

and steamboats.

The gross revenue of the Post-Office for the year 1863 was, in round

numbers, 3,800,000_l._, being more by nearly a quarter of a million

sterling than the proceeds for the year 1862. Of this enormous total,

England contributed upwards of 3,000,000_l._, the remainder having been

raised from Ireland and Scotland. To this sum should be added a further

item of 130,000_l._ for the impressed stamp on newspapers sent through

the post, the charges for which are collected by the Commissioners of

Inland Revenue. The actual expenditure of the Department, including the

expenses of mail-packets (great part of which appertain to the

Admiralty), amounted, in round numbers, to 3,000,000_l._ The amount of

all the items belonging exclusively to Post-Office charges is, however,

less than two and a quarter millions. The net revenue of the Post-Office

for 1863 may, therefore, be stated at 1,790,000_l._; or, counting the

whole of the packet expenses--which mode of reckoning, however, would

lead to erroneous notions of the financial success of penny postage--to

a clear revenue of 900,000_l._

At the end of 1862, the staff of officers employed in the British

Post-Office numbered 25,380. Of this number 25,285 were engaged in the

British Isles, 73 in foreign countries (as agents collecting the British

share of foreign postage), and 22 in the colonies.[140] Of the

_employés_ at home, between 3,000 and 4,000 are attached to the London

Office alone, while the remainder, including more than 11,000

postmasters, belong to the establishments in the various towns and

villages of the United Kingdom. The entire staff is under the immediate

control of the Postmaster-General, assisted by the General Secretary of

the Post-Office in London. The service of the three kingdoms,

notwithstanding this direct control, is managed in the respective

capitals, at each of which there is a chief office, with a secretarial

and other departmental staffs.[141]

_The Postmaster-General_, the highest controlling authority at the

Post-Office representing the Executive, is now always a peer of

the realm, a member of the Privy Council, and generally, though

not necessarily, a Cabinet Minister. Of course he changes with

the Government. As we have seen in the origin of the office, he

holds his appointment by patent granted under the Great Seal. The

Postmaster-General has in his gift all the postmasterships in England

and Wales where the salary is not less than 120_l._ per annum (all under

that sum being in the gift of the Treasury Lords), and to those in

Ireland and Scotland where the salary is 100_l._ and upwards. Besides

this amount of patronage, now dispensed to officers already in the

service, he has the power of nomination to all vacancies in the General

Post-Offices of London, Edinburgh, and Dublin.[142] The following

noblemen have occupied the position of Postmaster-General during the

last forty years, or since the joint Postmaster-Generalship was

abolished in 1823,[143] viz. Earl of Chichester (1823), Lord Frederick

Montague (1826), Duke of Manchester (1827), Duke of Richmond (1830),

appointed Postmaster-General of Great Britain and Ireland the year

after; Marquis of Conyngham (July, 1834), Lord Maryborough (December,

1834), Marquis of Conyngham again (May, 1835), Earl of Lichfield (June,

1835), Viscount Lowther (September, 1841), Earl St. Germains (June,

1846), Marquis of Clanricarde (July, 1846). Still more recently, we find

the Earl of Hardwicke, Viscount Canning, Duke of Argyll (twice), Lord

Colchester, the Earl of Elgin, and Lord Stanley of Alderley.

_The Secretary of the Post-Office_ holds the highest fixed appointment

in the establishment, and may be regarded, therefore, as the responsible

adviser of the Postmaster-General. The principal secretaries during the

century have been Francis Freeling, Esq. (1797), created a baronet in

1828; Lieut.-Colonel William Leader Maberly (1836); Rowland Hill, Esq.

(1856), knighted in 1860; and, as at present, John Tilley, Esq.

(1864).[144]

The chief office in London is divided into six principal departments,

each under the charge of a chief officer. These heads of departments are

severally responsible to the Postmaster-General for the efficiency and

discipline of their respective branches. Something like the same

arrangement, though on a much smaller scale, is preserved in the

less-important chief offices of Edinburgh and Dublin. The branches in

question consist of--(1) The Secretary's Office; (2) The Solicitor's

Office; (3) The Mail Office; (4) The Receiver and Accountant-General's

Office; (5) The Money-order Office; and (6) The Circulation Office.

1. _The Secretary's Office_ exercises a general _surveillance_ over all

the other departments of the Post-Office, including, of course, all

provincial offices. It is the medium of communication with the Lords of

the Treasury, and also with the public. All important matters

originating in other branches, or in country offices, pass through this

office to the Postmaster-General, returning through the same channel. In

1763, the secretaries of the Post-Office had one clerk and two

supernumerary clerks assigned to them. Now, the three secretaries are

assisted in their duties by one chief clerk, one principal clerk for

foreign and colonial business, sixteen senior clerks, and thirty-eight

clerks in other two classes. There is also a force of nineteen

supplementary clerks, five official paper-keepers, and nineteen

messengers.[145]

2. _The Solicitor's Office_, as its name implies, deals with the law

business of the Post-Office. It gives employment to a solicitor, an

assistant-solicitor, and four clerks.

3. _The Mail Office_ has to do with all matters connected with the

transmission of mails, whether the conveyance be by railroad, water, or

stage-coach. Attached to this office are the travelling post-offices of

the country, which are under its exclusive management. The Mail Office

arranges with the different railway companies for the conveyance of the

mails, in the contracts for which are included provision for the

employment of post-offices fitted up in railway-carriages; it

also looks to the proper performance of each post-office contract

embracing mail-conveyance. The staff of the Mail Office comprises an

inspector-general of mails, a deputy inspector-general, two principal

clerks, and twenty-one clerks in three classes. The connexion between

the Mail Office in London and its important adjuncts, the travelling

post-offices, is kept up by a staff of five inspectors of mails (three

employed in England, one in Scotland, and one in Ireland), a supervisor

of mail-bag apparatus, and several subordinate officers. The travelling

offices employ a force of 54 clerks in three classes, and 139 sorters in

four classes.

4. _The Receiver and Accountant-General's Office_ takes account of the

money of each department, remittances being received here from all the

other branches and each provincial town in England. General accounts of

revenue and expenditure are also kept, this office being charged with

the examination of the postage and revenue accounts of each postmaster.

All salaries, pensions, and items of current expenditure are also paid

through this office. In 1763, the duties of these offices, then

distinct, were performed by a receiver, an accountant, and four clerks.

Now, the appointments comprise the receiver and accountant-general, a

chief examiner, a chief cashier, a principal book-keeper, with

forty-seven clerks in three classes, and nine messengers.

5. _The Money-order Office_, occupying a separate building in Aldersgate

Street, takes charge of the whole of the money-order business of the

country, in addition to doing an enormous amount of work as a

money-order office for the metropolis. Of course, everything relating to

this particular branch of post-office business, and also some part of

the savings' bank accounts, pass through this channel. Each provincial

postmaster sends a daily account of his transactions to this office.

Attached to the Money-order Office, we find a controller, a chief clerk,

an examiner, a book-keeper, 112 clerks in three classes, and 27

messengers.

6. _The Circulation Office_ in London manages the ordinary post-office

work of the metropolis. In it, or from it, all the letters, newspapers,

and book-packets posted at, or arriving in, London, are sorted,

despatched, and delivered. Not only so; but in this office nearly all

the continental, and most part of the other foreign mails for the whole

of the British Islands, are received, sorted, and despatched. Under

ordinary circumstances, moreover, British letters for a great number of

places are sent in transit through London, where it is requisite they

should be rearranged and forwarded. This daily Herculean labour is

performed by the clerks, sorters, and letter-carriers attached to the

department. The ten district-offices in London, engaged with the same

kind of work on a small scale, are subordinate to the Circulation Office

at St. Martin's-le-Grand. The Registered Letter Branch, employing no

less than fifty clerks, and the Returned Letter Branch, with the Office

for Blind Letters, are parts of the Circulation Department. The _major_

branch of the Circulation Office comprises the controller, a

vice-controller, 15 deputy-controllers, and 251 clerks in three classes.

The _minor_ establishment, as it is called, employs no fewer than 2,398

persons. In this force are included 42 inspectors of letter-carriers in

three classes; the rest, being composed of sorters, stampers,

letter-carriers, and messengers.

To these six principal departments may now be added that for the

management of the new _Post-Office Savings' Banks_. Like the Money-order

Office, it occupies a separate building, in St. Paul's Churchyard. The

Savings' Bank Department keeps a personal account with every depositor.

