We have now traced our letter, posted in the metropolis, through the

travelling post-office into the establishment of a provincial town. We

shall follow it presently, and not leave it till it is properly

delivered at the rural village to which we saw it addressed; but we must

take the opportunities as they occur to describe with minuteness each

particular, whether bearing directly or collaterally on our subject, as

well as to add now and then a timely exhortation to the reader. Thus,

you are indignant, perhaps, that a certain letter you ought to have had

is not to hand at the proper moment, but has suffered some delay in

transit. However, just think how many letters you do get, which come to

your desk as true as the needle to the pole. Just listen to the old

gentleman yonder as he tells how long the same business letter from a

certain old-established house used to be in arriving, and what was paid

for it when it did arrive. Above all, pray think of the travelling caged

officials--those wingless birds of the Post-Office--and of what they go

through o' nights in order that you may have your letter or your

newspaper--posted yesterday in some quiet corner of the country 500 or

600 miles away--with your buttered toast to breakfast in town!

A PROVINCIAL POST-OFFICE.

Thirty years ago the arrangements in the north country town of the

district to which our imaginary letter was addressed, and which we are

engaged to visit, were of the most primitive kind. It has always been an

important town. Even anterior to the first establishment of the British

Post-Office, it was the first town in the county in which it stands.

Subsequently, it was on the direct line of one of the principal

mail-routes in the kingdom, and now, in these days of railroads, it is a

kind of junction for the district. Postally speaking, it was, and is, a

place of importance, including within its boundaries nearly a hundred

villages, all deriving their letter-sustenance from it. At the period of

time in question the post-office was situated in the most central part

of the town, the outside of the building partaking of the ugly and

old-fashioned style of the shops of that day. It was then considered

quite sufficient for the business of the place that there should be a

small room of about twelve feet square devoted to postal purposes; that

there should be a long counter, upon which the letters might be stamped

and charged, and a small set of letter-boxes for the sorting processes.

Added, however, to the proper business of the neighbourhood, there used

to be a kind of work done here which was confined to a few towns only on

the line of mails, selected for this supplementary business on account

of their central positions. The mail-coaches, as they passed and

repassed northwards and southwards, stopped here for half an hour until

certain necessary sorting operations could be performed with a portion

of the letters. In this way our particular town held the style and

designation, and with it the _prestige_, of a "Forwarding Office."

The public required little attention, and got but little. Being prior to

the time of postage-stamps, and we may almost add of money-orders, not

to speak of savings' bank business, few applications were ever made to

the officers--consisting of a postmaster, his wife, and another

clerk--for anything but stray scraps of information relative to the

despatch of mails. The communication with the public was anything but

close, being conducted in this town--and, in fact, in all others of our

acquaintance--through a trap-door in a wooden pane in the office-window.

Near to it was a huge slit, being a passage to a basket, into which

letters and newspapers were promiscuously thrown. The principal labour

incident to the old style of postage was in regulating the amount to be

paid on the different letters. Those posted in the town for the town

itself were delivered for a penny; twopence was charged into the country

places surrounding; letters for the metropolis cost a shilling; and

Scotch letters eightpence-halfpenny at least, the odd halfpenny being

the charge as a toll for the letter crossing the Tweed. The delivery of

the letters in the town took place at any time during the day, according

to the arrival of the mails, and it was effected by a single

letter-carrier.[160] Private boxes for the principal merchants in the

town, and private bags for the country gentlemen, were almost

indispensable to those who cared for the proper despatch and security of

their correspondence. Many gentlemen who did not arrange to have private

bags (at a great yearly expense) were compelled to make frequent

journeys to the town to ascertain if any letters had arrived for them.

Some letters for places within a few miles of the town would be known to

be at the office for days and weeks unguessed at, till perhaps some one

would hear, through one of many channels, that a letter was lying at the

post-office for persons of their acquaintance, and inform them of the

fact. Letter-delivering in the rural districts was then a private

concern, and, in consequence, those letters destined for one particular

road were laid aside till a sufficient number were accumulated to make

it worth while to convey them at a charge of a penny the letter.[161]

Owing to the wretched system then in force, many country places round a

post-office were, to all intents and purposes, more remote than most

foreign countries are at this hour. One letter-carrier sufficing for the

wants of the town, we need scarcely say that the number of letters

received was exceedingly small. Not more than a hundred letters were

posted or delivered, on an average, each day, though the town was the

seat of many brisk manufactories, and was, besides, in the heart of the

colliery districts. _Now_, a single firm in the same town will cause a

greater amount of daily postal business.

Our purpose will not allow of our describing all the attendant

circumstances of the state of things existing at this early period, or

more fully than we have already done the postal arrangements of the

past. But there were the "_expresses_," which ought not to be forgotten.

Designed to supply some sudden emergency, they were of great use where

quick intelligence was urgently required. For this purpose they might be

had from the post-office people at any hour, and generally they were

procured through the night. A special mounted messenger might be

despatched, under this arrangement, with a single letter, marked "Haste!

post haste!" carrying with him a way-bill, to account for the time it

had taken him to perform the journey. The charge for expresses was at

the rate of a shilling a mile, the speed at which they travelled

averaging ten miles an hour.

Nor can we stay, much as we should like to do so, to picture the old

mail-coach--its glittering appearance, its pawing horses; or to describe

the royal-liveried guard, "grand and awful-looking in all the composure

of a felt superiority." In the old times it used to pull up at the

half-wooden inn near the post-office, and, during the half-hour allowed

for postal business, was the observed of all observers. The half-hour

was one of unusual bustle both at the office and at the inn; but, as

soon as the time was up, the passengers would take their seats (the

guard occupying a solitary one at the end of the coach), the mails were

thrown as a small addition to the load of bags at the top, and off the

cavalcade would start, to the tune, perhaps, of the "Blue Bells of

Scotland," if the mail was going northwards, or, if southwards, may be

"The Green Hills of Tyrol," from the clear silver key-bugle of his

Majesty's mail-guard.

Now, this is changed, and almost all postal arrangements prior to the

days of Sir Rowland Hill are as so many things of the past. And into

what a grand establishment the Post-Office itself is metamorphosed! The

part now dedicated to the public might be part of a first-class banking

establishment. Entering by a spacious doorway, with a lofty vestibule,

there is accommodation for a score of people to stand in the ante-room

and leisurely transact their business. Then there runs along the whole

length of the first or public room a substantial mahogany counter,

behind which the clerks stand to answer inquiries and attend to the

ordinary daily business. There is a desk for the money-order clerk, and

drawers in which postage-stamps are kept. Close by we see one or two

ranges of boxes; one for callers' letters--"_the poste restante_"--and

another for those who prefer to engage private boxes to having their

letters delivered by letter-carriers.

Outside things are changed also. The wooden pane--nay, the window

itself--has disappeared to make way for a more modern structure; and

instead of the single letterbox, there are several. Late letters are now

provided for in a separate box, and so also are newspapers. The

principal post-office work is accomplished in an interior apartment,

from which the public are studiously excluded.[162] A large table stands

in the centre of the room; a smaller one, well padded with leather,

stands near, and is used specially for letter-stamping; a number of

letter-benches--for boxes are not used much now--are arranged against

three of the four walls and in the middle of the room, on which the

letters and newspapers are sorted. Empty canvas bags of different sizes,

with tin labels attached (if the name of the town is not _painted_ on

them), books, printed papers of different kinds, bundles of string, &c.

make up the furniture of the apartment, and complete the appearance of

it immediately prior to the receipt of the early-morning mail.

Long before the ordinary workmen in our towns are summoned from their

repose, the Post-Office work in the provinces may be said to commence by

the mail-cart clattering through the now silent streets to the railway

station, there to await the arrival of the first and principal mail, and

its first daily instalment of bags. At the given time, and only (even in

the depth of winter) very occasionally late, the train emerges out of

the darkness, its two shining lamps in front, into the silent and almost

empty station. The process described in our account of the travelling

post-office is here gone through; a rapid exchange of bags is made, and

each interest goes its separate and hurried way. During the interval,

and just before the mail-cart deposits its contents at the door of the

post-office, the clerks and letter-carriers will have been roused from

their beds, and somewhat sulkily, perhaps, have found their places in

time. They look sleepy and dull, but this is excusable; the hour is a

drowsy one, and half the world is dozing. The well-known sound of the

mail-cart breaks the spell, however, and soon they are all thoroughly

alive, nay, even interested, in the duties in which they are engaged.

The bags just arrived are immediately seized by one of their number, who

hurriedly cuts their throats, and then empties the contents upon the

huge table in a great heap: somewhere in the heap our letter is

safely deposited. The bundles of letters are quickly taken to the

letter-stampers, through whose hands they must first pass. With a speed

and accuracy which rivals machinery,[163] an agile letter-stamper will

soon impress a copy of the dated stamp of the office upon the back of a

hundred letters, and this done, they are passed over to the clerks and

sorters to arrange them in the different boxes, the process being

repeated till the whole are disposed of. The newspapers and book-packets

are taken from the table without being stamped, and sorted by the

letter-carriers. As soon as the first or preliminary sorting is over,

each sorter will proceed upon distinctive duties; some will prepare the

letters for the letter-carriers, by sorting each man's letters together,

according to their different number. When this is done, the letters are

handed to the carriers, who retire to a separate room, looking with its

desks very like a small schoolroom, and there arrange them in order to

deliver them from house to house. Other officers will prepare the

letters for the sub-officers and rural messengers. When all the letters,

&c. for a certain village are gathered up, they are counted and tied up

in bundles; if any charged letters are sent, the amount is debited

against the sub-postmaster of the place on a letter-bill--something like

an invoice--which invariably accompanies every Post-Office letter-bag

despatched from one post-town to another, or from one head office to a

sub-office. If any registered letters are of the number to be sent, the

name of each addressee is carefully written on the letter-bill. Private

and locked bags for the country gentry still survive, and may be

obtained for an annual fee of two guineas. They are attended to with

some care, and are carried to their destination with the other made-up

bags. When the mails are ready, they are sent from the Post-Office in

various ways. Those for one or two country roads are sent to a local

railway station, and taken in charge by the railway guard, who drops the

bags at the different points on the line according to their address;

others are carried by mail gigs under one or more private contractors,

while the rest are taken by country-walking postmen, who make certain

journeys during the day, returning in the evening with the letters and

bags they have gathered during their travels. Of course the rural

messengers take out loose letters as well; _e. g._ those for detached

dwellings on their line of road. Our letter falls into the hands of one

of those hard-working and deserving men.[164] The village, or rather

hamlet, to which it is addressed is too small for a post-office, but a

rural postman passes through it on his daily journeyings about ten

o'clock each morning, delivering with scrupulous fidelity everything

committed to his care. Thus, posted where we saw it last night, it

passes from hand to hand all through the long night, and eventually

reaches that hand for which it was intended 300 odd miles away, nearly

as surely as if we had travelled to deliver it ourselves.

But to return. While some of the officers are attending in this way to

the wants of the country, others are serving the interests of the town.

A hundred or two gentlemen, bankers and manufacturers, pay an extra

guinea yearly in order to secure certain special privileges at the

Post-Office. These privileges consist, in brief, of having their letters

arranged in private boxes, each labelled with their names, and delivered

from these boxes by one of the clerks as soon as the office is opened,

or the moment the letter-carriers emerge from it to enter upon any of

the daily deliveries of letters. Of course these letters must be

prepared previously.

The office is open to the public for money-orders and for the

transaction of the business of the new savings' banks at nine o'clock,

and continues open on every day, except Saturdays, until six, on which

day two hours longer are allowed. It is not necessary to describe the

arrangements in these branches, seeing that the public are familiar from

daily experience with them. It will suffice to say that separate clerks

are usually delegated to these duties in our large towns, and are

answerable to the postmaster for the correctness of their accounts. The

same clerk attends to the sale of postage-stamps, keeping an account

with the postmaster of the quantity _sold_, and also of the stamps

_bought_ from the public under the recent arrangement. In larger towns

where one clerk is specially retained for these duties, he is known as

the "window clerk," as it devolves upon him to answer all applications

and inquiries.

Throughout the day, the quietness of the post-office proper is broken in

upon and varied by the arrival of some small mail. On one of these

occasions, namely, on the receipt of the day-mail from London, the

operations of the morning are gone over again on a small scale, and for

a short time the office presents an appearance of some of its early

bustle. Letters are delivered in the town, but those arriving for the

country places remain at the office till the next morning.

