CHRISTMAS AND ST. VALENTINE SEASONS.
A century ago the Christmas card was unthought of; whether it will be a
thing of the past in the year 2000 cannot be foretold. The preparations
made to meet the annually recurring pressure involve much forethought
and considerable labour, and have to be in progress for a long time
prior to Christmas. The time occupied in getting the instructions ready
for the staff and making all arrangements incidental to the season is
equivalent to more than the entire duty of a clerk for a whole year.
Nothing whatever is left to chance; for unless the arrangements are
organised in full detail, the work could not go on with the clock-like
smoothness which is necessary to ensure a successful issue. At Christmas
many people find a difficulty in deciding what to give their friends.
The difficulty in the Post Office is how to convey Christmas gifts from
friend to friend, from relative to relative, and the solution is found
in the extensive preparations alluded to. They consist of many and
various ways of affording means of rapid circulation and facilitating
the traffic. Thus arrangements are made as regards London for direct
bags to be made up at Bristol for each of the eight principal district
offices, and separate bags for the inclusion of all the London
sub-district letters throughout the day. At normal times such bags are
made up only for the night mail and heaviest despatches. All foreign
letters are sent in separate bags, so as to keep them apart on arrival
in London from the inland Christmas missives. Then, in the reverse
direction, London relieves the Bristol office by making a direct bag for
the tributary office of Clifton by every mail, instead of by two mails
only. To further facilitate matters, the parcels and letters for the
environs of Bristol are kept separate from those for town delivery at
all the large offices sending parcel baskets and mail bags here, and
Bristol reciprocates by adopting the same plan for towns with which it
exchanges mails. Even the expedient of putting specially-lettered
neck-labels on the bags to indicate their contents is adopted. Where,
ordinarily, bundles of letters are made up for particular towns, direct
bags take their places, and where, ordinarily, letters are sent in bulk
from many towns separate bundles are made up for each town: thus,
letters from Bristol for Brighton, which are usually dealt with in
London, are forwarded in a direct bag to pass through the metropolis
unopened. The individual attendances of the ordinary staff are increased
from eight hours to twelve, fourteen, and sixteen hours per day. All
holidays are suspended for the time being, which enables some
telegraphists to undertake postal duty; clerical labour is stopped,
outside help is obtained, and altogether additional labour provided for
to the extent of 50 per cent. over the normal staff. Although there is
such a large augmentation numerically, the value of it cannot be judged
in that way, as it takes a long time to make a really efficient postal
officer, and the novices who are engaged, although willing enough, can
do little more than undertake manual labour. Many army reserve men and
army and navy pensioners are engaged to assist on the occasion. The
weather is always a potent factor. The ordinary types of mail vehicles,
contracted for by the Bristol Tramways Company, and always well turned
out by Mr. G. Matthews, have to be supplemented at the Christmas season
by the employment of large pair-horse trolleys, which, are used not only
for the conveyance of mails between office and railway station, but are
also sent round the town to pick up the heavy parcel collections from
the numerous sub-offices.
The great unpunctuality of the mail trains which invariably sets in
early in the Christmas week causes no little inconvenience, particularly
as regards the mails from the North of England, and the merchants are
therefore not slow to avail themselves of the Post Office new system,
under which, for a small fee, they can get their letters brought by
delayed trains delivered by special messenger promptly on their arrival
at the Head Post Office. The extra posting of letters and parcels for
places abroad, intended for delivery about Christmas Day, begins to
manifest itself early in November.
A great number of people appear to think that Christmas cards and other
printed matter may be sent by book-post in covers which are entirely
closed, except for small slits cut at the sides. These packets are
liable to charge at letter postage rates unless they are made up in such
a manner as will admit of the contents being easily withdrawn for
examination. To educate the public in the matter of full prepayment, it
has become necessary for the Department to be particularly vigilant in
surcharging the Christmas missives which contravene the regulations,
and the Bristol clerks have the unpleasant task of raising an
impost on letters during the Christmas season which infringe the
Postmaster-General's not severe regulations. The custom of sending
Christmas cards in open envelopes is increasing.
With regard to telegrams, the public have recently received at the hands
of His Grace the Duke of Norfolk the great benefit of being allowed to
have their telegraphic messages delivered up to distances of three miles
without payment of any charge whatever for porterage. In this
neighbourhood, the concession has resulted in an increase in the number
of messages for delivery over a mile, especially at Christmas. During
the Christmas season there is always a decrease in the number of
business telegrams, but that is in some measure made up for by a large
number of telegrams being sent by the public who are travelling to keep
holiday, and in this connection more use is made of the telegraph than
the telephone service. The decrease in the volume of work admits of
telegraphists aiding their brother officers on the postal side.