It acknowledges the receipt of every single deposit, and upon the

requisite notice being furnished to the office, it sends out warrants

authorizing postmasters to pay withdrawals. Each year the savings'

bank-book of each depositor is sent here for examination, and at the

same time the interest accruing is calculated and allowed. The

correspondence with postmasters and the public on any subject connected

with the banks in question is managed entirely by this department. The

already-existing machinery of the Post-Office has been freely called

into operation, and the business of the new banks has increased the work

of almost all the other branches, especially those of the Receiver and

Accountant-General's and the Money-order Offices. Through the former all

the investments are received, and all remittances to postmasters for the

repayment of deposits are made; while the surplus revenue goes from that

office direct to that of the Commissioners for the Reduction of the

National Debt. Again, and as another instance of our meaning, the

Money-order Office is required to undertake the examination of the

general savings' bank account of each provincial postmaster. The staff

of the Savings' Bank Office in London is not yet complete, nor will it

be until the complete effect of the new on the old savings' bank

system be seen.[146] At present, it comprises a controller, an

assistant-controller, a principal clerk, ten first-class clerks (four of

upper and six of lower section), fifteen second-class clerks, with a

number of third-class clerks, and six messengers.

The branches of minor importance and the miscellaneous officers of the

London Establishment, consist of a _Medical Department_, comprising one

medical officer, one assistant medical officer, and one messenger. There

are, besides, distinct medical officers attached to each of the London

districts. The amount required for this service for 1863-4, including

medicine (given gratuitously to all officers who are not in receipt of

150_l._ salary), is 1,715_l._ _A House-keeper's Department_, including a

housekeeper and sixteen female servants, requiring a yearly payment of

763_l._ Six engineers, ten constables, and six firemen are also

constantly employed and paid by the Post-Office. When we add to this

gigantic organization no less than 516 letter-receivers in London, who

receive from 4_l._ to 90_l._ a-year for partial service, the reader will

have a tolerably correct idea of the establishment required to compass

the amount of London postal business in the twenty-fourth year of penny

postage.[147]

_The Surveyor's Department_ is the connecting medium between the

metropolitan offices and the post-offices in provincial towns. The

postmasters of the latter are under the immediate supervision of the

surveyor of the district in which the towns are situate, and it is to

this superior officer that they are primarily responsible for the

efficient working and discipline of their respective staff of

officers. Among the many responsible duties of the surveyors, may be

mentioned[148] those of visiting periodically each office in their

district, to remedy, where they can, all defects in the working of the

postal system; to remove, when possible, all just grounds of complaint

on the part of the public; "to give to the correspondence of their

district increased celerity, regularity, and security" when opportunity

offers, and to arrange for contracts with these objects. The Act of

Queen Anne provided for the appointment of one surveyor to the

Post-Office, whose duties it should be to make proper surveys of

post-roads. Little more than a hundred years ago, one of these

functionaries was sufficient to compass the duty of surveyor in England.

There are now thirteen surveyors in the United Kingdom,[149] nine of

whom are located in England, two in Ireland, and two in Scotland. These

principal officers are assisted in their duties by thirty-two

"surveyors' clerks," arranged in two classes, and thirteen stationary

clerks. To this staff must also be added thirty-three "clerks in

charge," in two classes, who are under the direction of the surveyors,

and whose principal duty consists in supplying temporarily the position

of postmaster, in case of vacancies occurring through deaths, removals,

&c.

There are, in all, 542 head provincial establishments in England and

Wales, 141 in Ireland, and 115 in Scotland. They vary exceedingly, no

two being exactly alike, but are settled in each town pretty much in

proportion to the demands of the place, its size, trade, &c. Sometimes,

however, the _position_ of a town--the centre of a district, for

instance--gives it more importance in an official sense than it would

otherwise acquire from other and ordinary circumstances. The number of

sub-offices attached to each town also varies greatly, according to the

position of the head-office.[150] Next to the three chief offices, the

largest establishments are those of Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow,

Birmingham, and Bristol. Among the most important offices of the second

class, we may enumerate Aberdeen, Bath, Belfast, Cork, Exeter, Leeds,

Hull, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Norwich, Sheffield, Southampton, and York.[151]

With respect to the rest, classification would be difficult; the

postmasters receiving salaries ranging from 20_l._ to 400_l._ per annum,

and varying from those where the whole of the duty of the office is

performed by the postmaster himself, to others where he is assisted by a

large staff of clerks and other auxiliaries.[152]

Each head-postmaster is directly responsible for the full efficiency and

proper management of his office. Under the approval of the district

surveyor, the sanction of the Postmaster-General, and the favourable

report of the Civil Service Commissioners, the postmaster is allowed to

appoint nearly the whole of his own officers, he being responsible to

the authorities for their proper discipline and good conduct. Formerly,

and up to as late as eight years ago, each postmaster rendered an

account of his transactions to the chief office quarterly. He now

furnishes weekly general accounts, and daily accounts of money-order

business, besides keeping his book open to the inspection of the

superior officers of the Post-Office.[153]

FOOTNOTES:

[139] Postmaster-General's _Reports_, 1863, 1864, and _Revenue

Estimates_ for 1864-5, from which the whole of our statistics are

derived.

[140] The colonial post-offices proper are not under the rule of the

English Postmaster-General. All appointments to these offices are made

by the Colonial Secretary, if the salary is over 200_l._; if under that

sum, by the Governors of the different colonies.

[141] An attempt was made at further centralization a few years ago,

when it was proposed to reduce the chief offices of Edinburgh and Dublin

to the position of offices in other large towns, a measure which had the

effect of rousing the people of the sister-countries to arms. The

Commissioners of Post-Office Inquiry who sat in 1855 reported against

the proposal, considering the present system to possess advantages to

the public over those accruing from the suggested change.

[142] For information relative to the necessary qualifications,

examinations, &c. of candidates for appointment in the metropolitan or

provincial offices, see Appendix (C).

[143] The following list of Postmasters-General before this period,

taken from a return made to the House of Commons, March 25, 1844, may

not be uninteresting to some of our readers. After Sir Brian Tuke, the

first "Master of the Postes," we find his successors to have been Sir

William Paget, one of Henry VIII.'s Chief Secretaries of State, and John

Mason, Esq. "Secretary for the French Tongue." "The fees or wages" of

each of these functionaries are given at 66_l._ 13_s._ 6_d._ a-year. The

reader will be familiar with the Postmasters-General under Elizabeth,

James I., Charles I. and the Commonwealth. Coming to the reign of

Charles II. we find Philip Froude, Esq. acting for the Duke of York from

1678 to 1688.

WILLIAM AND MARY.

Sir Robert Cotton; Thomas Frankland, Esq. 1690-1708

QUEEN ANNE.

Sir Thomas Frankland; Sir John Evelyn 1708-1715

GEORGE I.

Lord Cornwallis; James Craggs, Esq. 1715-1720

Edward Carteret, Esq.; Galfridus Walpole 1720-1733

GEORGE II.

Edward Carteret, Esq.; Lord Thomas Lovel 1733-1739

Sir John Eyles; Lord Lovel 1739-1744

Lord Lovel alone (now Earl of Leicester) 1744-1759

Earl of Besborough 1759

GEORGE III.

Earl of Egmont; Hon. R. Hampden 1762

Lord Hyde; Hon. R. Hampden 1763

Earl of Besborough; Lord Grantham 1765

Earl of Sandwich; Lord de Spencer 1768

Viscount Barrington; Hon. Henry Carteret 1782

Earl of Tankerville; Hon. H. Carteret 1784

Lord Carteret; Lord Walsingham 1787

Lord Walsingham; Earl of Chesterfield 1790

Earl of Chesterfield; Earl of Leicester 1794

Earl of Leicester; Lord Auckland 1798

Lord Auckland; Lord Charles Spencer 1801

Lord Spencer; Duke of Montrose 1804

Earl of Buckinghamshire; Earl of Carysfort 1806

Earl of Chichester alone 1814

Earl of Chichester; Marquis of Salisbury 1816

When the Earl of Salisbury died in 1823, a successor was not appointed,

the joint office being abolished, principally through the exertions of

the late Marquis of Normanby.

[144] See Appendix (A).

[145] For further information respecting this and all the other

metropolitan offices, see Appendix (D). Extracts from the Revenue

Estimates of 1864-5.