The work of the Post-Office commences before "grey dawn," and long

before the usual period of ordinary business in our towns; it lasts also

far into the "dewy eve." When merchants lock up their desks and offices,

and complete their last round of duties by posting their letters, the

serious work of the Post-Office, for the second time during the day, may

be said to begin. The hour before the despatch of the principal mail in

any provincial Post-Office, thanks in great part to the dilatoriness of

the public in general, is an hour of busy activity, seldom witnessed in

any other branch of industry whatever. Almost at the same moment the

country mail-gigs from their different rides, mail-carts from the local

railway stations, the rural postmen from their walks, and the

receiving-house keepers from the outskirts of the town, approach the

post-office door, and speedily cause the office to groan as it were

under the weight of letters and bags. All the force of the office is now

engaged, and engaged with a will, if the bags are to be ready for the

London night-mail due from Scotland at the railway station in sixty

minutes. Again, the same round of bag-opening, checking, stamping (only

now the stamps must be obliterated, as the letters are about to be

despatched for the first time), and sorting, which we described in the

morning, is again repeated. The sorted letters are examined, tied up in

bundles of sixty or seventy each, and then despatched in the bags

received at the beginning of the day from the London mail. The bags are

tied, sealed, and hurried away to the station. Now, at length, the

postmaster and his staff breathe freely. For a full hour they have been

engaged as busily, yet as silently, as so many bees in a hive; but now

that the work is finished, the thoughts of rogues, lovers, bankers,

lawyers, clergymen, and shopkeepers; the loves and griefs, the weal and

woes, of the town and country lie side by side, and for a few hours at

least will enjoy the most complete and secret companionship. Every

working day, and to some extent on Sunday, the same routine of work is

prescribed and accomplished with little variation.

In all this consists the _prose_ of Post-Office life; but who shall

describe its _poetry_? Scarcely a day passes in any of our provincial

post-offices without some incident occurring calculated to surprise,

amuse, or sadden. Very probably within a few minutes one person will

have come to make a complaint that a certain letter or letters ought to

have arrived, and must have been kept back; another will make an equally

unreasonable request, or propound some strange inquiry which the poor

post-office clerk is supposed to be omniscient enough to answer. Most

often, however, the cases of inquiry disclose sorrowful facts, and all

the consolation which can be offered--supposing that the clerk has any

of "the milk of human kindness" in him, a quality of mind or heart, much

too rare, we confess, in the Post-Office service--will likely be the

consolation of hope. The official sees now and then brief snatches of

romance; perhaps the beginning or the end, though seldom the transaction

throughout. Amusing circumstances are often brought out by requests

tendered at the Post-Office, that letters which have been posted may be

returned to the writers. A formal, but most essential rule, makes

letters once posted the property of the Postmaster-General until they

are delivered as addressed, and must not be given up to the _writers_ on

any pretence whatever. One or two requests of this kind related to us we

are not likely soon to forget. On one occasion, a gentlemanly-looking

commercial traveller called at an office and expressed a fear that he

had inclosed two letters in wrong envelopes, the addresses of which he

furnished. It appeared from the account which he reluctantly gave, after

a refusal to grant his request, that his position and prospects depended

upon his getting his letters, and correcting the mistakes, inasmuch as

they revealed plans which he had adopted to serve two mercantile houses

in the same line of business, whose interests clashed at every point. He

failed to get his letters, but we hope he has retrieved himself, and is

now serving one master faithfully.

Another case occurred in which a fast young gentleman confessed to

carrying on a confidential correspondence with two young ladies at the

same time, and that he had, or feared he had, crossed two letters which

he had written at the same sitting. We heartily hope a full exposure

followed. Writing of this, we are reminded of a case where a country

postmaster had a letter put into his hand through the office window,

together with the following message delivered with great emphasis:

"Here's a letter; she wants it to go along as fast as it can, cause

there's a feller wants to have her here, and she's courted by another

feller that's not here, and she wants to know whether he is going to

have her or not." If the letter was as explicit as the verbal message

to which the postmaster involuntarily lent his ear, no doubt the writer

would not be long in suspense. These cases, however, are uninteresting

compared to one related by another postmaster. A tradesman's daughter

who had been for some time engaged to a prosperous young draper in a

neighbouring town, heard from one whom she and her parents considered a

creditable authority, that he was on the verge of bankruptcy. "Not a day

was to be lost in breaking the bond by which she and her small fortune

were linked to penury." A letter, strong and conclusive in its language,

was at once written and posted, when the same informant called upon the

young lady's friends to contradict and explain his previous statement,

which had arisen out of some misunderstanding. "They rushed at once to

the Post-Office, and no words can describe the scene; the reiterated

appeals, the tears, the wringing of hands, the united entreaties of

father, mother, and daughter for the restoration of the fatal letter."

But the rule admitted of no exception, and the young lady had to repent

at leisure of her inordinate haste.

We have only space to close with a graphic extract from the

reminiscences of a post-office official, in which the everyday life of a

country post-office is admirably described: "For the poor we were often

persuaded both to read and write their letters; and the Irish

especially, with whom penmanship was a rare accomplishment, seldom

failed to succeed in their eloquent petitions; though no one can realize

the difficulty of writing from a Paddy's dictation, where 'the pratees,

and the pig, and the praiste, God bless him!' become involved in one

long, perplexed sentence, without any period from beginning to end of

the letter. One such epistle, the main topic of which was an extravagant

lamentation over the death of a wife, rose to the pathetic climax, 'and

now I'm obleeged to wash meself, and bake meself!'" The officers of the

Dead-Letter Office could a tale unfold, one would think, only an

essential rule of the service binds them to honourable secresy. The

Post-Office official often, however, and in spite of himself, learns

more than he cares to know. "For," as the writer continues, "a great

deal can be known from the outside of a letter, where there is no

disposition to pry into the enclosure. Who would not be almost satisfied

with knowing all the correspondence coming to or leaving the hands of

the object of his interest? From our long training among the letters of

our district, we knew the handwriting of most persons so intimately,

that no attempt at disguise, however cunningly executed, could succeed

with us. We noticed the ominous lawyers' letters addressed to tradesmen

whose circumstances were growing embarrassed; and we saw the carefully

ill-written direction to the street in Liverpool and London, where some

poor fugitive debtor was in hiding. The evangelical curate, who wrote in

a disguised hand and under an assumed name to the fascinating public

singer, did not deceive us; the young man who posted a circular

love-letter to three or four girls the same night, never escaped our

notice; the wary maiden, prudently keeping two strings to her bow,

unconsciously depended upon our good faith. The public never know how

much they owe to official secresy and official honour, and how rarely

this confidence is betrayed. Petty tricks and artifices, small

dishonesties, histories of tyranny and suffering, exaggerations and

disappointments were thrust upon our notice. As if we were the official

confidants of the neighbourhood, we were acquainted with the leading

events in the lives of most of the inhabitants."

Once more, "Never, surely, has any one a better chance of seeing himself

as others see him than a country postmaster. Letters of complaint very

securely enveloped and sealed passed through our hands, addressed to the

Postmaster-General, and then came back to us for our own perusal and

explanation. One of our neighbours informed the Postmaster-General, in

confidence, that we were 'ignorant and stupid.' A clergyman wrote a

pathetic remonstrance, stating that he was so often disappointed of his

_Morning Star and Dial_, that he had come to the conclusion that we

disapproved of that paper for the clergy,[165] and, from scruples of

conscience, or political motives, prevented it--one of 400 passing daily

through our office--from reaching his hands whenever there was anything

we considered objectionable in it."

CHAPTER III.

ON THE MAIL-PACKET SERVICE.

Our home and foreign mail-packet service is a costly and gigantic branch

of the Post-Office establishment. During the greater part of the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the service was under the control

of the Post-Office authorities. We have already given many details of

the packet management of the period. It was then transferred to the

Board of Admiralty, in whose hands it continued up to so late as 1860.

Even at the commencement of the present century, the service seems to

have been carried on regardless of economy, and not without traces of

that wastefulness--we might almost say corruption--in the management,

which, a hundred years previously, would not have been regarded as very

remarkable. The arrangements eighty years ago, were none of the best. At

this period some of the vessels employed to convey mails were hired,

without any tender, while some few were the property of the Crown. In

1788, the state of the marine mail service attracted parliamentary

attention; for in that year we find a Committee of Fees and Gratuities

reporting that the cost of the mail service had reached an unreasonable

sum. They stated that for eighteen years that cost had been over a

million sterling, or an average charge of 60,000_l._ annually. With

regard to the manner in which the work was done, they found that many

officers of the Post-Office, "even down to the chamber keepers," were

owners of some of the packets employed to the exclusion of all else.

This Committee, with a view to remedying these and other abuses,

recommended that the Government should change the system entirely--the

Government share of the packets to be sold, and the entire service

offered by public and competitive tender. That this advice was not acted

upon, is clear from the fact that four years afterwards, the Finance

Committee urged upon the Government the necessity of complying with the

recommendations of 1788. In 1810, the cost of the service had increased

to 105,000_l._; in 1814 to 160,000_l._[166]

Steam vessels had been in successful operation for three years before

they were introduced into the mail service. In 1818, the _Rob Roy_

steam-packet plied regularly between Greenock and Belfast; in 1821, the

year in which Crown packets were established, the Post-Office, or rather

the Admiralty on behalf of the Post-Office, asked the help of steam. The

Holyhead station for Ireland, and the Dover station for the Continent,

were chosen for the experiment of mail-steamers. They were successful;

and soon we find six steam-packets stationed at each place. Then we have

the gradual introduction of mail contracts. The first of these

commercial contracts was made in 1833, with the Mona Island Steam

Company, to run steamers twice a week between Liverpool and Douglas, in

the Isle of Man. Immediately after, the General Steam Navigation Company

contracted to carry the Rotterdam and Hamburgh mails for 17,000_l._

a-year. In 1853 these mails were transferred to the Ostend route. The

year 1839 was quite an epoch in the history of the packet service; Mr.

Samuel Cunard of Halifax, Nova Scotia, having in that year contracted

with the British Government for a fortnightly mail across the Atlantic,

for the sum of 60,000_l._ a-year. The Cunard line of steamers is now

universally known, and is unrivalled.

Little more than a hundred years ago, 50,000_l._ sufficed to pay for

the entire mail service of the period; about half that sum being the

extent of the charges properly appertaining to the Post-Office. Then,

only a few continental mails and an occasional packet to the colonies of

North America and the West Indies, were all that had to be sustained;

even those were kept up at a considerable loss.[167] At that time the

aboriginal inhabitants of Australia and New Zealand were in undisputed

possession of these enormous colonies; the Dutch were then the only

targets for the arrows of the Caffres in South Africa; Warren Hastings

and Lord Clive were children at Daylesford and Market Drayton, and

little dreamt of their subsequent career in the East; while the tide of

emigration which has since carried Anglo-Saxon blood and Anglo-Saxon

energy into every corner of the globe had not then, to any extent, set

in. That a hundred years of unequalled internal progress has developed

our great empire and called into life fresh and important agencies, what

reflecting mind can doubt? For many recent years the packet service of

the country, traversing every known sea to keep up a connexion with

those whom the exigencies of life and commerce have dispersed so widely,

has cost the nation something like a million sterling per annum!

In accordance with the provisions of an Act passed in the session of

1859-1860, the general control of the British packet service was

transferred (on the 1st of April, 1860) to the Post-Office authorities,

from whom it ought never to have been taken. It was considered that the

Postmaster-General, under the Treasury, was the best judge of the

requirements of the service, and could best set about reducing the

enormous expenditure arising from contracts, which the Lords of the

Admiralty, generally from political motives, had entered into. That this

judgment was the correct one, three years have amply sufficed to prove.

Contracts have been thrown open to public competition; and although many

of the companies which had previously done certain services re-secured

them, it was found that they had to engage to do the work at a much

lower figure--in one or two cases, in fact, for half the amount they had

been wont to receive. All the packet contracts, as they fall vacant, are

advertised fully by the Post-Office authorities, and in sufficient time.

Printed forms are issued, and intending contractors are required to fill

them up, every arrangement being made to secure the efficiency of the

work. Nearly all the contracts are now made terminable on twelve months'

notice being given by the Postmaster-General.

Another change which the Post-Office authorities have made is a radical

but a necessary one, and bids fair to make the mail-packet service, at

no distant date, self-supporting, so far as the mother-country is

concerned. Under the new principle already applied to India and

Australia, the British colonies are required to pay _half the cost_ of

their respective services, the English Government paying the remainder.

The result in some instances has been an increase in postage rates, but

we hope this will not long be considered necessary.

According to the Postmaster-General's _Ninth Report_--from which much of

the information concerning the present state of the mail service is

taken--we find that the total number of steam-ships employed in the

mail-packet service, exclusive of tenders, &c., is no less than

ninety-six, with an aggregate of 140,000 tons, and of 36,000

horse-power. The largest and most powerful mail-packet in the service is

the Cunard paddle-wheel steam-ship _Scotia_, of 3,871 tons burden, and

1,000 horse-power. It belongs to the contractors for the North American

service, Messrs. Cunard, Burns, and Maciver. The smallest packet,

according to the same authority, was stated to be the _Vivid_, of 300

tons, and 128 horse-power, the property of Mr. Churchward. It is more

than probable, however, that this packet is not now in the service, as

Mr. Churchward's contracts have subsequently been given to the Belgian

Government.