[146] The closing of the Birmingham old Savings' Bank, for example, must

have greatly increased the work of the central office, and this will

follow as a consequence if in other large towns the example of

Birmingham be followed.

[147] Large as this staff undoubtedly is, it would have been larger but

for timely changes in the system of keeping accounts. In 1855 the Civil

Service Commission suggested various improvements in the organization,

which resulted in a decrease of officers attached to some of the

branches.

[148] Postmaster General's _Second Report_.

[149] See Appendix (A).

[150] _Head-office_ is the official term given to the independent

post-towns, and such as are only subordinate to one of the three

metropolitan offices. _Sub-offices_ are, of course, under the

head-offices. _Receiving-offices_, at which letters are received, but

not delivered, are also under the authority of the head-office of the

neighbourhood. Those post-offices at which money-orders are issued

and paid are designated _Money-order Offices_, and include all

the head-offices and a large number of sub-offices, and a few

receiving-offices. _Packet-Offices_ are those at which the regular

mail-packets (ship-letters may be received or despatched. at any port)

are received and from which they are despatched. London and Southampton

are packet-offices for the Continental Mails, the East and West Indies,

and South America. Liverpool, and Queenstown take the United States and

Canada. The mail-packets for the Cape of Good Hope and the West Coast of

Africa sail to and from Devonport.

[151] For further information respecting these offices, see Appendix

(D), _Revenue Estimates_; also, for a statement of the amount of postage

collected in our largest towns, see Appendix (E).

[152] The staff of the largest provincial offices usually consists of

clerks, sorters, stampers, messengers, letter-carriers, and rural

post-messengers. The _clerks_ are now principally engaged on clerical

duties, attending to the public on money-order business, &c. or in

connexion with registered letters or unpaid-letter accounts. In offices

where the staff is smaller, the clerks also engage in sorting and

despatching letters. In many small country towns females are employed as

clerks. The _sorters_ are principally engaged in sorting duties.

_Stampers_ and _messengers_ do duties such as their designations denote.

_Letter-carriers_--the familiar "postmen" of every household--are almost

exclusively engaged in delivering letters, &c. from door to door.

_Auxiliary letter-carriers_ are those only partially so employed,

principally on the largest, or early morning delivery. _Rural

post-messengers_ is the official name for "country postmen," who make

daily journeys among the villages and hamlets surrounding each town,

delivering and taking up letters on their way.

[153] For fuller information on this head, see Appendix, to the

Postmaster-General's _First Report_, pp. 71-4. The following forms part

of a later Document (_Ninth Report_, 1862-3), and is interesting enough

to be quoted entire: "Owing to the successful measures which the

Department has adopted by means of bonds, frequent supervision, and care

in the selection of persons admitted into the service, and afterwards

promoted therein, very few losses have occurred, of late years at least,

through defalcation. More than twenty years ago, however, a postmaster

who owed the office 2,000_l._ but who had given security for only a part

of that sum, absconded, leaving an unpaid debt of upwards of 1,000_l._

The recovery of the debt had long been considered hopeless, but a short

time ago a letter was unexpectedly received from the postmaster's son

enclosing a remittance in payment of part of his father's debt, and

expressing a hope that after a time he should be able to pay the

remainder--a hope which was soon realized, every farthing of the debt

having now been discharged, in a manner most creditable to the gentleman

concerned."

CHAPTER II.

ON THE CIRCULATION OF LETTERS.

In order to give the reader a proper idea of the channel through which

ordinary correspondence flows--the circulation of letters in the

Post-Office system--it will be necessary to devote a long chapter to the

subject. We therefore propose to post an imaginary letter in the

metropolis for a village in the far away North, following it from its

place of posting till we finally see it deposited in the hands of the

person to whom it is addressed.

THE GENERAL POST-OFFICE.

The General Post-Office, the great heart of the English postal system,

is a fine and, now that so many district offices are opened in London,

very convenient building. On the ground-floor the different offices

attached to the Circulation and Mail departments are located. Upstairs

we find the Secretary's department, that of the Receiver and

Accountant-General, and other branches of the Circulation Office.

Approaching the large hall of the General Post-Office, through one of

the three-columned porticoes, we post our letter, and as it is now

nearly six o'clock P.M. we stand aside, for a few minutes only, to

witness one of the most stirring scenes in the metropolis. Throughout

the day, one side of the hall presents a busy enough scene, and its

boxes, open for the receipt of correspondence for all parts of the

world, are constantly beset with people. Not only do these huge slits

still gape for letters, but the large windows, closed through the day,

are thrown wide open as a quarter to six chimes from the neighbouring

clocks. It is then that an impetuous crowd enters the hall, and letters

and newspapers begin to fall in quite a literary hail-storm. The

newspaper window, ever yawning for more, is presently surrounded and

besieged by an array of boys of all ages and costumes, together with

children of a larger growth, who are all alike pushing, heaving, and

surging in one great mass. The window, with tremendous gape, is

assaulted with showers of papers which fly thicker and faster than the

driven snow. Now it is that small boys of eleven and twelve years of

age, panting, Sinbad-like, under the weight of huge bundles of

newspapers, manage somehow to dart about and make rapid _sorties_ into

other ranks of boys, utterly disregarding the cries of the official

policemen, who vainly endeavour to reduce the tumult into something like

post-office order. If the lads cannot quietly and easily disembogue,

they will whiz their missiles of intelligence over other people's heads,

now and then sweeping off hats and caps with the force of shot. The

gathering every moment increases in number and intensifies in purpose;

arms, legs, sacks, baskets, heads, bundles, and woollen comforters--for

whoever saw a veritable newspaper-boy without that appendage?--seem to

be getting into a state of confusion and disagreeable communism, and

"yet the cry is still they come." Heaps of papers of widely-opposed

political views are thrown in together; no longer placed carefully in

the openings, they are now sent in in sackfuls and basketfuls, while

over the heads of the surging crowd were flying back the empty sacks,

thrown out of the office by the porters inside. Semi-official legends,

with a very strong smack of probability about them, tell of sundry boys

being thrown in, seized, emptied, and thrown out again _void_. As six

o'clock approaches still nearer and nearer, the turmoil increases more

perceptibly, for the intelligent British public is fully alive to the

awful truth that the Post-Office officials never allow a minute of

grace, and that "Newspaper Fair" must be over when the last stroke of

six is heard. _One_, in rush files of laggard boys who have purposely

loitered, in the hope of a little pleasurable excitement; _two_, and

grown men hurry in with their last sacks; _three_, the struggle

resembles nothing so much as a pantomimic _mêlée_; _four_, a Babel of

tongues vociferating desperately; _five_, final and furious showers of

papers, sacks, and bags; and _six_, when all the windows fall like so

many swords of Damocles, and the slits close with such a sudden and

simultaneous snap, that we naturally suppose it to be a part of the

Post-Office operations that attempts should be made to guillotine a

score of hands; and then all is over so far as the outsiders are

concerned.

Among the letter-boxes, scenes somewhat similar have been enacted.

Letters of every shape and colour, and of all weights have unceasingly

poured in; tidings of life and death, hope and despair, success and

failure, triumph and defeat, joy and sorrow; letters from friends and

notes from lawyers, appeals from children and stern advice from parents,

offers from anxious-hearted young gentlemen, and "first yesses" or

refusals from young maidens; letters containing that snug appointment so

long promised you, and "little bills" with requests for immediate

payment, "together with six-and-eightpence;" cream-coloured missives

telling of happy consummations, and black-edged envelopes telling of

death and the grave; sober-looking advice notes, doubtless telling when

"our Mr. Puffwell" would do himself the honour of calling on you, and

elegant-looking billets in which business is never mentioned, all

jostled each other for a short time; but the stream of gladness and of

woe was stopped, at least for one night, when the last stroke of six was

heard. The Post-Office, like a huge monster, to which one writer has

likened it, has swallowed an enormous meal, and gorged to the full, it

must now commence the process of digestion. While laggard boys, to whom

cartoons by one "William Hogarth" should be shown, are muttering "too

late," and retiring discomfited, we, having obtained the requisite "open

sesame," will make our way to the interior of the building. Threading

our course through several passages, we soon find ourselves among

enormous apartments well lit up, where hundreds of human beings are

moving about, lifting, shuffling, stamping, and sorting huge piles of

letters, and still more enormous piles of newspapers, in what seems at

first sight hopeless confusion, but in what is really the most admirable

order. In the newspaper-room, men have been engaged not only in emptying

the sacks flung in by strong-armed men and weak-legged boys, but also in

raking up the single papers into large baskets, and conveying them up

and down "hoists," into various divisions of the building. Some estimate

of the value of these mechanical appliances, moved of course by steam

power, may be formed from the fact that hundreds of tons of paper pass

up and down these lifts every week. As many of the newspapers escape

from their covers in the excitement of posting, each night two or three

officers are busily engaged during the whole time of despatch, in

endeavouring to restore wrappers to newspapers found without any

address. Great as is the care exercised in this respect, it will

occasionally happen that wrong newspapers will find their way into loose

wrappers not belonging to them, and under the circumstances it would be

by no means a matter of wonder if--as has been more than once pointed

out--Mr. Bright should, instead of his _Morning Star_, receive a copy of

the _Saturday Review_, or an evangelical curate the _Guardian_ or

_Punch_, in place of his _Record_ paper.