The mail-packet contracts are divided into those of the Home and those

of the Foreign services. The most important home service is that for

carrying the Irish mails, entered into by the City of Dublin

Steam-packet Company. They are required to keep four powerful

steam-vessels to ply twice a-day between Holyhead and Kingstown, for a

yearly payment of 85,900_l._ This contract lasts until 1865. The least

important contract in the home service, if we may judge by the terms

imposed, is that for the daily conveyance of mails between Greenock and

Belfast, entered into by Mr. Burns of Glasgow. Mr. Burns undertakes to

perform this service in all weathers, _free of expense_, and to pay an

annual sum of 100_l._ as penalty for general improper performance of the

duty!

The home contracts dwindle into insignificance before those of the

foreign service. The foreign packets travel over the immense distance of

3,000,000 of statute miles each year. As the cost of the whole service

is nearly a million pounds annually, the average charge per mile is

6_s._ 4_d._ The average speed of the foreign packets is ten miles an

hour. The principal contracts are those for the Indian and Chinese

mails, entered into by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam-navigation

Company, and for which the sum of 253,000_l._ is paid yearly. In this

service, packets sail four times a month from Southampton, and other

mails are met at Marseilles at the like intervals. A fleet of steamers,

of not less than 1,100 tons, are engaged for a system of relays

established in the Mediterranean, and also between Suez and Bombay, Suez

and Calcutta, and Bombay and China. The Australian mails are carried out

to Ceylon in the Indian packets, when, on arrival at that point, another

fleet of steamers, engaged from the same company on a supplementary

contract of 134,672_l._ a-year, carry them between Point de Galle and

Sydney. An additional line of packets to the Antipodes, _viâ_ Panama,

will be run in January, 1865. The West Indian are the worst paying of

all the foreign mails, costing twice as much as they yield.[168] The

Royal Mail Steam-packet Company is paid the enormous sum of 270,000_l._

a-year for their conveyance. The North American mails are carried by

Messrs. Cunard & Co. for the sum of 176,340_l._ a-year. Eight

steam-vessels are employed by this firm, leaving Liverpool once a-week,

and travelling also between New York and Nassau once a-month. Sir Samuel

Cunard himself contracts for the Canadian mails, receiving the yearly

sum of 14,700_l._ These supplementary packets sail from Halifax, on the

arrival of the Cunard steamers from Europe, to Bermuda and St. Thomas,

and also to Newfoundland. The Canadian contract costs less than any

other on the foreign service.

The most distant point to which English mails are conveyed by the

British packet service is Auckland, New Zealand, about 15,000 statute

miles from Southampton. This service is rendered by the Intercolonial

Royal Mail-packet Company, with a fleet of four strong steamers, for

22,000_l._ annually. Of course, this company only performs the journeys

between Sydney in New South Wales and Auckland in New Zealand. The

nearest point from England is Calais, twenty-six miles from Dover.

Notwithstanding the extraordinary length of some of the journeys of the

different mail packets, the Postmaster-General informs us that, except

in case of accident, the packets, even when late, arrive within a few

hours of their time, sometimes within a few minutes. As examples of

remarkable punctuality, which is now the rule, and not the exception, he

gives several instances, from which we select the following:--"The mails

for the West Indies and Central America, despatched from Southampton on

the 17th of September, were delivered at the Danish island of St.

Thomas, distant more than 4,000 miles, at the precise moment at which

they were due. On the same voyage, the mails for Jamaica and Demerara,

conveyed in each case by a separate branch-packet, were delivered within

a few minutes of the time at which they were due; the mails for parts of

Central America and for the Pacific were delivered at Colon, on the

eastern coast of the Isthmus of Panama, distant 5,400 miles, thirty

minutes after time, the packet having been detained at sea that precise

period by H.M.S. _Orlando_; while the mails for Chili, after having been

conveyed with others across the Isthmus of Panama, were delivered at

Valparaiso, distant nearly 9,000 miles from Southampton, two hours

before the appointed time."

The mail packets employ a force, including officers, of more than 8,000

men. In addition to these, there is a staff of thirty-three naval

officers--all officers of the royal navy, though maintained by the

Post-Office--employed upon such packets as those for the Cape and the

west coast of Africa, and charged with the care and correct delivery of

the mails. They are further required to do all they can to guard

against delay on the voyage, and to report on nautical questions

affecting in any way the proper efficiency of the service. Other

officers, besides, are fixed at different foreign stations to direct the

transfers of mails from packet to packet, or from packets to other modes

of conveyance. Then, again, in growing numbers, another class of

officers travel in charge of mails, such as the Indian and Australian,

and on all the North American packets, who, with a number of sorters,

are employed in sorting the mails _during the voyage_, in order to save

time and labour in the despatch and receipt of mails at London and

Liverpool respectively. There are now twenty-eight of this new class of

working mail officers, who, of course, are substituted for the old class

of naval agents. On the less important mail packets no naval officer is

specially appointed, but the mails are taken in charge by the commander.

In past years few casualties, comparatively, have occurred in this

service. The loss of the mail packet _Violet_, on her journey between

Ostend and Dover, in 1856, will be remembered by many. One incident in

that melancholy shipwreck deserves mention here, affording a gleam of

rich sunshine amid a page of dry though not unimportant matter. Mr.

Mortleman, the mail officer in charge of the bags, on seeing that there

was no chance for the packet, must have gone down into the hold and have

removed all the cases containing the mail bags from that part of the

vessel; and further, placed them so that when the ship and all in it

went down, they might float--a proceeding which ultimately led to the

recovery of all the bags, except one, containing a case of despatches.

On another occasion, the mail master of a Canadian packet sacrificed his

life, when he might have escaped, by going below to secure the mails

intrusted to him. Other cases of a similar devotion to duty have, on

several occasions of exposure to imminent danger, distinguished the

conduct of these public officers, proving that some of them regard the

onerous duties of their position in a somewhat higher light than we

find obtains in the ordinary business of life.

During the last year, however, an "unprecedentedly large number of

shipwrecks"[169] are on record, no less than five valuable packets

having been totally lost. In the early part of the year, the _Karnak_,

belonging to Messrs. Cunard and Co., was wrecked in entering Nassau

harbour. Shortly after, the _Lima_ struck on a reef off Lagarto Island,

in the South Pacific Ocean, and went down. The only loss of life

occurred in the case of the _Cleopatra_, the third packet which was

lost. This last-named vessel, belonging to the African Steam-ship

Company, the contractors for the Cape service, was wrecked on Shebar

reef, near Sierra Leone, when an officer and four Kroomen were washed

from a raft and drowned in endeavouring to reach the shore. Towards the

close of 1862, the _Avon_, belonging to the contractors for the West

Indian service, was wrecked at her moorings in the harbour of Colon, New

Granada; and, lastly, the _Colombo_ (conveying the Australian mails from

Sydney) shared the same fate on Minicoy Island, 400 miles from Ceylon.

The greatest loss of correspondence was caused by the failure of the

last-mentioned packet, though, from the care of the Post-Office

authorities, and the prompt arrangements of the contractors, the loss

was not nearly so great as it might otherwise have been if the proper

appliances had not been ready to hand. The mails were rescued from their

ocean bed and brought to London, where every effort that skill could

devise was made to restore them to their original condition. They were

carefully dried, in order that the addresses of the letters and

newspapers might be deciphered. When dried it was requisite that they

should be handled most carefully to prevent them crumbling to pieces--so

much so, in fact, that many were unfit to travel out of London without

being tied up carefully, gummed, and placed in new envelopes, and

re-addressed, providing that the old address could by any means be read

or obtained. Notwithstanding all the care and attention bestowed, a

great number of letters remained, in the words of the Post-Office

people, "in a hopeless state of pulp." An Australian _carte de visite_,

which arrived with the rescued mails from the _Colombo_, and now before

us, may have been a gem of art from one of the antipodean "temples of

the sun," but we have not now the means of judging, as a yellow bit of

paper, with an indistinct outline upon it, is all that remains.

FOOTNOTES:

[166] At this period the packets were worked at a considerable loss;

though this large item was occasioned by the war, yet the sea-postage

never amounted to half the cost of the maintenance of the mail-packets.

[167] In the American Colonies, Benjamin Franklin was the last and by

far the best colonial Postmaster-General. He had forty years experience

of postal work, having been appointed postmaster of Philadelphia in

1737. Mr. Pliny Miles, in his history of the Post-Office in America,

_New York Bankers' Magazine_, vol. vii. p. 360, has furnished many

interesting particulars of this period. It appears that Franklin

notified his appointment in his own newspaper as follows: "Notice is

hereby given, that the Post-Office at Philadelphia is now kept at B.

Franklin's in Market Street, and that Henry Pratt is appointed

riding-postmaster for all stages between Philadelphia and Newport,

Virginia, who sets out _about the beginning_ (!) of each month, and

returns in twenty-four days, by whom gentlemen, merchants, and others

may have their letters carefully conveyed." What follows is also

interesting. It would seem that Franklin was somewhat unceremoniously

dismissed from his post, upon which he wrote, by way of protest, that up

to the date of his appointment "the American Post-Office never had paid

anything to Britain. We (himself and assistant) were to have 600_l._

a-year between us, _if we could make that sum out of the profits of the

office_. To do this, a variety of improvements were necessary; some of

these were, inevitably, at the beginning expensive; so that in the first

four years the office became above 900_l._ in debt to us. But it soon

after began to repay us; and before I was displaced by a freak of the

Minister's we had brought it to yield three times as much clear revenue

to the Crown as the whole Post-Office of Ireland. Since that imprudent

transaction," adds Franklin, with a bit of pardonable irony, "they have

received from it--not one farthing!"

[168] The amount of sea-postage collected has never reached within late

years to more than _half_ the entire cost of the mail-packet service. In

1860, this cost was 863,000_l._ and the postage collected amounted to

409,000_l._

[169] Postmaster-General's _Ninth Report_, p. 84.

CHAPTER IV.

ON POSTAGE-STAMPS.

The history of postage-stamps is somewhat remarkable. First used, as

many of our readers will remember, in May 1840, the postage stamp has

only just passed out of its years of minority, and yet at this present

moment there are more than fifteen hundred different varieties of its

species in existence, and the number is increasing every month. The

question as to who invented the postage-stamp would not be easily

settled; it appears to be the result of innumerable improvements

suggested by many different individuals. We will not enter far into the

controversy, and would only urge that the discussion as to its origin

has once more served to exemplify the truth of the saying of the wise

man, "The thing which hath been, it is that which shall be, and there is

no new thing under the sun." Post-paid envelopes were in use in France

as early as the reign of Louis XIV.[170] Pelisson states that they

originated, in 1653, with a M. de Velayer, who established, under royal

authority, a private penny post in Paris, placing boxes at the corners

of the streets for the reception of letters, which should be wrapped up

in certain envelopes. Shopkeepers in the immediate neighbourhood sold

the envelopes, some of which are still extant.[171]

In England, stamps to prepay letters were most probably suggested by the

newspaper duty-stamp, then, and for some time previously, in use. Mr.

Charles Whiting seems to have thrown out this suggestion to the

Post-Office authorities in 1830.[172] Afterwards, Mr. Charles Knight

proposed a stamped cover for the circulation of newspapers. Dr. Gray, of

the British Museum, claims the credit of having suggested that letters

should be prepaid with them, as early as 1834.[173] No steps, however,

were taken in regard to any recommendations on the subject till the

proposals for post reform; and, consequently, the credit of the

improvement has fallen, to a considerable extent, to Sir Rowland Hill.

The use of postage-stamps was scarcely part of his original scheme,

though it followed almost as a matter of course: and, indeed, this

public benefactor, crowned with so many well-won laurels, may easily

afford to dispense with the adornment of this single one.

Mr. Hill's famous pamphlet on _Post Reform_ went through three editions

rapidly. In the first edition, which was published privately, we find no

mention of the use of stamps--though prepayment of letters was always a

principal feature in his proposals--_money payments_ over the counter of

the receiving-office being all that was suggested under this head.

Immediately after the publication of the first edition, the members of

the Royal Commission on the Post-Office, which had been sitting at

intervals since 1833, called the author before them. In connexion with

the subject of the prepayment of letters, the officers of the Stamp

Office--Mr. Dickenson, the paper-maker, and several others--were also

examined, and the subject was thoroughly discussed.[174] Almost, as it

would seem, as a consequence of the proceedings before Committee, Mr.

Hill, in the second edition of his pamphlet, recommended definitely the

use of some kind of stamps or stamped envelopes as a means of

prepayment. When the Committee of the House of Commons met in 1837-8 to

investigate the merits of Mr. Hill's penny-postage scheme, they were,

of course, required to express an opinion as to the desirability or

otherwise of prepayment by means of stamps. A favourable opinion was

given on the subject, so that when the Government brought in and carried

the Penny-Postage Act, a clause for their use formed a component part of

it.

Though it was agreed on all hands that stamps, or stamped paper of some

sort, should come into use with the advent of cheap postage, it was by

no means easy to hit upon a definite plan, or, when a number of plans

were submitted, to decide upon the particular one to be adopted. Stamped

_paper_, representing different charges, was first suggested. Folded in

a particular way, a simple revenue-stamp would then be exposed to view,

and frank the letter. Another suggestion was that a stamped _wafer_, as

it was called, should be used, and, placed on the back of a letter, seal

and frank it at the same time. The idea of stamped _envelopes_, however,

was at first by far the most popular, and it was decided that they

should be the prepaying medium. Plans and suggestions for the carrying

out of this arrangement being required at once, the Lords of the

Treasury issued a somewhat pompous proclamation, dated August 23d, 1839,

inviting "all artists, men of science, and the public in general," to

offer proposals "as to the manner in which the stamp may best be brought

into use." So important was the subject considered, that Lord

Palmerston, the then Foreign Secretary, was directed to apprise foreign

Governments of the matter, and invite suggestions from any part of the

civilized world. Three months were allowed for plans, and two prizes of

200_l._ and 100_l._ were offered for proposals on the subject, "which my

Lords may think most deserving of attention." The palm was carried off

by the late Mr. Mulready, Royal Academician, who designed the envelopes

now known by his name. These envelopes, which allegorically celebrated

the triumphs of the post in a host of emblematical figures, were of two

colours; the one for a penny being printed in black, and the other, for

the twopenny postage, in blue ink. They gave little satisfaction,

however, and at the end of six months were withdrawn from use. There was

little room left on the envelope for the address. They left to the

common and vulgar gaze, as Miss Martineau, we think, has pointed out,

emotions of the mind which had always best be kept in the background,

and instead "of spreading a taste for high art," which had been hoped,

they brought it into considerable ridicule.[175]

Before the postage-envelope was finally withdrawn from use, the Treasury

issued another prospectus, offering a reward of 500_l._ for the best

design and plan for a simple postage-_label_. It was made a condition

that it should be simple, handy, and easily placed on paper, and of a

design which would make forgery difficult, if not impossible. About

1,000 designs were sent in, but not one was chosen. Eventually, the ugly

black stamp, said to be the joint production of some of the officers of

the Stamp- and Post-Offices, was decided upon and brought into use. Two

years afterwards, this black stamp was changed to brown, principally

with a view to make the obliterating process more perfect, and the

better to detect the dishonesty of using old stamps. For the same

reasons, the colour was again changed in a short time to red, and so it

has remained to the present time. The twopenny stamp has been from the

first blue. Up to this date, at different intervals, six other stamps

have been issued, as the necessities of the inland or foreign postage

required them. The tenpenny stamp, of an octagonal shape and brown

colour, is now scarcely ever used, if it be not even withdrawn from

circulation. The list comprises, besides the stamps we have mentioned,

the sixpenny (lilac), the shilling (green), the fourpenny (vermilion),

the threepenny (rose), and the ninepenny (yellow). The last two were

issued only two or three years ago. The whole of the English labels bear

the impression of the head of Queen Victoria, and are all of the same

size and shape (if we except the tenpenny stamp), the sole difference

being in the colour, and in the various borderings round the Queen's

portraits. Besides these distinguishing marks, however, they all tell

the tale of their own value.[176]

Soon after the introduction of postage-stamps, stamped envelopes were

again proposed. This time the proposition was a very simple one, only

consisting of the usual kind of stamp embossed on the right-hand corner

of a common envelope; the shape to be oval, round, or octagonal,

according to the value of the envelope. For the envelopes themselves, a

peculiar kind of paper was prepared by Mr. Dickenson, and was considered

on all hands to be the best possible preventive of forgery. This paper,

which was manufactured with lines of thread or silk stretched through

its substance, has been used ever since. Russia, in adopting the stamped

envelope, guards against forgery by means of a large water-mark of a

spread eagle running over the envelope.

The English Stamp-Office affords every facility in the matter of stamped

paper and envelopes, and private individuals may indulge their tastes to

almost any extent. The officers of Inland Revenue, Somerset House, will

place an embossed stamp on any paper or envelope taken to them, equal to

the value of any of those above mentioned, or to a combination of any of

them, under the following regulations:--

1st. When the stamps required do not amount to 10_l._ worth one

shilling is charged, in addition to the postage stamps, for each

distinct size of paper.

2d. When the stamps amount to 10_l._ worth no fee is charged if one

size of paper only be sent.

3d. When the stamps amount to 20_l._ worth, no fee is charged, and

two sizes of paper are allowed; 30_l._ three sizes are allowed;

40_l._ four sizes.

4th. No _folded_ paper can be stamped; and therefore paper, whether

intended for envelopes or letters, must be sent unfolded and without

being creased.

5th. Every distinct size and form of envelope or paper must be

marked so as to indicate the plan on which the stamp is to be

impressed, in order that, when the envelope or letter is folded and

made up, the stamp may appear in the proper position according to

the rules of the Post-Office.

6th. No coloured paper can be received for stamping, nor any paper

which is too thin to bear the impression of the dies.

7th. Envelopes provided by the office, with the proper stamps

thereon, will be substituted for any which may be spoiled in the

operation of stamping.

A recent concession made by the Board of Inland Revenue may be regarded

as one of the latest novelties in the advertising world. Under the

arrangement in question, the Stamp-Office permits embossed rings with

the name of a particular firm, _e. g._ "Allsop & Co., Burton-on-Trent,"

"De la Rue & Co.," to be placed round the stamp as a border to it.

In 1844, after the _exposé_ of the letter-opening practices at the

General Post-Office, Mr. Leech gave in _Punch_ his "Anti-Graham

Envelopes," and his satirical postage envelope, afterwards engraved by

Mr. W. J. Linton, and widely circulated, represents Sir James Graham

sitting as "Britannia." About the same time there might have been seen

in the windows of booksellers of the less respectable class, a kind of

padlock envelope, exhibiting the motto, "Not to be Grahamed."

For eight long years, the English people may be said to have enjoyed a

complete monopoly in postage-stamps. Towards the close of 1848, they

were introduced into France, and subsequently into every civilized

nation in the world. Last year they even penetrated into the Ottoman

Empire, and strange as it appears, when viewed in the light of

Mohammedan usage, the Sultan has been prevailed upon to allow his

portrait to appear on the new issues of Turkish stamps.

In pursuance of a recommendation of a select committee of the House of

Commons which sat in 1852, a perforating machine was purchased from Mr.

Henry Archer, the inventor, for the sum of four thousand pounds.[177]

The same committee could not decide, they said, on the "conflicting

evidence" whether copper-plate engraving or surface printing would best

secure the stamps against forgery, but they considered that the accurate

perforation of the sheets would be a valuable preventive against

forgery, "inasmuch as it would be exceedingly difficult to counterfeit

sheets, and sheets badly done would at once excite suspicion when

offered for sale." The invention of the perforating machine is said to

have been attended with considerable labour, as, undoubtedly, it was by

skill and ingenuity. To the Post-Office and the public the patent was

sufficiently cheap. For a number of years the stamps had to be separated

from each other by knives or scissors; now one stamp may be torn from

the other with ease and safety. The process of puncturing the narrow

spaces round each stamp--an undertaking not so easy as it seems--is the

last the sheet of stamps undergoes before it is ready for sale.

With regard to the other processes, little is known out of the

Stamp-Office, beyond what may be gathered from a close inspection of the

postage-stamps themselves. For obvious reasons, it has never been

thought desirable to publish any account of the manufacture of stamps.

We may simply say that all English postage-labels are manufactured at

Somerset House, and the entire establishment, which is distinct from the

other branches of the Inland Revenue Department, is managed at the

annual expense of thirty thousand pounds.[178] Of this sum, nineteen

thousand pounds is the estimated cost for the present year, 1863-1864,

of paper for labels and envelopes, and for printing, gumming, and

folding. About five thousands pounds will be necessary to pay the

salaries of the various officers, including five hundred pounds to the

supervisor, and one hundred pounds to the superintendent of the

perforating process. Mr. Edwin Hill, a brother of Sir Rowland Hill, is

at the head of the department. A large number of boys are employed at

the machines, under the superintendence of three or four intelligent

superintendents. The paper used for the stamps is of a peculiar make,

each sheet having a water-mark of two hundred and forty crowns; the

blocks used are of first-rate quality, and only subjected to a certain

number of impressions. The blocks are inked with rollers as in

letter-press printing. Of course, the stamps are printed in sheets,

though each one is struck with the same die or punch. After the

printing, and before the sheets are perforated, they are covered on the

back with a gelatine matter to render the label adhesive.

Great precaution is taken in the printing of the stamps to provide

against forgery. All the lines and marks, as well as the initial

letters in the corner, are arranged so as to make the whole affair

inimitable. The best preservative, however, in our opinion, against a

spurious article, is the arrangement under which stamps are sold. Only

obtainable in any large quantity from the Stamp or Post-Offices, any

attempt on the part of the forger to put a base article into circulation

is encumbered with difficulties. Stamps, while they do duty for coin,

are used almost exclusively for small transactions, and generally among

people well known to each other. Other precautions are nevertheless very

necessary; and besides the initial letters on each stamp--different in

every one of the two hundred and forty in the sheet--which are

regarded as so many checks on the forger, this pest to society

would have to engrave his own die, and cast his own blocks, and find a

drilling-machine, perhaps the most difficult undertaking of all. The

paper, besides, would be a considerable obstacle, and not less so the

ink, for that used in this manufacture differs from ordinary printer's

ink, not merely in colour, but in being soluble in water.

When postage-stamps were first introduced in England, it was little

thought that they would become a medium of exchange, and far less that

they would excite such a _furore_ among stamp collectors. The same stamp

may do duty in a number of various ways before it serves its normal

purpose. It may have proceeded through the post a dozen times imbedded

within the folds of a letter, before it becomes affixed to one, and gets

its career ended by an ugly knock on the face--for its countenance once

disfigured, it has run its course. Besides their being so handy in

paying a trifling debt or going on a merciful errand, the advertising

columns of any newspaper will shew the reader many of the thousand and

one ways in which he may turn his spare postage-stamps to account. You

may suddenly fall upon a promise of an easy competence for the

insignificant acknowledgment of half-a-crown's worth of this article.

Friends to humanity assure you a prompt remittance of thirteen Queen's

heads will secure you perfect exemption from all the ills that flesh is

heir to. For the same quantity another who does the prophetic strain,

will tell you which horse will win the Derby, "as surely as if you stood

at the winning-post on the very day." "Stable Boy," promises all

subscribers of twelve stamps that if they "do not win on this event, he

will never put his name in print again." Of course all this is quackery,

or worse; still the reader need not be told how in innumerable _bonâ

fide_ cases the system of postage-stamp remittances is exceedingly handy

for both buyer and vendor, and how trade--retail at any rate--is

fostered by it. As a social arrangement, for the poorer classes

especially, we could not well over-estimate its usefulness. Again we see

a good result of the penny-post scheme. Since 1840, not only has the use

of postage-stamps in this way never been discouraged (as it was always

thought that fewer coin letters would be sent in consequence), but the

Post-Office authorities have recently made provision for taking them

from the public, when not soiled or not presented in single stamps. This

arrangement is already in force at the principal post-offices, and will

ultimately extend to all. In America, as will be familiar to most

readers, postage-stamps have formed the principal currency of small

value almost since the breaking out of the present fratricidal war. More

recently, the United States Government has issued the stamps without

gum, as it was found inconvenient to pass them frequently from hand to

hand, after they had undergone the gelatinizing process. Under an Act,

"Postage Currency, July 17th, 1862," the Federal authorities have issued

stamps printed on larger sized paper, with directions for their use

under the peculiar circumstances.

The obliteration of postage-labels in their passage through the post,

requires a passing notice. Different countries obliterate their stamps

variously and with different objects. In France they obliterate with a

hand-stamp having acute prominences in it, which, when thrown on the

stamp, not only disfigures, but perforates it with numerous dots placed

closely together. In Holland, the word "_Franco_" is imprinted in large

letters. Some countries, _e. g._ Italy, Austria, and Prussia, mark on

the label itself, the name of the despatching town, together with the

date of despatch. In England, the purpose of the defacement marks is

_primarily_ to prevent the stamp being used again. It also serves to

show--inasmuch as the obliterating stamp of every British Post-Office is

consecutively numbered--where the letter was posted, in the event of the

other dated stamp being imperfectly impressed. For this purpose the

British Postal Guide gives a list of the post-towns and the official

number of each. The mark of St. Martin's-le-Grand is a changeable figure

in a circle, according to the time of day during which the letter has

been posted and struck; for the London district offices, we have the

initials of the district, and the number of the office given in an oval.

The figures in England are surrounded by lines forming a circle; in

Scotland by three lines at the top and three at the bottom of them; in

Ireland the lines surround the figures of the particular office in a

diamond shape.

It only remains to refer for a moment to the _timbromanie_, or stamp

mania. The scenes in Birchin Lane in 1862, where crowds nightly

congregated, to the exceeding annoyance and wonderment of policeman

X--where ladies and gentlemen of all ages and all ranks, from

Cabinet-ministers to crossing-sweepers, were busy, with album or

portfolio in hand, buying, selling, or exchanging, are now known to have

been the beginnings of what may almost be termed a new trade.