In the letter-room the officers are no less busily engaged: a number of

them are constantly at work during the hours of the despatch, in the

operation of placing each letter with the address and postage label

uppermost, so as to facilitate the process of stamping. In the General

Post-Office the stamping is partly effected by machinery and partly by

hand, and consists simply in imprinting upon each letter the date, hour,

and place of posting, while at the same time the Queen's head with

which the letter is ornamented and franked gets disfigured.[154] It will

easily be imagined that a letter containing a box of pills stands a very

good chance of being damaged under this manipulation, as a good stamper

will strike about fifty letters in a minute. Unpaid letters are kept

apart, as they require stamping in a different coloured ink and with the

double postage. Such letters create much extra labour, and are a source

of incessant trouble to the Department, inasmuch as from the time of

their posting in London to their delivery at the Land's End or John

O'Groat's, every officer through whose hands they may pass has to keep a

cash account of them. The double postage on such letters is more than

earned by the Post-Office. All unfastened and torn letters, too, are

picked out and conveyed to another portion of the large room, and it

requires the unremitting attention of several busy individuals to finish

the work left undone by the British public. It is scarcely credible that

above 250 letters daily are posted _open_, and bearing not the slightest

mark of ever having been fastened in any way; but such is the fact. A

fruitful source of extra work to this branch of the office arises

through the posting of flimsy boxes containing feathers, slippers, and

other _récherché_ articles of female dress, pill-boxes containing

jewellery, and even bottles. The latter, however, are detained, glass

articles and sharp instruments of any sort, whenever detected, being

returned to the senders. These frail things, thrown in and buried under

the heaps of correspondence, get crushed and broken, yet all are made up

again carefully and resealed.

When the letters have been stamped, and those insufficiently paid picked

out, they are carried away to undergo the process of sorting. In this

operation they are very rapidly divided into "roads," representing a

line of large towns: thus, letters for Derby, Loughborough, Nottingham,

Lincoln, &c. might be placed in companionship in one division or "road,"

and Bilston, Wednesbury, Walsall, West Bromwich, &c. in another. When

this primary divisional sorting is finished, the letters are divided and

subdivided over and over again, with the exception of those for the

various travelling sorting-carriages upon the different lines of

railway, which remain in divisions corresponding with various portions

of the country through which the several mail-trains run. It is into one

of these divisions that our own letter falls, to be seen again, however,

when we come to describe the Travelling Post-Offices. During the time

occupied in making up the mails, the Circulation Branch of the General

Post-Office presents a busy scene, yet retains the utmost order and

regularity. Hundreds of men are engaged in the various operations of

sorting and sub-sorting, yet all proceeds really noiselessly, and as if

the hundreds and thousands of letters representing the commerce and

intelligence of the English people could not be treated too carefully.

Every now and again the sorter pauses in his rapid movements, and places

a letter on one side. In some cases this signifies that he has detected

a letter containing a _coin_ of some sort; and when such letters have

been posted without being registered by the sender, the Department takes

this duty upon itself, charging a double fee on delivery. The number of

letters of this class detected in London alone during the first six

months after the plan was brought into operation, was upwards of 58,000.

Letters which cannot be read, or letters imperfectly addressed, are also

thrown on one side and conveyed to another part of the Circulation

Branch, where gentlemen whose extraordinary faculty of discernment have

gained them the singularly inappropriate name of "blind officers" sit in

state.

THE BLIND LETTER-OFFICE

is the receptacle for all illegible, misspelt, misdirected, or

insufficiently addressed letters or packets. Here the clerk or clerks,

selected from amongst the most efficient and experienced officers, guess

at what ordinary intelligence would readily denominate insoluble

riddles. Large numbers of letters are posted daily with superscriptions

which the sorters cannot decipher, and which the great majority of

people would not be able to read. Others, again, are received with

perhaps only the name of some small village, the writers thinking it a

work of supererogation to add some neighbouring town, or even a county.

Numberless, for instance, are the letters bearing such addresses

as "John Smith, gardener, Flowerdale," or "Throgmorton Hall,

Worcestershire." Circulars, by the thousand, are posted in London and

other large towns without hesitancy, and with the greatest confidence in

the "final perseverance" principle of the Post-Office people, with

addresses not more explicit than the foregoing. Many country gentlemen

would seem to cherish the idea that the names of their mansions should

be known equally far and near from their manorial acres, and somehow

they seem to inoculate their correspondents with the same absurd notion.

If, however, it be possible to reduce the hieroglyphics on some strange

letter to ordinary every-day English, or find, from diligent search in

his library of reference, information relative to imperfectly-addressed

letters (information which might have been given much more easily by the

senders), our readers may be sure that the cunning gentleman of the

Blind Office, justly known for his patience and sagacity, will do it,

unless, indeed, the letter be "stone blind," or hopelessly incomplete.

As a genuine example of stone-blind letters, take the following, the

first of a batch which has been known to pass through the blind-room of

the General Post-Office:--

+-----------------------------------+

| |

| Uncle John |

| |

| Hopposite the Church |

| |

| London. Hingland |

| |

+-----------------------------------+

It would certainly have been a wonderful triumph of skill to have put

this letter in a fair way for delivery: for once the blind officer

would acknowledge himself beaten; and then the Dead Letter Officers

would endeavour to find "Uncle John's" _relative_, intimating to the

said relative that greater explicitness is needed if "Uncle John" must

be found.

But they manage better with the next letter in the batch.

+--------------------------+

| |

| Coneyach lunentick |

| |

| a siliam |

| |

+--------------------------+

is part of the address of a letter which the sorter no doubt threw away

from him with some impatience. The blind officer, however, reads it

instantly, strikes his pen, perhaps, through the address, and writes on

the envelope, "Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum," and passes it out for

delivery.

+-------------------------+

| |

| |

| Obern yenen |

| |

| |

+-------------------------+

is seen in an instant to be meant for "Holborn Union." "Isle of Wight"

is, in like manner, written on a letter improperly addressed as

follows:--

+-------------------------------+

| |

| Ann M---- |

| |

| Oileywhite |

| |

| Amshire |

| |

+-------------------------------+

The probability is that the last-mentioned letter will come back to the

Dead Letter-Office, on account of no town being given in the address;

still, the usual course is to send it out to the local district

designated, there being always the possibility that certain individuals

may be locally known.

"_Ashby-de-la-Zouch_" is a town to spell which gives infinite trouble to

letter-writers; but the Post-Office official is especially lenient and

patient in cases of this kind. There are fifty different ways of

spelling the name, and few letters, except those of the better classes,

give it rightly spelt. "Hasbedellar-such" is the ordinary spelling among

the poor living at a distance.

+---------------------------------------+

| |

| Ash Bedles in such |

| |

| for John Horsel, grinder |

| |

| in the county of Lestysheer |

| |

+---------------------------------------+

is a copy of a veritable address meant for the above town.

The blind letter officers of an earlier date succumbed before the

following letter:--

+-------------------------------------------+

| |

| For Mister Willy wot brinds de Baber |

| |

| in Lang-Gaster ware te gal is |

| |

+-------------------------------------------+

but the dead letter officers were enabled from the contents to make out

that it was meant for the editor of a Lancaster paper, "where the gaol

is." The communication enclosed was an essay written by a foreigner

against public schools!