Postage-stamp exchanges are now common enough; one held in Lombard

Street on Saturday afternoons is largely attended. Looking the other day

in the advertisement pages of a monthly magazine, we counted no fewer

than sixty different dealers in postage-stamps there advertising their

wares. Twelve months ago, there was no regular mart in London at which

foreign stamps might be bought; now there are a dozen regular dealers in

the metropolis, who are doing a profitable trade. About a year ago, we

witnessed the establishment of a monthly organ for the trade in the

_Stamp-collector's Magazine_; at this present moment there are no less

than _ten_ such publications in existence in the United Kingdom. England

is not the only country interested in stamp-collecting. As might be

expected, the custom originated in France, and has prevailed there for a

number of years. In the gardens of the Tuileries, and also to some

extent in those of the Luxembourg, crowds still gather, principally on

Sunday afternoons, and may be seen sitting under the trees, sometimes in

a state of great excitement, as they busily sell or exchange any of

their surplus stock for some of which they may have been in search. The

gathering of a complete set of postage-stamps, and a proper arrangement

of them, is at least a harmless and innocent amusement. On this point,

however, we prefer, in conclusion, to let Dr. Gray, of the British

Museum, speak,[179] and our readers to judge for themselves. "The use

and charm of collecting any kind of object is to educate the mind and

the eye to careful observation, accurate comparison, and just reasoning

on the differences and likenesses which they present, and to interest

the collector in the design or art shown in their creation or

manufacture, and the history of the country which produces or uses the

objects collected. The postage-stamps afford good objects for all these

branches of study, as they are sufficiently different to present broad

outlines for their classification; and yet some of the variations are so

slight, that they require minute examination and comparison to prevent

them from being overlooked. The fact of obtaining stamps from so many

countries, suggests to ask what were the circumstances that induced the

adoption, the history of the countries which issue them, and the

understanding why some countries (like France) have considered it

necessary, in so few years, to make so many changes in the form or

design of the stamp used; while other countries, like Holland, have

never made the slightest change.

"The changes referred to all mark some historical event of

importance--such as the accession of a new king, a change in the form of

government, or the absorption of some smaller state into some larger

one; a change in the currency, or some other revolution. Hence, a

collection of postage-stamps may be considered, like a collection of

coins, an epitome of the history of Europe and America for the last

quarter of a century; and at the same time, as they exhibit much

variation in design and in execution as a collection of works of art on

a small scale, showing the style of art of the countries that issue

them, while the size of the collection, and the number in which they are

arranged and kept, will show the industry, taste, and neatness of the

collector."

FOOTNOTES:

[170] Fournier.

[171] Vide _Quarterly Review_ for October, 1839.

[172] Report of Select Committee on Postage, vol. iv. p. 391.

[173] _Hand Catalogue of Postage-Stamps_, p. 6.

[174] Dr. J. E. Gray.

[175] The Mulready envelopes are regarded as great curiosities by

stamp-collectors, and as their value rose to about fifteen shillings, a

spurious imitation found its way into the market, usually to be had at

half a crown. In 1862, stamp-dealers were shocked by the Vandalism of

the Government, who caused, it is said, many thousands of these

envelopes to be destroyed at Somerset House.

[176] Our colonies issue their own stamps, with different designs. Some

of them are emblematical; the Swan River Territory using the design of a

"Swan," and the Cape of Good Hope choosing that of "Hope" reclining; but

they are gradually adopting the English plan of a simple profile of the

sovereign. The portrait of our Queen appears on two hundred and forty

varieties of stamps. Nearly all those used in the colonies, and even

some for foreign governments, are designed, engraved, printed, and

embossed in London, and many of them are much prettier than the products

of our own Stamp-Office. The principal houses for the manufacture of

colonial stamps, are Messrs. De la Rue & Co. and Perkins, Bacon, & Co.

of Fleet Street. See also Dr. Gray's Handbook, p. 8.

[177] "An Abstract of Grants for Miscellaneous Services." Sums voted in

supply from 1835 to 1863 inclusive, moved for by Sir H. Willoughby. In

the same return we find 7,000_l._ were paid for "Foudrinier's

paper-machinery"--we presume for the manufacture of Mulready's

envelopes.

[178] For further information of the staff of officers, and the expenses

of the Stamp-Office, see Appendix (G).

[179] _Hand Catalogue of Postage-Stamps_, Introduction, p. 5.

CHAPTER V.

POST-OFFICE SAVINGS' BANKS.

The idea of Savings' Banks for the industrial classes was first started

at the commencement of the present century. They are said to owe their

origin to the Rev. Joseph Smith, of Wendover, who in 1799, circulated

proposals among his poorer parishioners to receive any of their spare

sums during the summer, and return the amounts at the Christmas

following. To the original sum, Mr. Smith proposed to add one-third of

the whole amount, as a reward for the forethought of the depositor. This

rate of interest, ruinous to the projector, proves that the transactions

must have been of small extent, and charity, a large element in the

work. The first savings' bank really answering to the name was

established at Tottenham, Middlesex, in 1804, by some benevolent people

in the place, and called the Charitable Bank. Five per cent. interest

was allowed to depositors, though for many years this rate was a great

drain on the benevolence of the founders. In 1817, these banks had

increased in England and Wales to the number of seventy-four. During

that year Acts of Parliament were passed offering every encouragement to

such institutions, and making arrangements to take all moneys deposited,

and place them in the public funds. From 1804 to 1861, the savings'

banks of the United Kingdom increased to 638.

A reference to the various deficiencies of the old banks for

savings, and the steps which led to the formation of those now under

consideration, will not be out of place here. We have said that, in the

early part of this century, successive governments offered every

inducement and facility to the savings' bank scheme. Such encouragement

was indispensable to their success. When first started, Government

granted interest to the trustees at the rate of 4½_l._ per cent. This

rate, reduced to 4_l._ as the banks became more established, now stands

at 3_l._ 5_s._ per cent. Of this sum depositors receive 3_l._ per cent.;

the difference paying the expenses of management. The encouragement

which the Legislature has given to the savings' banks of the country

since their commencement, has entailed a loss of about four and a half

millions sterling on the public exchequer. From 1817 to 1841, a loss of

nearly two millions sterling had been incurred by reason of the rate of

interest which was allowed by Government, being greater than that

yielded by the securities in which the deposits had been invested.

Savings' banks have suffered most severely from frauds in the

management, and the feeling of insecurity which these frauds have

engendered from time to time has gone far to mar their usefulness.

Government is only responsible to the trustees for the amounts actually

placed in its hands. The law, previous to 1844, gave the depositor a

remedy against the trustees in case of wilful neglect or default. In

1844, the Legislature thought right to make a most important change in

the law, by which trustees of savings' banks were released from all

liability, except _where it was voluntarily assumed_. It remains a most

significant fact, that all the great frauds with this class of banks

have occurred since that date. We have, indeed, to thank only the

influential gentlemen, who, as a rule, take upon themselves the

management of savings' banks, that such cases have been so rare as they

have.[180] The known frauds in savings' banks are calculated to have

swallowed up a quarter of a million of hard-earned money. The fraud in

the Cuffe Street bank, in Dublin, amounted to 56,000_l._; the Tralee

bank stopped payment in 1848 with liabilities to depositors to the

extent of 36,768_l._, and only 1,660_l._ of available assets; in the

same year, the Killarney savings' bank stopped with liabilities of

36,000_l._, and assets of only half that amount. About the same time,

the Rochdale bank frauds became known, and losses to the extent of

40,000_l._ were the result.

There can be no doubt that the state of the law is still most anomalous,

and that the great majority of the people of this country are under the

impression that there is Government security for each deposit in every

savings' bank. Year by year, changes have been proposed in the

Legislature for giving more security to depositors, but the body of

managers have hitherto been successful in their opposition. Whilst

legislation is thus deferred, the risks to the provident poor still

continue. In the report of a Government Commission appointed during one

of these annual discussions "on the savings of the middle and working

classes," several well-known authorities in such matters, such as Mr. J.

Stuart Mill, and Mr. Bellenden Kerr, expressed decided opinions of the

insecurity of savings'-bank deposits. Mr. J. Malcom Ludlow spoke to the

feeling of the working-classes themselves: "I should say the _great_

reason why the working-classes turn away from savings' banks, is the

feeling of insecurity so largely prevailing amongst them."

Mr. J. S. Mill, when asked for any suggestion on the subject, said: "I

think it would be very useful to provide some scheme to make the nation

responsible for all amounts deposited. Certainly the general opinion

among the depositors is, that the nation is responsible; they are not

aware that they have only the responsibility of the trustees to rely

upon."

Some change, or some new system, had long been regarded as absolutely

necessary. In 1861, the number of savings' banks on the old plan was

638; yet out of this number there were no less than fourteen counties in

the United Kingdom without a bank at all. Even in England, when the test

was applied to _towns_, all, for instance, of a size containing upwards

of 10,000 inhabitants, it was found that there were at least twenty-four

without savings'-bank accommodation of any sort. Nor was this all. Even

where savings' banks already existed, 355 were open only once a-week,

and that for a few hours; some twice a-week; but very few--only twenty,

in fact--were open for a few hours every day. When, added to all this

want of accommodation and absence of facility, we remember the

unsatisfactory state of the law concerning them, there can be no wonder

that public attention was called to the subject from time to time. So

early as 1807, Mr. Whitbread introduced a Bill into Parliament to make

the money-order office at the post-office available for collecting sums

from all parts of the country, and transmitting them to a central bank

which should be established in London. At that time, the money-order

department of the Post-Office had not arrived at the state of efficiency

to which it subsequently attained, and the Bill was withdrawn.

Other proposals shared the same fate, till, in 1860, Mr. Sykes of

Huddersfield, engaged in the savings' bank of that town, addressed Mr.

Gladstone on the deficiencies of the existing system. Through his

practical acquaintance with the old plan of working, he was able to

demonstrate that increased facilities for depositing at any time, and

almost at any place, were great desiderata amongst the poorer classes.

The same facilities were necessary for withdrawing deposits. Mr. Sykes

proposed that a bank for savings should be opened at every money-order

office in the kingdom; that each postmaster should be authorized to

receive deposits; and that all the offices should have immediate

connexion with a central bank in London. The general principle of this

scheme was at once seen to be useful and practicable, though, again, the

_mode_ of working was evidently unsatisfactory. Mr. Sykes, for

instance, proposed that all payments and withdrawals should be severally

effected by means of money-orders to be drawn for each separate

undertaking. Any one at all acquainted with the machinery of the

money-order office was aware that this would of necessity be a slow and

complex, as well as expensive plan. Mr. Sykes's idea was, that no

deposit should be less in amount than twenty shillings. This

arrangement, again, would have gone far to negative the merits of the

whole plan, and especially to interfere with its usefulness amongst the

classes which the measure was really intended to benefit. For a few

months this scheme, like those preceding it, exhibited signs of

suspended animation, when it was referred to the practical officers of

the revenue department of the Post-Office, and by them resolved into the

simple and comprehensive measure which the Chancellor of the Exchequer

proposed in 1861, and which was the crowning effort of the legislative

session of that year.

This Bill, entitled "An Act to grant additional facilities for

depositing small savings at interest, with the security of Government

for the due repayment thereof," became law on the 17th of May, 1861.

The first savings' banks in connexion with the post-offices of the

country were established on the 16th of September, 1861. A limited

number was first organized, and in places where no accommodation of the

kind had ever been afforded. The extension of the scheme to Ireland and

Scotland was effected on the 3d and 17th of February respectively.

Nearly all the 2,879 money-order offices of the United Kingdom are now

post-office savings' banks. These banks are in regular working order,

2,000, in round numbers, existing in England and Wales, 450 in Ireland,

and 400 in Scotland. Many of our largest towns have several banks. Thus,

at the present time, January, 1864, we find five banks in Edinburgh,

five in Glasgow, twelve in Dublin, ten in Liverpool, sixteen in

Manchester, ten in Birmingham, and seven in Bristol. Only seventy of

the entire number of new banks have failed to obtain depositors--a fact

which sufficiently proves that the advantages offered by the Post-Office

establishment are understood and appreciated throughout the kingdom. Up

to the end of 1863, the total number of depositors in new banks had been

367,000, of which number no fewer than 307,000 then held accounts. At

present (March, 1864), the weekly deposits amount, in the aggregate, to

40,000_l._, while the withdrawals are no more than one-third of that

sum. The total amount intrusted to the post-office banks since their

first opening has been 4,702,000_l._, of which sum no less than

3,263,000_l._ remain to the credit of depositors. The most gratifying

fact in connexion with the new banks is, that they show a much larger

proportion of small depositors than the old savings' banks have been

able to attract, the average amount of a deposit being 3_l._ 1_s._ 9_d._

in the new, against 4_l._ 6_s._ 5_d._ in the old class of banks.

Between fifty and sixty old savings' banks, including the Birmingham

Bank, closed their accounts during the last year (1863), great part of

the business of each being transferred to the new banks. A sum amounting

to over 500,000_l._ has already been transferred from these banks to the

Post-Office by means of transfer certificates; whilst additional sums,

the amount of which cannot be correctly ascertained, have been withdrawn

from the old and paid into the post-office banks in cash.

With a view to facilitate the proceedings of the trustees of banks which

have been or may hereafter be closed, an Act of Parliament was passed in

the last session which will doubtless have the effect of winding up the

affairs of many of the smaller banks under the old plan, and increasing

the work of those on the new.

The _modus operandi_ of this scheme is as simple as it is satisfactory.

On making the first deposit, under the new arrangements, an account-book

is presented to the depositor, in which is entered his name, address,

and occupation. All the necessary printed regulations are given in this

book. The amount of each deposit is inserted by the postmaster, and an

impression of the dated stamp of the post-office is placed opposite the

entry, thus making each transaction strictly official. At the

close of each day's business, the postmaster must furnish to the

Postmaster-General in London a full account of all the deposits that

have been made in his office. By return of post an acknowledgment will

be received by each depositor in the shape of a separate letter from the

head office, the Postmaster-General thus becoming responsible for the

amount. If such a letter does not arrive within ten days from the date

of the deposit an inquiry is instituted, and the error rectified. An

arrangement like the foregoing shows the boundless resources which the

Government possesses in its Post-Office. The acknowledgment of every

separate transaction in each of the money-order offices of the three

kingdoms, which in any private undertaking would be an herculean labour,

involving an enormous outlay in postage alone, is here accomplished with

marvellous ease, and the whole mass of extra communications make but an

imperceptible ripple on the stream of the nation's letters flowing

nightly from St. Martin's-le-Grand.

When a depositor wishes to withdraw any of his money, he has only to

apply to the nearest post-office for the necessary printed form, and to

fill it up, stating his name and address, where his money is deposited,

the amount he wishes to withdraw, and the place where he wishes it paid,

and by return of post he will receive a warrant, in which the postmaster

named is authorized to pay the amount applied for. In this respect

post-office savings' banks offer peculiar advantages. A depositor, for

instance, visiting the metropolis, and having--as he may easily do in

London--run short of ready money, may, with a little timely notice to

the authorities in London, draw out, in any of the hundred new banks in

the metropolis, from his amount at home sufficient for his needs.

Another person, leaving one town for another, may, without any expense,

and no more trouble than a simple notice, have his account transferred

to his future home, and continue it there under precisely similar

circumstances as those to which he has been accustomed. Last year this

power was largely used, there being no fewer than 20,872 deposits and

15,842 withdrawals made under these circumstances, _e. g._ at places

where the depositor is temporarily residing.[181] The facilities offered

by the Post-Office in this way are unique; no other banks can offer

them; and such is the admirable system adopted by the Post-Office, that

complicated accounts of this nature are reduced to a matter of the

simplest routine. At the end of each month the accounts of the two

offices concerned in transactions of this kind are reconciled by the

addition or deduction of the amounts in question, which arrangement, so

far from being an irksome one, enables the Department to obtain a very

valuable check upon its gross transactions. Under the old system, a

depositor could only effect a transfer of his account from Manchester to

Liverpool by withdrawing it from the one, under the usual long notice,

and taking it to the other. This course was not only troublesome to the

parties concerned, but the depositor ran the risk of losing his money,

or, perhaps, of spending the whole or part of it. Under the Post-Office

system, however, the transfer may be effected in a day or two, without

the depositor even seeing the money, and without the smallest risk of

loss. Suppose a depositor wishes to transfer his account from a bank

under the old plan to one under the new, or _vice versâ_, the matter is

one of equally simple arrangement. He has only to apply to the old

savings' bank for a certificate to enable him to transfer his deposits

in that bank to that belonging to the Post-Office, and when he obtains

such certificate he may present it to any postmaster who transacts

savings'-bank business. The postmaster receives it as if it were so much

money, and issues a depositors' book, treating the case as if the amount

had been handed over to him. A few days longer are required before an

acknowledgment can be sent from London; but this is all the difference

between the case and that of an ordinary savings'-bank deposit[182]

In the order of advantages which post-office savings' banks offer the

depositor, we would rank next to their unquestionable security their

peculiar convenience for deposit and withdrawal. Twelve months ago, a

person might be the length of an English county distant from a bank for

savings. Under the present arrangement, few persons will be a dozen

miles distant from a money-order office, whilst nine-tenths of the

entire community will find the necessary accommodation at their very

doors. As new centres of population are formed, or as hamlets rise into

flourishing villages, and the want of an office for money-orders becomes

felt, the requirement will continue to be met, with the addition in

each case of a companion savings' bank. Again, the expenses of

management--amounting to a shilling in the old banks for each

transaction, against something like half that amount in the new--will

not allow of the ordinary banks being opened but at a few stated periods

during the week. The post-office savings' bank, attached as it is to the

post-office money-order office, is open to the public full eight hours

of every working day.

Sums not below one shilling, and amounts not exceeding thirty pounds in

any one year, may be deposited in these banks; depositors will not be

put to any expense for books, postage, &c. and the rate of interest to

be allowed will be 2½ per cent.--a sum which, though not large, is all

which it is found the Government can pay without loss. It is not thought

that this low rate of interest will deter the classes most sought after

from investing in these banks. The poorer classes, as a rule, regard the

question of a safe investment as a more important one than that of

profits, and wisely think far more of their earnings being safe than of

their receiving great returns for them.

This scheme, last and best of all, must help to foster independent

habits among the working population. Their dealings with the post-office

banks are pure matters of business, and no obligation of any sort is

either given or received. The existing banks, on the other hand, partake

largely of the nature of a charity. An objection frequently urged

against savings' banks with much bitterness is, that many great

employers of labour are on the directorate of such institutions, and

that, consequently, they are able to exercise an oversight over their

characters and savings, not always used for the best of purposes. In the

Committee of Inquiry to which we have already alluded, cases--designated

"rare," we are glad to add--were adduced, from which it appeared that

provident workmen's wages had been reduced by their employers, upon the

ground of their being already well enough off. No such considerations,

however, can affect the new banks: postmasters are forbidden to divulge

the names of any depositor, or any of the amounts which he or she may

have placed in their hands.[183] The advantages of these banks are so

obvious, and the arrangements under which they are worked are of such a

simple nature, that they cannot help but be increasingly useful and

successful. Moreover, they are so accessible, that the working man,

especially, requires nothing but the _will_ to do that which his

everyday experience tells him is so necessary should be done for the

comfort of his family and home.

FOOTNOTES:

[180] The case of a fraud of this kind was mentioned by Lord Monteagle

when the Post-Office Savings'-Bank Bill was before the Lords. In a

Hertfordshire Savings' Bank, a deficiency of 10,000_l._ was discovered,

and the entire amount was subscribed by nine of the trustees, who were

noblemen and gentlemen in the neighbourhood.

[181] One of the first deposits which was made on the first day of

opening in the banks started on the new system was withdrawn the next

week in another town at some distance. The depositor was a person

travelling with a wild beast menagerie.--_Mr. Gladstone's Speech at

Mold_, January 5, 1864.

[182] Of course in this case inquiry would have to be made of the old

bank and the National Debt Office. Ordinarily, the receipt of letters on

savings'-bank business received in London, involving inquiry, is

promptly acknowledged, the writers being told that the delay of a few

days may occur before a reply can be sent. At the General Savings'-Bank

Office in London, the transactions of each day are disposed of within

that day; the monthly adjustment of accounts being also prompt. Warrants

for withdrawals are issued in reply to every correct notice received up

to eleven o'clock each morning, and these warrants are despatched by the

same day's post to the depositors who have applied for them. Every

letter received up to eleven o'clock A.M. is answered the same day, or

at the latest the next day, if no inquiry involving delay is necessary.

The arrangements for the examination of savings'-bank books every year

are also very admirable. A few days before the anniversary of the first

deposit, an official envelope is sent down from London to every

depositor, in which he or she are asked to enclose their book so that it

may arrive at the chief office at such a date. It makes its appearance

again in the course of two or three days with the entries all checked,

and the interest stated and allowed. See Appendix (B). Also an

interesting paper by Mr. Frank I. Scudamore, the newly-appointed

Assistant Secretary of the Post Office, read before the _Congrès

International de Bienfaisance_, June 11, 1862.

[183] We have seen complaints made from the public press that in the

Post-Office there is only a pretension to secrecy in this matter, while

the arrangements which make the savings-bank operations so closely

connected with money-order business, conducted by the same clerk at the

same desk, is anything but conducive to desirable privacy. There is much

truth in the latter remark; and if, when the system is perfected and its

work properly gauged, there be no change, the new banks may very

possibly suffer on this account.

CHAPTER VI.

BEING MISCELLANEOUS AND SUGGESTIVE.

1. Every person or firm engaged in extensive correspondence should

purchase the "British Postal Guide," at least once a-year. It is

published quarterly, and may be had at any post-office for a shilling.

2. Those engaged in frequent correspondence with our colonies or with

foreign countries should, in addition, subscribe for the "Postal

Official Circular," published weekly for a penny, which gives the latest

information on all points regarding the incoming and outgoing of all

foreign and colonial mails.

3. Since the division of the metropolis into postal districts, those

requiring frequent communication with different parts of London will

find of great service a penny book which contains a list of all the

streets, &c. in London and its environs, as divided into the ten

districts, and giving the initials in each case. This book may be

purchased at any post-office. It is said that delay is sometimes avoided

by adding the initials of the London districts to letters forwarded from

the provinces.

4. As a rule, with few exceptions indeed, letters are forwarded

according to their address. It is of paramount importance, therefore,

that the addresses of letters should not only be legible, but the proper

and the complete address. Perhaps the following suggestions on this head

may be found useful, viz.:--

(_a_) Never to post a letter without addressing it either a post

town or a county. If the information cannot otherwise be obtained,

the "British Postal Guide" contains a list of all post-offices in

the United Kingdom, and gives post town to which they are

subordinate.

(_b_) Letters for small towns or villages ought not to addressed to

the nearest large town, merely because it the _nearest_; although,

as a rule, the town in question will be the correct post town, there

are many exceptions, which can only be known by reference to the

"Guide" provided, or by inquiry.

(_c_) If the town be not well known, or if there be two towns of the

same name in the country, the _county_ ought to be added. (All the

cities and county towns are well known.) Thus, letters addressed to

Newport should always give the county, inasmuch as there are several

towns and villages of that name in England. Again, letters for

Newcastle should either have the county added, or the usual

designation thus: Newcastle-on-Tyne, Newcastle-under-Lyme, or

Newcastle Emlyn.

(_d_) Letters posted in England for Scotland or Ireland, _vice

versâ_ (except in the case of the great towns of the three

countries), should have the name of the country to which they are

sent given as part of the address. N. B. (North Britain) for

Scotland, and S. B. (South Britain) for England, would generally be

thought sufficient for letters circulating between the two

countries.

(_e_) Foreign letters should invariably have the name of the country

given (in English if possible). It ought also to be given in full.

Letters addressed "London, C. W." and intended for London in Western

Canada, have not unfrequently been sent to the West Central District

in London, and so delayed. Letters addressed to "Hamilton, C. W."

have also been mis-sent to Hamilton in Scotland, the initials having

been overlooked.

(_f_) The street, &c. should be given on all addresses. Well known

persons and firms get their letters, &c. regularly, although this

rule may not be adhered to; but the omission frequently leads to

delays in the _general_ distribution, and sometimes to serious

mistakes. In large towns where many names of firms approximate in

appearance somewhat to each other, the addresses of letters cannot

be too fully given. With London letters, this rule should be

strictly adhered to.

(_g_) The number of the house, and the correct one, should be

carefully added.[184] When information of this sort is kept back,

hesitation and delay frequently occur in delivery; though, perhaps,

few letters eventually fail to reach their destination on this

account.

5. Every letter should be examined with care before it is dropped in a

letter-box, in order to see that it has been securely sealed. Thousands

of letters are posted yearly without any precaution of the kind having

been taken with them, the Post-Office authorities having to secure them

as a consequence.[185] Not only so, but twelve thousand letters are

yearly posted without any address at all.

6. Good adhesive envelopes, not too highly glazed, of the ordinary size,

are sufficient security for letters,[186] if the adhesive matter has

been but _slightly_ wetted. If, for additional security, it be thought

advisable also to seal a letter with wax, it should be placed outside

the envelope. Very frequently, the wax is found to have been placed on

the adhesive matter inside the envelope, thus rendering both

ineffective.

7. Letters intended for warm climates should not be sealed with wax at

all, inasmuch as there is great danger of the wax melting and injuring

the letter, as well as the other contents of the mail-bag.

8. Care should be used in securing newspapers and large packets.[187]

Newspapers, when not sent at first from the newspaper offices, should be

addressed on the paper itself and tied with string, as great risk is run

in the matter of covers becoming detached from the newspapers

themselves. Book packets, in addition to being enclosed in covers,

sealed with wax, gum, or other adhesive matter (but open at the ends or

sides), may be tied round the ends with string, as additional security.

When the latter precaution is taken, there is less chance of letters

getting within the folds of the packet, which may happen when it is not

thoroughly secured.

9. Valuable packets or books, if they cannot be well secured, should

scarcely be sent through the post. All such packets are liable to be

roughly handled, and in the mail-bags exposed to pressure and friction.