The blind officers are supplied with all the principal London and

provincial directories, court guides, gazetteers, &c.; and by the help

of this, their library of reference, added to their own experience and

intelligence, they are generally able to put again into circulation

without the necessity of opening them, five out of six of all the

letters which are handed over to them. The addresses of some letters are

at once seen to be the result of mistake on the part of senders. Letters

addressed "Lombard Street, Manchester," "St. Paul's Churchyard,

Liverpool," both obviously intended for London, are sent out for trial

by the letter-carriers at what are believed to be their real

destinations. (See _Ninth Report_.) Letters, again, for persons of rank

and eminence, dignitaries of the Church, prominent officers of the army

or navy, whose correct addresses are known, or can be ascertained, are

immediately sent out for delivery to their right destination, however

erroneously directed, without question or examination of contents. The

following strange letters, meant for the eye of royalty, would not be

impeded in their progress in any way:--

+----------------------------+

| |

| Keen Vic Tory at |

| |

| Winer Casel |

| |

+----------------------------+

and another--

+----------------------------+

| |

| Miss |

| |

| Queene Victoria |

| |

| of England |

| |

+----------------------------+

would go to Windsor Castle without fail; while the following, posted in

London at the breaking-out of the Polish Insurrection, would find its

way to St. Petersburg as fast as packet could carry it:--

+----------------------------------+

| |

| To the King of Rusheya |

| |

| Feoren, with speed. |

| |

+----------------------------------+

When the letter-carriers and the blind officers have expended all their

skill upon certain letters in vain, the next step is to send them to

THE DEAD-LETTER OFFICE.

in order that they may be returned to the writers, provided any clue can

be obtained from the contents as to their whereabouts. The branch

in which this work is accomplished is now a very considerable

establishment, employing at least a score more clerks, &c. than in the

days of the old postage. In 1763, just a hundred years ago, the records

show that two clerks only were engaged in opening "_dead and insolvent

letters_." Now, nearly fifty officers are employed in the same duties.

Nor are these duties by any means so only in name. Last year

considerably over two millions of letters were returned to their writers

through the Dead-Letter Office from failures in the attempts to

deliver them. "Three-quarters of the non-deliveries," says the

Postmaster-General, "were on account of the letters being insufficiently

or incorrectly addressed, nearly 11,000 letters having been posted

_without any address at all_."

In every provincial post-office in England and Wales a dead or returned

letter-bag is now forwarded daily to London, containing all the letters

which, from any cause, cannot be delivered. Each letter bears on its

front, written prominently in red ink, the reason of its non-delivery.

Thus, if the addressee cannot be found, or should have left the town,

the words "Cannot be found," or "Gone--left no address," are written

respectively. On the arrival of these bags in London, inclosed in the

larger bags containing the general correspondence, they are at once

passed to the "returned-letter branch," as the Dead-Letter Office is

called, where no time is lost in opening them. Every letter received is

first examined by an experienced and responsible officer, to make sure

that it has been actually presented according to its address, and that

the reasons assigned on the cover of the letter are sufficient to

account for its non-delivery. In doubtful cases, before the letter is

opened, the directories and other books of reference, of which there is

a plentiful supply in this office, are consulted, and should it be found

or thought that there has been any oversight or neglect, the letter is

re-issued, with proper instructions, by the first post. About 300

letters are thus re-issued daily, many of which ultimately reach the

persons for whom they are intended.

When it has been fully ascertained that nothing further can be done to

effect the delivery of an imperfectly or improperly addressed letter, it

only remains to have it sent back to the writer. This is done, if

possible, without the letter being opened. By an arrangement of ten

years' standing, if the returned letter has the writer's name and

address embossed on the back of the envelope, impressed on the seal, or

written or printed anywhere outside, it will not be opened, but

forwarded back according to this address. We may point out here,

however, that this arrangement, excellent and satisfactory as it is, has

sometimes led to serious mistakes and confusion; so much so, in fact,

that the Postmaster-General, in his report for 1861, appealed to the

public on the subject. It would appear that the practice of using

another person's embossed envelope is on the increase. When such a

letter, according to the arrangement, is forwarded to the supposed

writer, it has frequently fallen into the wrong hands (the master and

merchant instead of the clerk or other servant), and grievous complaints

have been made on the subject. The remedy, of course, lies with

letter-writers themselves. If there are no outward marks to indicate the

sender, the letter is then opened, and, if a suitable address can be

found inside, the letter is inclosed in the well-known dead-letter

envelope and forwarded according to that address. If a letter should be

found to contain anything of value, such as bank-notes, drafts,

postage-stamps, the precaution is taken of having a special record taken

of it, and it is then sent back as a registered dead letter. Money to

the value of 12,000_l._ or 14,000_l._ is annually found in these

returned letters. Of this sum about 500_l._ per annum falls into the

public exchequer, on account of no address being found inside, and no

inquiry being made for the missing letters. A vast number of bank

post-bills and bills of exchange are likewise found, amounting in all,

and on the average, to something like 3,000,000_l._ a-year. These bills,

however, as well as money-order advices, always afford some clue to the

senders, even supposing no address should be given inside the letter,

and inquiries are set on foot at the bankers and others whose names may

be given in the paper transactions. Forty thousand letters reach the

English returned branch each year containing property of different

kinds. Many presents, such as rings, pins, brooches, never reach their

destination, and are never sent back to the sender, because they are

often unaccompanied with any letter. These articles, of course, become

the property of the Crown.

Postmasters of Irish towns send their "dead and insolvent letters" to

Dublin, and the residuum of the local Scotch post-towns are sent to

Edinburgh. In both these capitals, this particular class of letters is

dealt with in exactly the same manner as in the London office. We are

assured that the letters themselves, and the articles found in the

Scotch and Irish dead letters, illustrate no little the characters, the

feeling, and habits of the two people. The Scotch have, comparatively

speaking, the fewest dead letters; and as the writers are generally

careful to give their addresses inside the letters, little trouble is

said to be experienced in returning them, if it is necessary. The Irish

dead letters are more numerous than either the English or the Scotch.

This mainly arises from the circumstance of the nomadic habits of a

considerable portion of the Irish people: owing also to the same

circumstance, it is impossible to return many of the letters to the

writers. The Scotch dead letters rarely contain coin or any very

valuable enclosures, while of articles of jewellery, such as usually

form presents or tokens of affection, we are told there is a "lamentable

deficiency." The Irish dead letters, on the contrary, "are full of

little _cadeaux_ and small sums of money," illustrating at the same time

both the careless and the affectionate nature of the people.

Letters which can neither be delivered nor returned through the

Post-Office are, if found to be valuable and if posted in the United

Kingdom, appropriated to the public revenue after a certain time; if

received for delivery from a foreign State, they are sent back to the

chief office of that country for final disposition. Letters posted in

this country found to be of no value, are kept at the Post-Office for a

month and then destroyed; foreign letters under the same circumstances

are not destroyed for two months.

And now, unless we at once return from our digression, we shall

not be in time to see the great night-mail despatched from St.

Martin's-le-Grand. Whilst we have been occupied with a contemplation of

the few waifs and strays of our national correspondence, the great bulk

of that correspondence has been well and carefully disposed of: the

letters and newspapers which we saw two hours ago as a mass of

inextricable confusion, are now carefully stowed away in their

respective bags, and not a letter or newspaper can be found. The hall

clock is silently approaching the hour of eight, when the bags must all

be sealed and ready to leave the place. At five minutes before that

time, all is still bustle and activity; five minutes perhaps after that

hour the establishment is nearly deserted. "Everything is done on

military principles to minute time." "The drill and subdivisions of

duties are so perfect," adds a close observer, "that the alternations

are high pressure and sudden collapse." This is the more remarkable,

inasmuch as the Post-Office, is subject to great variations in the

amount of work to be done. Particular nights in the week, Mondays and

Tuesdays for example, are known as the "heaviest," and even such events

as elections, influence the labour to be performed within the same given

time. During the last election for Lambeth, 40,000 circulars were posted

in London in one day, and properly disposed of. On the 14th of February

last, 957,000 extra letters, or valentines, passed through the

Circulation Office in London. Compared with Valentine's Day 1863, there

was an increase of a quarter of a million letters!

In place of the old mail-coaches waiting in the yard of the office until

the work is completed inside, we have now the well-known mail-vans. As

they are rapidly supplied with bags, they chase each other to the

various railway stations, from which, to all points of the compass, the

night-mails now depart. Half an hour afterwards, we find ourselves in

one of these trains watching operations not dissimilar to those we have

just left, but much more wonderful, considering how they are

accomplished.

THE TRAVELLING POST-OFFICE.