When safely deposited in the mail-bags, valuable packets are still in

danger, inasmuch as the bags in many cases are constantly being

transferred from one kind of conveyance to another, and frequently

despatched from railway trains by apparatus machinery whilst the train

is in motion.

10. Books with valuable bindings, if it is necessary that they should be

sent through the post, might be well secured in strong boards; valuable

papers or prints should be enclosed in strong paper, linen, parchment,

or other material which will not readily tear or break. Fragile articles

of value (which should by all means be registered, as special care will

then be taken of them in all respects) might best be enclosed in wooden

boxes, and then wrapped in paper.

11. It is hardly necessary now to point out that the postage-stamp

should be placed on the upper right-hand corner of the envelope, and the

address written as much towards the left hand as possible; the address

will then be removed from the stamp and the postmark of the office,

which will be impressed upon the letter before it is despatched. Delay

is caused to the Post-Office operations when the stamp is otherwise

placed; and in cases which occasionally occur, where the stamp is placed

at the _back_ of the letter, it frequently happens that it is sent away

charged with the unpaid postage.

12. The penny receipt-stamp will not, under any circumstances, serve the

purpose of the penny postage-stamp, though many people would seem to

think differently; all letters bearing a receipt-stamp are, of course,

charged as if unpaid. The two kinds of stamp might easily be

assimilated, and there are rumours that this may soon be done; but they

have their distinct duties at present, and the one cannot take the place

of the other.

13. The Post-Office stamped envelopes (which may be obtained singly, in

part packets, or entire packets, of two or three sizes, and embossed

with either penny or twopenny stamps) are in every way the most secure;

and if the paper were of better quality, would be quite as economical,

as if the ordinary envelope and the ordinary stamp were used. All risk

of the stamps becoming detached is, of course, avoided by the use of

stamped envelopes.

14. In place of affixing penny postage-stamps according to the weight of

a letter, however heavy it may be, application might be made for

twopenny, fourpenny, sixpenny, or shilling labels, as the case may be.

15. In affixing stamps, care should be had lest by excess of moisture

all the gum be washed off.[188] The practice of dipping the stamp in

water is objectionable, except some absorbent be used immediately to

remove any unnecessary moisture. It will be found to be a good plan to

wet slightly the gummed side of the stamp, and also the right-hand

corner of the envelope, and then to keep the finger gently on the stamp

until it is firmly fixed. Highly glazed envelopes should be avoided.

16. Letters about which any doubt exists should be carefully weighed

before posting. If the Post-Office weight be exceeded to the smallest

extent, even to the turning of the scale, a letter becomes liable to,

and is charged higher postage--viz. the difference in double or unpaid

postage. So trained has the post-office clerk become of late years by a

recent system of surcharges, that few letters can now pass with an

insufficient number of stamps affixed. To provide against errors in

scales, &c. it would be well in all cases to allow a little margin, or

ask that the letter be weighed in the post-office scales.

In the case of newspapers and book-packets, the same remarks, as well as

the same arrangements, apply. It should be particularly remembered that

a newspaper when posted, say wet from the printing-office, will often

weigh more than it does on delivery; hence surcharges for which the

receiver sometimes cannot account.

17. In posting letters, care should be taken to see that they fall into

the box, and do not stick in the passage. The pillar-boxes of our towns,

whatever may be said to the contrary, are completely safe as a

rule, though the same care should be exercised in depositing the

letters.[189]

18. The earlier a letter is posted the better in all cases: towards the

time for the closing of the letter-box, great haste is indispensably

necessary in the manipulations which a town's correspondence must

undergo, whilst earlier on it gets carefully disposed of in proper box

and bag. When letters or newspapers are posted in great numbers, as in

the case of circulars, they should be posted as early as practicable,

and should be tied up in bundles with the addresses all in one

direction, or they may be delayed in the press of work.[190]

19. Every letter of consequence put into the post should contain the

name of the sender and also his address, in order that, if it cannot be

delivered as addressed, it may be promptly returned to the writer.

20. All business letters, at any rate, might have the sender's name and

address embossed on the back of the envelope. On failure to deliver such

letters, they would then be returned to the writers without being

opened. Care should be taken, however, not to use envelopes with another

person's name embossed in this way, as the letter will be forwarded back

to the address thus given, though it should not happen to be the

sender's own.

21. Coin is prohibited to be sent in ordinary letters passing between

one part of the United Kingdom and another.[191] If a letter be posted

containing coin, it will be registered and charged a double registration

fee. Coins or any other articles of value, if properly secured, will be

certain of careful treatment under the registration system.[192]

22. Letters meant to be registered must never be dropped into the

letter-box as in the case of ordinary letters, but should be given to

the clerk in charge of the post-office counter or window to be dealt

with, who will in each case give his receipt for it. The receipt is the

sender's evidence that it has been posted in proper course.

23. Letters containing sharp instruments, liquids, &c. or any other

articles which would be likely of themselves, or if they should escape,

to do injury to the other contents of the mail-bag, should never be

posted. Postmasters have instructions not to forward such letters

according to their address, but, when observed, to send them to the

Dead-Letter Office, from which place they will be returned to the

writers. Valuable letters of this forbidden kind, therefore, run great

risks of delay, while the articles are liable to be destroyed in their

passage through the post.[193]

24. Though the transmission of coin in letters is now absolutely

forbidden, except under the registration scheme, arrangements are made

for rendering it easy to send small sums by post in postage-stamps. When

presented at any of the numerous money-order offices in the United

Kingdom, they may be exchanged for money, at a charge of 2½ per cent.

Any person wishful to send through the post a sum of money under five or

six shillings will find it cheaper to buy stamps and enclose them, in

place of a post-office order. One penny will be charged for buying

forty stamps, a halfpenny for twenty stamps. 60,000_l._ worth of

postage-stamps were bought from the public during the year 1862.

25. In sending postage-stamps in letters, care should be taken to use

_thick_ envelopes, so that enclosures of this kind may neither be seen

nor felt. It is easy to feel a quantity of postage-stamps in a letter

sent in a thin and crisp envelope, and some official becoming aware of

this may not be able to resist the temptation to appropriate them.

26. No enclosures whatever should be sent in newspapers impressed with

the regular newspaper-stamp. Even an old address of such a newspaper

should be carefully cut out. It is not enough that it be obliterated

with the pen, as the rules forbid writing of any kind in addition to the

mere address.[194]

With newspapers stamped by the ordinary postage-label the arrangements

are quite different. Any printed paper or manuscript may be folded up

with the newspaper on which an ordinary penny-stamp is placed, provided

the total amount of the package does not exceed four ounces. The old

address (supposing the newspaper has circulated through the post before)

may be left on or not at the discretion of the sender, as this does not

interfere with the regulation that nothing in the packet shall be of the

nature of a letter. On the other hand, any sentence or message written

in ink or pencil on any part of the paper makes the packet liable to the

unpaid letter-rate of postage.

27. When any letter, book-packet, or newspaper is lost, miscarried, or

delayed, inquiry should be made as soon as evidence has been obtained

that the article in question was really posted. The postmaster of the

town should be informed by the complainant of every particular relating

to the missing letter, &c. the day and hour of its posting, the office

at which and the person by whom this was done. In cases of delay or

mis-sending, the covers ought to be produced in order that the office

stamps on them may indicate the exact place where the delay has been

occasioned. Correspondence on the subject of the complaints will

subsequently be carried on between the applicant and the Secretary's

department in England, Scotland, or Ireland, as the case may be.

28. When any one has reason to believe that he has paid extra postage on

a letter or packet improperly, or has been charged more than the case

would warrant, he should apply to his postmaster, who will bring the

case before the notice of the Secretary, when, if any mistake has been

made, the money will be refunded by order. Postmasters cannot return

postage paid improperly until instructed to do so from the chief

offices.

29. When an unpaid letter is presented to a person who has not the means

at disposal of paying the demand upon it (some foreign or colonial

letter may be taxed heavily), it will be kept at the post-office a

month, _if a request be made to that effect_, in order that efforts may

be made to obtain the necessary money to release it.

30. Postmasters and their clerks are forbidden to be parties to the

deceptions which used to be practised, and which are now sometimes

attempted, as to the place of posting of a letter. If any communication

should be forwarded, under cover, to the postmaster of a provincial

town, with a request that it may be posted at his office, it will be

sent to the Returned-Letter Branch in London, and from thence to the

writer.

31. Advertisements are occasionally seen, and applications frequently

made, for defaced postage-stamps. It is stated, in some cases, that a

given number will gain certain individuals admission to different

charitable institutions. Whatever may be the purpose for which the old

stamps are required, the Post-Office authorities have found, by inquiry,

that the ostensible reason here given has uniformly been false. It is

sometimes feared that attempts are made to clean and re-issue them,

though this can be attended with but partial success. It is much more

probable that they are sought to indulge some whim, such as papering

boxes or even rooms.

32. With reference to money-orders, the public should be careful--

(_a_) Always to give particulars of any order required _in writing_.

When a number of orders are required, to write out a full list of

them. Forms for single orders may be had gratuitously at all

money-order offices. These forms, or other written papers, are

invariably kept on files for a given time, so that reference may

easily be made to them in the event of any mistake. Mistakes may, of

course, be made either by the applicant or the clerk on duty. If, on

production of the paper, the error is seen to have been the

sender's, he must pay (generally a second commission) for the

necessary alterations: if, however, it be proved to be caused by the

clerk issuing the order, the Post-Office calls upon the latter to

bear the expense himself.

(_b_) Never to present an order for payment on the day on which it

is issued, nor, on the other hand, to allow two months to elapse

before calling for payment.[195]

(_c_) When sending an order, either to send it to its destination

singly, or in a letter signed only by initials. Money-orders passing

between friends need not be accompanied with information such as is

sometimes required in business transactions.

FOOTNOTES:

[184] The irregularities and eccentricities in the numbering of streets

and houses is a great difficulty. On one occasion a London inspector of

letter-carriers, going round the districts, noticed a brass-plate with

the number 95 between two houses numbered respectively 15 and 16. He

made inquiry, when the old lady who tenanted the house said that the

number had belonged to a former residence, and, thinking it a pity that

it should be thrown away, she had transferred it to her new home,

supposing that it would do as well as any other number!

[185] About two hundred letters pass through the General Post-Office

every day unsealed.

[186] It is calculated that 91 per cent. of the letters circulating

through the United Kingdom are enclosed in envelopes; the number of

those sent abroad in envelopes is somewhat smaller, or about 65 per

cent.

[187] The number of newspapers delivered in 1862 amounted to nearly

73,000,000, a considerable increase on the previous year. The number of

book-packets exceeded 14,000,000, being an increase on the previous year

of about 1,700,000, or nearly 14 per cent. Upwards of 400,000

newspapers, or about one in two hundred, were undelivered in the same

year, about half of which failures arose from improper or incorrect

addresses, while the remainder were owing to the newspapers becoming

detached from their covers in transit through the post.

[188] It is calculated that every year nearly fifty thousand

postage-stamps rub off letters and newspapers in their passage through

the Post-Office. At one time the quality of the adhesive matter was

called in question, loud complaint, even ridicule, settling on the

theme. Now, however, that the gum is better the number of stamps which

"will not stick" is scarcely perceptibly smaller.

[189] Only one instance is on record of any violent and wilful attempt

to damage a pillar letter-box. This is the more wonderful as the

temptation to lift the lid and contribute articles not contemplated by

our postage-system must naturally be strong in the eyes of our City

Arabs. A singular accident befell one of these letter-boxes (1862) in

Montrose. A quantity of gas from the street pipes seems to have got into

the box, and a night-watchman to have ignited it by striking a match on

the top in order to light his pipe. The top was blown off and the

pillar-box hopelessly damaged, although the watchman and the letters

escaped without injury.

[190] The following announcement from the postmaster of Manchester, as

given in a bill dated 1721, contrasts strangely with the latitude

allowed now. "The post goes out to London," says he, "on Monday,

Wednesday, and Saturday, at nine o'clock in the morning. It will be best

to bring the letters the _night before the going out of the post_,

because the accounts and baggs are usually made up _over-night_." In

these days, when we may post up to within five minutes of the despatch

of a mail, and letters for America may be posted within ten minutes of

the sailing of the packet, we cannot be too thankful for our privileges.

[191] This arrangement does not apply to foreign letters coming to or

going out of this country.

[192] The number of registered letters last year was over two millions,

or one registered letter to about three hundred ordinary letters.

[193] Most of our readers will have heard or read stories of curious

articles passing through the post, and without doubt the records of the

Returned-Letter Branch of the London Office will present strange

appearances in this respect. Sir Francis B. Head, who was permitted to

peruse an extraordinary ledger in the General Post-Office where several

notable letters and packets were registered, has strung together a

catalogue of them, which reminds us of the articles passing through the

post before the revocation of the franking privilege. He tells us he

found amongst the number--two canaries; a pork-pie from Devonport to

London; a pair of piebald mice, which were kept at the office a month,

and duly fed till they were called for by the owner; two rabbits;

plum-pudding; leeches in bladders, "several of which having burst, many

of the poor creatures were found crawling over the correspondence of the

country." Further, there was a bottle of cream from Devonshire; a pottle

of strawberries; a sample bottle of cider; half a pound of soft soap

wrapped in thin paper; a roast duck; a pistol, _loaded almost to the

mouth with slugs and ball_; a live snake; a paper of fish-hooks; fish

innumerable; and last of all, and most extraordinary of all, a human

heart and stomach.--_Head's Essays._

[194] The annual return just published (February, 1864) shows to some

extent how far the public prefers the stamped newspaper, which can be

sent through the Post-Office, in fact, until it is fifteen days old. The

number of stamps issued to the principal London newspapers from June,

1862, to June, 1863, are as follows:--

_Times_, 2,782,206; _Express_, 261,038; _Morning Post_, 260,000; _Daily

News_, 124,888; _Morning Herald_, 103,256; _Globe_, 140,000; _Shipping

Gazette_, 261,000; _Evening Standard_, 80,020; _Evening Star_, 75,000;

_Evening Mail_ (thrice a week), took 345,000; _St. James's Chronicle_,

89,000; _Record_, 423,500; _The Guardian_ (weekly), 219,300; _The

Illustrated London News_, 1,136,062; _Punch_, 129,500. Eleven English

country newspapers took 100,000 each, the principal being the _Sussex

Express_, 336,000, and the _Stamford Mercury_, 334,276. Thirty country

newspapers bought more than 50,000 stamps.

[195] Many orders are never claimed at all. In Ireland twice as many

orders are allowed to "lapse" as in England or Scotland, though there

are many more orders granted in the two latter countries than in

Ireland. Perhaps the fact may be accounted for by the wretched addresses

of most Irish letters, which make it impossible to deliver many of them

and equally impossible to return them to the writers. Of ordinary

money-orders, one in 837 are unclaimed within two months; whilst as a

curious fact, instancing the pertinacity of a careless habit, it may be

stated that when these very orders have been renewed on payment of a

second commission, one in every thirty-nine are again overlooked, and

allowed to lapse, many of them, in fact, becoming entirely cancelled,

and the money forfeited.

CHAPTER VII.

CONCERNING SOME OF THE POPULAR MISCONCEPTIONS AND MISREPRESENTATIONS TO

WHICH THE POST-OFFICE IS LIABLE.

The Post-Office, from its peculiar organization and the nature of its

business, is liable to many misconceptions from which the other great

Government Departments are more or less free. In one of the reports of

the Postmaster-General, many of these misunderstandings are recounted

and answered with an evident endeavour to bring about a better feeling

between the people and the people's Post-Office. We cannot do better

than refer here to a few of the instances given, supplementing them by

more which have been suggested to us from that consideration of the

entire economy of the Post-Office, into which we have been led in

dealing with our subject.

1. Unquestionably, the Post-Office is blamed for many errors and

shortcomings which ought never to have been charged against it. On this

important point, the evidence given by each Post-Office Report is

remarkably clear, although, by the way, a writer in a recent number of a

highly respectable quarterly review regards the instances given by

successive Postmaster-Generals as so many "testimonials to character,"

reminding him--so he scurvily added--of nothing so much as "the

testimonials given by dyspeptic noblemen in favour of the Revalenta

Arabica or Holloway's Pills and Ointment."[196] Of course, much trouble

and many losses must, from time to time and at all times, have been

caused by the carelessness or dishonesty of some of many thousand

officials of the Post-Office, though the cases are far from few, and the

authorities, in which it has been shown, to the satisfaction even of the

complainant, that the fault at first attributed to the Post-Office

rested really in other quarters. Some examples are afforded. The

publisher of one of the London papers complained of the repeated loss in

the Post-Office of copies of his journal, addressed to persons abroad.

An investigation showed that the abstraction was made by the publisher's

clerk, his object apparently being to appropriate the stamps required to

defray the foreign postage. In another case, a general complaint having

arisen as to the loss of newspapers sent to the chief office in St.

Martin's-le-Grand, the investigation led to the discovery of a regular

mart held near the office, which was supplied with newspapers by the

private messengers employed to convey them to the post. Again: A man was

detected once in robbing a newsvendor's cart by volunteering, on its

arrival at the entrance of the General Post-Office, to assist the driver

in posting the newspapers. Instead of doing so, however, he walked

through the hall with those intrusted to him, and, upon his being

stopped, three quires of a weekly paper were found in his possession.

To these cases of newspapers let us add a few concerning letters, the

substance of which are adduced in subsequent reports. Thus, a letter

containing a cheque for 12_l._ and sent to a London firm, was said not

to have reached its destination; the Post-Office was blamed for not

delivering it; inspectors were set to work, and after a diligent search,

it was traced from the premises of the person to whom it was addressed

to those of a papier-maché manufacturer, where it doubtless had been

pulped into tea-trays or writing-cases. Again: A bank agent sends his

son to the post with a letter, which on his journey he opens. Spying a

figured cheque, he abstracts it, and posts the letter without it, and it

is afterwards found ornamenting his copy-book! Another bank agent sends

his youthful son to the post-office to receive for him his letters, one

of which, containing some very valuable inclosures, he leaves in his

pocket, and immediately afterwards leaves town for school, carrying with

him the precious missive--worth some 1,500_l._--where it consorts with

his marbles, Everton toffy, and cold Bologna sausage, till the vacation,

the lad all the time being in blissful unconsciousness of the stir

paterfamilias was making about it. Another person complained that

several of his letters were not forthcoming. This case was a mystery. At

length it struck one of the shrewd officials--who grow shrewd through

dint of unravelling the most curious cases--that the letter-box at the

person's door ought to be carefully examined. This was done, and the box

was found exceedingly defective. Fifteen letters were jammed between the

box and the door, where some of them had quietly reposed for the space

of nine years.[197] The secretary of a charitable institution in London

gave directions for posting a large number of "election papers," and

supposed that his directions had been duly acted upon. Shortly, however,

he received complaints of the non-receipt of many of the papers, and in

other cases of delay. He at once lodged a strong complaint at the

Post-Office; but, on examination, circumstances soon came to light which

cast suspicion on the person employed to post the notices, although this

man had been many years in the service of the society, and was supposed

to be of strict integrity. Ultimately, the man confessed that he

embezzled the postage (3_l._ 15_s._ 6_d._), and had endeavoured to

deliver the election papers himself. Once more: A short time since a

registered letter was said to have been posted at Newcastle, addressed

to a banker in Edinburgh, who, not receiving it according to his

expectation, sent a telegraphic message to learn why it had not been

forwarded. The banker supposed that the letter had been lost or

purloined in the Post-Office; but it was at last found to have been duly

delivered to the bank porter in order to post it, but he had locked it

up in his desk and forgotten it.

2. The knowledge of the following misconception may also help to save

the public and the Post-Office a great amount of trouble. "It is often

assumed," says the Postmaster-General, "that a mail-conveyance passing

by, or through a place, ought, as a matter of course, to deposit," there

and then, "the letters directed thereto; the practice being, on the

contrary, that until the mail arrives at the head post-office of the

district, the letters in question are not separated from the other

letters of the district. A slight consideration of the nature and

objects of the postal service will show that such separation cannot be

effected in any other way, unless, indeed, the mail-conveyance, even

supposing it to be but a _mail-cart_, were converted into a travelling

post-office, and furnished with clerks of unlimited local knowledge

(which is plainly impossible), or unless every town and village in the

kingdom, having any correspondence with the place in question, were to

make up a bag for that place; in which case its mail would contain

nearly as many bags as letters."

3. "It happens from time to time that, owing to the stream of postal

communications having been diverted from the old mail-road to a line of

railway, or from other causes of like nature, it becomes desirable to

reduce the post-office of a town from the condition of a _principal_

office to that of a _sub_-office. This step not unfrequently gives rise

to complaints, the inhabitants being under the impression that they will

not in future be so well served. This is a misconception. The change is

not made when it will subject the correspondence to delay; nor does it

cause any withdrawal of accommodation in respect to money-orders. It is,

in fact, only a departmental arrangement, which consists in carrying on

the sorting of the letters for the new sub-office at some intermediate

office, instead of sending the letters in direct bags."

4. "Another misconception, which occasionally causes trouble and

disappointment, consists in assuming that a discretionary power can be

intrusted to subordinate officers to remit penalties or overcharges

under special circumstances. Cases will occur in which strict observance

of a general rule may inflict more or less injustice upon individuals,

and where a dispensing power immediately at hand might furnish a remedy.

In an establishment as large and as widely spread as the Post-Office,

however, there will always be many subordinate officers, some of them

carrying on their duties beyond the easy reach of any supervising

authority, who are not fit depositaries of such a power, affecting, as

it would to a great degree, the public revenue. It therefore

becomes necessary to lay down definite and precise rules, from

which no departure can be allowed, except under sanction of the

Postmaster-General; and in the few instances in which these rules press

hardly, appeal must be made to the General Post-Office. It must be

added, that in many instances even such appeal is necessarily fruitless,

the Postmaster-General being bound to a particular course by positive

law."

5. "In regard to the expense of railway conveyance, the public naturally

supposes, that as such conveyance is cheapest for ordinary purposes, and

as the charges made for the carriage of mails are subject to

arbitration, that it must be cheapest for postal purposes also; and,

indeed, so cheap, as to warrant the free use of the railways, either as

substitutes for other conveyance, or for the multiplication of mails.

The fact, however, is very different. Except in certain instances, where

companies have entered into arrangements, securing to the Post-Office

the use of their trains on moderate, though still highly remunerative

terms, railway conveyance, with all its acknowledged advantages, has

proved much more expensive than that which it has superseded." We have

already spoken at length of railways in relation to the Post-Office, and

will not here add any further remark.

6. The English Postmaster-General is frequently supposed to have some

control over colonial post-offices, and even those of foreign countries.

Except at Gibraltar and Malta, however, he is quite powerless out of the

United Kingdom.

7. Frequent applications are made, it seems, for extra foreign and

colonial mails, yet those existing are only kept up at a ruinous loss.

Of the eight great lines of packet communication, only one pays its

expenses and yields a profit. If the letters sent abroad were charged

with the whole cost of the packets, the foreign agencies, and other

incidental expenses, not only would all the sea-postage be swallowed up,

but the mails would entail a loss of nearly four hundred thousand pounds

a year. "We want," said a leading weekly commercial paper lately,

"increased facilities for communication with our West Indian Colonies;"

yet every letter now forwarded to those colonial possessions of ours

costs one shilling over and above the postage charged! On each letter

conveyed between this country and the Cape there is a dead loss of

sixpence; to the West Coast of Africa, one shilling and sixpence.

Everybody has heard of the New Galway line of packets for America, now

suspended for the second time: every letter carried by these packets

under their first contract was charged _one_, and cost the country _six_

shillings; under the second attempt, each letter is said to have cost

even more than six shillings! With the change of system and change of

management, described briefly in speaking of the packet service, there

can be no question that this state of things will not be allowed to

continue. The principle of requiring the colonies themselves to pay a

moiety of the cost of their service is a step in the right direction,

and is, certainly, only just:[198] the colonies will not be taxed for

the mother-country, as in one memorable instance in history, nor, as at

present, will the mother-country be taxed unfairly for the colonies:

there will then be equal interest in keeping down the expenditure, and

in establishing rates of postage high enough to be remunerative.

8. The English Post-Office will compare favourably with that of any

nation in the world. In no country are post-office privileges procured

cheaper than with us. Like any other institution capable of endless

growth, and which must grow and expand with the progressive influences

of the times, it clearly is not perfect in every arrangement; but in

answer to complaints of the hard, unyielding, and stringent rules which

are said to bind the English Post-Office, it may not be out of place to

institute a few comparisons, asking that some reference should be made

to contemporary history. In England, coin was suffered for many years to

pass in ordinary letters, to the temptation and seduction of many of the

officers, and the practice grew from a thoughtless economy, in spite of

all the appeals that were made to the contrary. At present coin is not

allowed to pass through the post-office, except in registered letters:

in France it has long been, and is now, a _penal_ offence to transmit

coin in letters.[199] At the time Sir Rowland Hill was urging his

penny-postage scheme on the attention of the British Legislature,

another European State (Piedmont, 1837) had the most stringent and

severe regulations maintained in its Post-Office. The law punished any

one posting a book or a newspaper opposed to the principles of the

monarchy with from two to five years' hard labour; any one who might

receive of such newspapers or books through the post without having

delivered it into the hands of the authorities with two years'

imprisonment; a reward of one hundred crowns was offered to any one

giving information. These arbitrary and iniquitous laws are equalled and

even surpassed, in European codes of still later date--witness Russia

and, until quite recently, Austria.

9. The opinion is frequently expressed in conversation, and we have

often met with such expressions of opinion in our daily and weekly

press, to the effect that the Post-Office ought to give more

accommodation to the public in many ways, and so disburse some, if not

all, of its enormous profits. These profits are said to be absurdly

large; that fifty per cent. is ten times the interest of money lent on

decent security, and five times as much as would satisfy sanguine

private speculators. This subject of Post-Office profits is made, _de

facto_, the principal argument against what is called the Post-Office

monopoly.