The travelling post-office deserves special attention, not less on

account of the interesting nature of the work performed, than because it

serves many important ends in the system of which it forms a part. It is

to the railway post-offices that the Department is indebted for much of

the simplification of its accounts. At different points in a mail-coach

journey, long stoppages used to be made in order that the "bye" and

"forward" letters might get sorted; on the introduction of railways, it

was seen that the number of bags must either be enormously increased,

and other complications arise, or the railways could not to any extent

be rendered available for post-office purposes. Just at this juncture,

it was suggested that the work might be done during the journey, and

the obstacles were soon surmounted. Further, by means of the travelling

offices, the Post-Office is enabled to offer more time for the posting

of letters, and not only so, but to give the public the benefit of

earlier deliveries.

The railway-mail service has now assumed quite gigantic proportions.

Twenty-six years ago, when railways were only partially used for

post-office purposes, a writer predicted that they would "soon become

the _ne plus ultra_ of rapidity," and that the Post-Office would have to

take to them more and more. "In a few years," said the writer, "railways

will have become so general, that scarcely a mail-coach will be left in

England; certainly, none will be wanted in London." Both predictions

have since been verified; for the last twenty years, railways have

gradually absorbed all the mail contracts,--year by year the estimates

for this service showing a corresponding increase.[155] The first

railway post-office journey was made on the Grand Junction Railway,

between Liverpool and Birmingham, on the 1st of July, 1837. When the

line was completed to London, in January, 1838, the travelling office

started from the metropolis. The following curious account of the "Grand

Northern Railway Post-Office," as it was called, is culled from the

_Penny Magazine_. "On the arrival of the four 'accelerators' at the

Euston Station with the mails, the railway servants immediately carry

the large sacks to a huge looking machine, with a tender attached to it,

both at the end of the train. This caravan is the flying Post-Office,

with a table for sorting letters, and holes round the walls for their

reception." The carriage was certainly either an ungainly structure, or

the above is a most ungainly report. "In ten minutes," continues the

narrator, "the omnibuses are emptied of their contents, and the train of

carriages is then _wound up_ to the station at Camden Town, where the

engine is attached, _and the Primrose Hill tunnel soon prevents us

hearing the thunder of their rapid progress_." The Londoner of 1864, in

these days of metropolitan railways can afford to smile at this last

sentence. That the change in the system of mail conveyance wrought

immediate and striking improvement at the Post-Office does not admit of

question. In a contemporary account, we find an interesting but

wonder-stricken writer stating that "by means of the extra railway

facilities, letters now pass along this line (London and Birmingham) in

a space of time so inconceivably quick, that some time must elapse

before our ideas become accustomed to such a rapid mode of intercourse."

We learn from different works published by Mr. Charles Knight, that when

the railways were extended farther northwards, the Railway Post-Office

was extended with them, and was formed into sections. Thus, when the

lines were continued north as far as Lancaster, there were two divisions

formed, one staff of clerks, &c. to the number of eight, working between

London and Birmingham, and ten between Birmingham and Lancaster.[156]

There were two mails each day in both directions. The distance between

London and Lancaster (241 miles) was accomplished in eleven hours and a

half. The weight of the railway post-office, tender, bags, and clerks,

is stated by Mr. Whishaw, in his work on railways, to have been at that

period about nine tons. At that time, the expense of the service was

regulated by the weight carried. At present, on the great trunk line of

the London and North Western Railway Company, no fewer than eight

mail-trains run daily up and down, each conveying railway post-office

carriages and post-office employés. Half of these trains are run

specially, the number of passengers being limited. The weight of mails

running over this ground must have increased fourfold at the least,

inasmuch as the number of officers have been augmented in even a greater

proportion. Surprising as was the speed at which the first railway

post-office travelled, and wonderful as it was thought at the time, one

of the mail-trains now runs nearly double the distance between London

and Lancaster during the time which used to be taken for that ground

alone. _The Limited night-mail_, travelling between the Euston Square

station in London, and Perth in Scotland, accomplishes the distance of

451 miles in eleven hours and a half, or about forty miles an hour

including stoppages!

The railway post-office proper, is now extended over nearly every

considerable line of railway in the kingdom. It comprises a number of

divisions or sections, named generally from the locality through which

they extend, or the railway travelled over, as the Bangor and Leeds

division, the Caledonian Railway post-office. The four principal or

trunk mails, three of them being divided into two sections, are (1) the

North-Western Railway post-office, travelling between London and

Carlisle; (2) the Irish Mail, between London and Holyhead; (3) the Great

Western, between London and Exeter; and (4) the Midland, between Bristol

and Newcastle-on-Tyne. Most of these divisions have _day_- as well as

_night_-mails running over them daily. Four trains a-day, being two in

each direction, are therefore the usual proportion of mails on the chief

lines of railway. As London is the _heart_ of the postal system, so

these four principal mails may be termed its _main arteries_, while as

veins in the great system, there are a number of smaller divisions of

the railway post-office that have not been enumerated. Again, at other

parts or points not important or extensive enough for travelling

offices, railway trains are arranged to wait the arrival of the trunk

mails; and thus, to continue the figure, our letters--the life-blood of

a nation's commerce and sociality--are conveyed to the remotest corners

of the country.

It may be imagined that a proper control of this vast machinery,

extending through almost every county in the kingdom, with its scattered

staff of officials, will be difficult; but the efficient working of the

whole is nevertheless as thoroughly and promptly maintained as in any

other department where personal supervision is more direct. Each

divisional part has distinct officers allotted to it, the number of

_clerks_ being regulated according to the number of mails running over

the division in the course of a day, and the number of _sorters_

according to the amount of sorting duties to be performed. Each mail

travels under the charge of one clerk, while each division is locally

superintended by one senior clerk. The entire direction, however, of all

the travelling officers is vested in the Inspector-General of Mails, who

also presides over the Mail Office at St. Martin's-le-Grand. We may here

further state, that the _length_ of the divisions--the extent of one of

which forms a post-office journey or "trip"--varies slightly, averaging

about 170 miles; the average _time_ taken to perform the journeys being

between five and six hours. As a rule, the night-mails travel during the

night-time, or between eight P.M. and six A.M.; the day-mails generally

speaking throughout the day.

But we must make ready for our journey, and enter more into detail.

While van after van is arriving with its heavy loads of mail-bags, we

have time to notice that the train standing at the great London terminus

is nearly all post-office. Two or three carriages are being filled as

full as possible with made-up bags, and two more, fitted up like

post-offices, are simply meant for operations similar to those we have

already seen at the General Post-Office, in connexion with the

unfinished work which has now to be accomplished during the journey. It

is with the remaining carriage only that we have to do. Seen from the

outside, the office itself may still answer to the description given of

it twenty-five years ago by our authority above adverted to, although

considerable improvements must have been made in its construction since

that time. Though the structure is built with a very evident serviceable

purpose, the large, heavily-painted, windowless vehicle, looks more as

if intended for the conveyance of Her Majesty's horses than Her

Majesty's mails; the roof, however, covered with glass, with other

contrivances for the purposes of ventilation, soon convinces us that it

is intended for some description of the _genus homo_. We go inside, and

find it built like an ordinary saloon carriage, about twenty-two feet

long, and as wide and spacious as the railway arrangements will allow.

It is night-time, the reader will remember, and the interior looks warm

and cheerful with its row of bright-burning moderator lamps, and, in

this respect, contrasts strongly and pleasantly, as far as we are

concerned, with the dimly-lighted station, through which the cold night

air is rushing. The reader who is following us in this description must

abstain from imagining anything like luxury in the internal fittings.

Everything here is requisite for accomplishing the work in hand, but

there is no provision for any kind of indulgence; and spacious as the

place seems at a first glance, there is not to be found, when we come to

look narrowly, a single foot of spare room. Along the whole length of

one side of the carriage, and encroaching materially upon its width, a

number of tiers of boxes--the "holes" of our ancient authority--are

arranged for the sorting processes; the smaller ones for the letters,

and the larger ones in the centre of the office--more like shelves, many

of them being movable--for the newspapers and all that vast variety of

articles forwarded according to the rules of book-post. Every available

inch of space on the other side of the office is covered with upright

pegs, in recesses sunk in the carriage-sides, upon which are hung the

bags--now made of canvas, with the names of towns conspicuously painted

upon them--to be used in the course of the journey. These recesses, as

well as the two ends of the office, are well padded over, to secure

additional safety to the officers in the event of any accident.[157]

Under the desks or counters, which run from one end of the carriage to

the other, bags are packed, to be given out as the train arrives at the

respective stations.

In less time, however, than it would take to read the foregoing, the

mail has speeded miles away, and reached, by this time, the fox-covers

and game-preserves of those Hertfordshire landowners who, when the

railway was projected, expressed the wish that its concoctors "were at

rest in Paradise!" The train possibly "thundered" through Camden Town as

it used to do in olden times, but it would be but a momentary sensation,

not to speak of the inhabitants being now quite accustomed to it. The

post-office work commenced when the train left the station. The bags

were quickly seized by the proper sorter, cut, and their contents turned

out on the desk. Then he distributes what he finds in the bags according

to a pre-arranged order. The registered letters which have found their

way to the office he at once transfers to the clerk on duty whose

special province it is to deal with them; the bundles of ordinary

letters--in one of which packets is the identical letter we ourselves

posted--he hands over to his fellow-sorters, who, each standing opposite

to a distinct set of boxes, labelled with the names of different towns

on the route, at once sort them away. The newspapers he deals with

himself. The work thus started, the scene presently becomes one of

considerable animation and a pleasant-enough sort of excitement, till

every bundle of letters is cut open and disposed of in the boxes. There

is then a lull, but it is only temporary. It is true that the train will

not stop till the county of Warwickshire is reached; but the intervening

country is provided for nevertheless--arrangements having been made that

at all the towns we pass the exchange of letter-bags shall be effected

by means of machinery whilst the train is progressing at its usual

speed. The contrivance in question deserves minute description.[158] The

machinery is not worked in the post-office, but in an adjoining van. By

means, however, of a substantial iron gangway, the two carriages are

connected, so that we can pass easily from one to the other and see the

operation itself. As we do so we are evidently nearing some town, for

the sorter is at that moment engaged in peering out of the window into

the darkness in search of some familiar object, such as bridge, river,

or cluster of trees, by means of which he is enabled to tell his

whereabouts with almost mathematical precision. Whilst he is busy

finding his position we will take the time to explain, that the

machinery is arranged so as to secure, simultaneously in most cases,

both the receipt and the despatch of bags. For the purpose of receiving

bags, a large strong net is fixed to one side of the van, to be drawn

down at the proper moment; and close to the door, on each side of it,

securely fixed to the carriage, are hollow iron bars, inside each of

which, working by means of a rope and pulley, an iron arm is fixed, upon

which the bags to be delivered, securely strapped in a thick, leathern

pouch, are suspended. Where the exchange has to be effected at the

station we are nearing, the arrangements are just the counterparts of

this. A net is spread to catch each pouch from the extended arm of the

carriage, and pouches are hung from iron standards in the ground of

sufficient height for the net in the train. The operation itself is

just commencing. The door is pushed back into the groove in which it

works, and then the sorter, touching a spring that holds up the net, it

is loosened from its supports, and projects over the carriage-sides; the

iron arm, acting on its pulley-rope, is drawn round into the carriage,

where the pouch is rapidly fastened to it by means of a catch or

spring--but in such a manner that a touch from the net-apparatus at the

station will bring it off--and then let down, remaining by virtue of its

own weight at right angles to the door. A moment of waiting, and then

all the machinery acts its assigned part properly; the pouch disappears

from the arm (or arms, if the bags have been heavy enough for two to be

used), and at the same moment another descends into the post-office net,

and all is over and quiet as before. We mean, of course, comparative

quiet, as much as is possible amid the din and endless rattle of a train

speeding at the rate of forty miles an hour.

We follow the sorter as he makes his way back into the post-office

carriage, carrying with him the treasures we have watched him pick up by

the wayside. These new arrivals disposed of in the orthodox way, and the

process repeated two or three times, there is suddenly a movement among

the officers as they busy themselves in collecting from the different

boxes all the letters that have been received from first to last for the

bags about to be despatched at the approaching town--the first junction

station. The letters in question are examined to test the correctness of

the sorting, then tied up in bundles in a sharp and decisive way, then

placed away carefully in the several bags, which are tied, sealed, and

ready for delivery just as the train is brought to a stand. Here they

are given out; fresh supplies are received from a number of large towns

in the immediate district, and the train is again on its way. The bags

received are at once opened; the same round of sorting, collecting,

examining, is gone through; the same process of despatching for the next

and all subsequent postal stages is repeated, just as we have described.

Little variation is noticed, except that at certain points a much

larger number of bags are thrown into the office--for instance, as the

train nears the more thickly populated parts of the midland counties,

then the "black country," as it is called, and subsequently the

manufacturing districts. At one of these points a considerable addition

was made to the staff of sorters, who fell at once to work in the vacant

spaces left for them. And it was not before they were required; for

presently the train arrives at one of the principal mail junctions in

the kingdom, where an immense number of bags wait our arrival. These

bags have been brought somewhat earlier on, by other mail trains,

arranged so as to effect a junction with us; these having in their turn

met with other trains running across the country in transverse

directions. Thus there are here, bags from towns near and towns remote,

containing letters for places from which we are, as yet, hundreds of

miles distant. The work, however, will be resumed with increased

activity, according to the number of letters which may be forthcoming,

only whatever number there may be, all must be finished in a given time.

So far, the reader may imagine the duty to be one of dull routine and

very monotonous; so as a rule we believe it is: there are circumstances

connected with the manner of travelling, however, which conspire to make

it at times somewhat varied and exceptional. One moment, and we are

clattering down a hill, and the sorting partakes, to some extent, of the

same tear-away speed; another time, we are panting up a line of steep

gradient, and the letters find their boxes very deliberately; now, the

rails are somewhat out of order, or the coupling of the carriages has

not been well attended to, or we are winding round a succession of sharp

curves, and can scarcely keep our feet as the carriage lurches first to

one side, then to the other; in all which cases, not only is our own

equilibrium a source of difficulty to us, but we see that things proceed

anything but smoothly among the letters, which refuse to go in at all,

or go in with a spirited evolution, fluttering outside, and then landing

at their destination upside down, or in some other way transgressing

official rules in such case made and provided. Then the work is

accompanied to the different kinds of music, well known to "express

travellers." Now the train is tearing away through a tunnel, or through

an interminably long cutting of thick-ribbed stone, and then under or

over a bridge. Nor is this all, nor the worst: these noises are very

frequently varied by what is anything but a lively tune on the engine

whistle, but which, supposing the signal lights to be against us, or

Cerberus asleep at his post, is too often a round of screeching and

screaming enough to waken the Seven Sleepers.

Whatever be the general character of the work, we are bent on enjoyment

during this particular journey. The country through which the train is

now proceeding is but thinly supplied with towns, hence the number of

letters received is much smaller, and we may avail ourselves of the

opportunity which this break in the character of the duty gives us, to

examine more closely and from our own point of view, a few of the

letters which are waiting to be despatched. The sorters also, glad of a

little relaxation, have produced from their hiding places under the blue

cloth-covered counter, an oval kind of swing-seat attached to it, which

turns outside somewhat ingeniously upon a swivel, and seat themselves at

their work.

Undoubtedly, the first thing which will strike an observer placed in

circumstances like ours, is, that the Post-Office is eminently a

democratic establishment, conducted on the most improved _fraternité et

égalité_ principles. The same sort of variety that marks society, here

marks its letters; envelopes of all shades and sizes; handwriting of all

imaginable kinds, written in all shades of ink, with every description

of pen; names the oddest, and names the most ordinary, and patronymics

to which no possible exception can be taken. Then to notice the _seals_.

Here is one envelope stamped with the escutcheoned signet of an earl;

another where the wax has yielded submissively to the initials of plain

John Brown; and yet another, plastered with cobbler's wax, with an

impression that makes no figure in _Burke_ or _Debrett_, but which,

indeed, bears many evidences of having been manufactured with hob-nails.

Then to think that Queen Victoria, and John Brown, and the cobbler

aforesaid, must each find the inevitable Queen's head, without which no

letter of high or low degree can pass unquestioned! Here they are--these

letters--mingling for a few hours at any rate in silent but common

fellowship, tossed about in company, belaboured with the self-same

knocks on the head, sent to their destination locked in loving embrace,

and sometimes, as in the case of the cobbler's, exceedingly difficult to

part.

If we turn to consider the addresses, how amusing we find some in their

ambiguity; how blundering and stupid a few more! Some say too little,

others too much; some give the phonetic system with _malice prepense_,

others because it is nature's own rendering and they have never known

school! Sometimes (and the practice is growing) the envelope is covered

with long advertisements, for the benefit and information of the

Post-Office officials, we presume, in which case it is difficult to

arrive at the proper address of the letter at the first or even second

glance. Some give the address of the _sender_ in prominent printed

characters, and it is surely not a matter of wonder when the letter, as

not unfrequently, happens, finds its way back to the sender. In all

cases of this kind, time is of course lost to the Post-Office, and the

work of examination is necessarily deliberate, hesitating, and slow. At

one point, the quota of letters from the sister-isle is received, and it

is then perhaps that the sorter's patience is put to the severest test.

The addresses of the letters of the poorer Irish are generally so

involved--always being sent to the care of one or two individuals--that

they usually present the appearance of a little wilderness of words. As

a specimen of the kind of letter referred to, we give our readers a copy

of one which actually passed through the Post-Office some time ago,

assuring them that though the following is rather an _ultra_ specimen,

this kind of minute but indefinite address is by no means uncommon among

the class referred to:--

+----------------------------------------------+

| |

| To my sister Bridget, or else to |

| |

| my brother Tim Burke, in care |

| |

| of the Praste, who lives in the parish |

| |

| of Balcumbury in Cork, or if not to |

| |

| _some dacent neighbour in Ireland_. |

| |

+----------------------------------------------+

The English poor oftener, as we have already seen, show their unbounded

confidence in the sagacity of the officers of the Post-Office by leaving

out some essential part of the address of a letter, but very seldom

writing too much. We once saw a letter addressed as follows:--"Mary

H----, a tall woman with two children," and giving the name of a large

town in the West of England.

The Scotch people, as a rule, attain the golden mean, and exhibit the

greatest care in such matters. Nor can we wonder at this. The poorer

classes are certainly better educated, and whilst seldom profuse on

their letters, they are cautious enough not to leave anything of

consequence unwritten. The statistics of the Dead Letter Offices of the

three countries confirm, to some considerable extent, our rough

generalizations.

After all, however, the cases of blunder are exceptional; and

as no really blind letters are found in the travelling offices,

because no letters are posted here, little difficulty is felt,

comparatively speaking, and nothing but patience and the Rosetta stone

of experience are needed for the performance of the duty. The great

majority of letters are like the great majority of people--ordinary,

unexceptionable, and mediocre. It could not well be otherwise. In the

railway post-office, however, much is learned from the habit of

association. The officers, of course, take some degree of interest in

the towns on his ride; for, almost domesticated on the rail, he becomes

a sort of denizen of those towns he is constantly passing, and sees, or

fancies he does, from the letters that arrive from them, a kind of

corroboration of all he has settled in his mind with regard to them.

Almost every town has its distinctive kind of letters. That town we just

passed is manufacturing, and the letters are almost entirely confined to

sober-looking advice-cards, circulars, prices current, and invoices,

generally very similar in kind and appearance, in good-sized envelopes,

with very plainly written or printed addresses. Now and then a lawyer's

letter, written in a painfully distinct hand, or a thick, fat, banker's

letter, groaning under the weight of bills and notes, escapes from

company such as we have described; but still the letters sustain the

town's real character. Now we are at an old country town, with

quiet-going people, living as their fathers did before them, and

inheriting not only their money and lands, but their most cherished

principles: their letters are just as we expected, little, quiet,

old-fashioned-looking things, remarkable for nothing so much as their

fewness. _Now_ we are among the coal-districts, and almost all the

letters have a smudged appearance, making you imagine that they must

have been written by the light of pit-candles, in some region of carbon

"two hundred fathoms down." _This_ bag comes from a sea-bathing place,

and so long as summer continues, will unmistakably remind you of

sea-shore, sea-sand, and sea-anemones. _These_ bags have previously had

to cross a broad sea ferry, and the letters tell of salt water as

certainly as if they were so many fishes. Another twenty miles, and we

come to an old cathedral town with its letters looking as orthodox as

any Convocation could wish; whilst that other town is clearly a resort

of fashion, if we may judge from the finely scented, perfumed,

elegant-looking billets that escape from its post-bag.

And thus interested and observing, we are rapidly reaching our

destination. We are at the terminus at last. The office is emptied of

all its contents, and the bags, securely made up, are forwarded under

care of other officers in different trains, proceeding far and near. Nor

have we forgotten our own letter. In the vast mass of letters it holds a

well-secured place, being safely ensconced in one of these very bags;

and we will endeavour to be present when the bag is opened, that we may

verify our assertion. Out of the carriage and once on _terra firma_, we

feel a sensation of dreamy wonder that nothing has happened to us; that,

considering the noise and the whirl, and the excitement of the work we

have witnessed, our brain is not tied up in a knot somewhere in the

head, instead of only swimming. Dusty, tired, and sleepy, we hurry

through the streets for refreshment, if not repose, while the day is

just breaking.

Of course, this Post-Office machinery, which we have attempted to

describe, is necessarily delicate and liable to derangements, inasmuch

as it has to depend to a great extent on the proper carrying out

throughout the country of an infinite number of railway arrangements.

Its successful working is doubtless primarily due to the special time

chosen for the conveyance of mails. The ordinary traffic disposed of,

the mail-trains take its place, and through the long night the best part

of the Post-Office work is accomplished. The good or bad management of

railway companies may assist or retard the efficiency of the Post-Office

to an almost incalculable extent. The railway post-office is like a

gigantic machine, one part interdependent on another, and all alike

dependent on the motive power of the different contracting parties.

Railway accidents are fruitful sources of discomfiture to the

Post-Office Department. The mail-trains have, within the last two or

three years, enjoyed an immunity from any very serious calamity of this

nature: yet even when this is not the case, it very seldom happens that

the Post-Office arrangements suffer, except on the particular journey

wherein the accident occurred. Fresh supplies of men and _matériel_ are

summoned with a speed that would, or ought to, surprise some other

commissariat departments, and the work proceeds the next day or night as

if the equilibrium had never been disturbed.

As the question whether continual railway travelling is prejudicial to

health has frequently been discussed of late, it may not be out of place

to instance the case of the travelling _employés_ of the Post-Office,

which seems to show that persons in the enjoyment of good health are

benefited by railway travelling. The ratio of sickness among the

Post-Office clerks and sorters engaged upon railways is certainly not

greater, we are told, than among the same class of officers employed at

the London establishment. The fact seems to be that, were it not that

the former travel generally at night-time, are exposed to sudden changes

of weather, and are, on certain emergencies, forced to travel oftener

and further than the authorized limits, the ratio would be considerably

less than it is. Dr. Waller Lewis, the medical officer of the

Post-Office, supplies us, in a recent report, with a number of cases

that have come under his immediate notice, where incessant, and even

excessive railway travelling, does not seem to have been at all

detrimental to the health of those so engaged. "One of our best

officers," says Dr. Lewis, "states that he has no doubt that, during the

period of twenty years that he has been engaged in railway duties, he

travelled, on an average, a hundred miles a-day, Sundays included. All

this time he not only enjoyed excellent health, but he was stouter and

stronger than he has been since leaving that duty." Dr. Lewis further

tells us, that it is part of his duty to examine candidates for

appointment in this department of the public service, and again to

examine them after they have undergone a probation varying from six to

eighteen months. "In reply to my question, addressed to such officers

after a probationary term, of how they found the travelling agree with

them, some stated that they had never been so well in their lives. A

considerable number of them replied that they had not had an hour's

illness since they commenced railway duty." Of course, these

last-mentioned persons were _candidates_ for appointments in a lucrative

branch of the Post-Office, and their statements must be received subject

to this understanding and with due caution: still, it seems certain that

the general testimony borne in the travelling offices is not

unfavourable to the healthiness of the employment.

With regard to the question of injury to the eyesight from railway

travelling, Dr. Lewis may again be supposed to speak authoritatively

when he considers "it very injurious to allow the eyes to rest on

external objects near at hand, such as telegraph-poles or wires, near

trees or hedges, &c. whilst the train is in motion;" but, speaking of

the same subject, he "does not find that in the travelling post-office

much mischief is occasioned to the sight."[159] When we remember that

the Post-Office work is generally performed by means of a strong

artificial light, and much tedious deciphering of the addresses of

letters necessarily occurs, as we have seen, during travelling, it must

be admitted that the eyesight is here put to the strongest possible

test.