The inflow of Christmas cards is pretty evenly dispersed over the
earlier days of the season, but the great rush comes on the night of the
23rd and the morning of the 24th of the month. Letters up to four ounces
in weight are now conveyed at the small cost to the public of a penny.
So far as this city is concerned, letters and book-packets over two
ounces in weight, which are now blended in one post, are quadrupled in
number at the Christmas season. This increase in the letter packets has
the effect of retarding the postmen in effecting their deliveries,
inasmuch as they have to search in their bags for the packages which
they cannot carry tied up in consecutive order. The trouble arising
therefrom is somewhat mitigated, however, by the circumstance that the
charged letters are less numerous than heretofore, owing to the large
increase in the weight which is now carried for a penny. The Christmas
season is departmentally regarded as consisting of the days from the
20th of the month to Christmas Day, the 25th, inclusive. From the most
reliable calculations that the officials are capable of making, it would
appear that during the Christmas period no fewer than 2,000,000 letters
are dropped by the residents into the 500 receptacles dotted here and
there over Bristol's large postal area. The letters distributed by
Bristol's regular postmen, with their 250 followers, are a million and a
half, in each case about an extra week's work to be got through in three
days.
Some 20,000 letters and parcels find their way to the Bristol Returned
Letter Office as the flotsam and jetsam of the Christmas postings. They
consist of letters without addresses, letters addressed in
undecipherable caligraphy, letters for people dead, gone away, and not
known; parcels of poultry and game without name of sender or addressee.
Certainly handwriting does not improve, hence all these failures and
embarrassments to the Post Office.
The articles for transmission by parcel post handed in at the head Post
Office, branch, offices, sub-offices in town, suburbs, and villages,
reach the total of 40,000, being about four times as numerous as at
ordinary periods. The rural districts alone produce 8,000 parcels. The
parcels delivered number 35,000, being treble ordinary numbers. Ten
thousand of these parcels are delivered in the villages. Nearly a
thousand large hampers of parcels are exchanged between London and
Bristol, and of these some forty contain foreign parcels alone.
Notwithstanding the vastly increased numbers, it becomes noticeable at
Bristol, year by year, that there is a diminution of parcels conveyed by
parcel post containing articles of good cheer: the geese, the fowls, and
the game having decreased, plum pudding's, however, being as much in
evidence as ever. The reduction in the parcel post rates which took
place in 1897 has had a very marked effect upon the parcel post traffic,
and the increase, particularly in the heavy weights, has been very
great. On the other hand, the reduction in the rates of charge for the
conveyance of post parcels has had the effect of bringing about a
decrease in the number of parcels weighing under 2 lb.
As showing that the postal deliveries at the Christmas season are
arranged as well as the extraordinary circumstances will admit, and that
the public on its part can appreciate the difficulties to be contended
with, it may be worthy of mention that complaints of delay are rarely
made.
The Postmaster-General is not unmindful of his duty in providing
sustenance for his legions at the busy season, and refreshments are
supplied for the permanent staff without stint. There are no trams
running on Christmas Day, so that the postmen with their heavy loads are
much worse off than on ordinary days, when, with lighter loads, they can
ride to and fro on the tramcars. There are some pleasing social features
which are worthy of record. For instance, the ladies of the Clifton
Letter Mission have for some years past sent "A Christmas Letter" and
Christmas card to each of the 150 telegraph messengers employed in the
Bristol district. The ladies who manage the society known as the Postal
and Telegraph Christian Association invariably send to every postman in
the Bristol district a sympathetic and seasonable letter, accompanied
by a pretty Christmas card and the best of all good wishes. The staff of
the Bristol Post Office usually pay the compliments of the Christmas
season to their postal friends elsewhere in the form of a
prettily-designed card.
Christmas Day of 1898 is rendered memorable in postal annals from the
circumstance that on that day the postage on letters to and from many of
our colonies and foreign possessions was reduced from the modest sum of
2-1/2d. per half-ounce to the still more modest sum of 1d. per
half-ounce. Bristol has a not inconsiderable colonial and foreign
correspondence. British India takes 550 letters, etc., on the average
weekly; the Dominion of Canada, 450; Newfoundland, 110; and Gibraltar,
100; the other countries to which the reduced rate of postage has been
applied take 500 in the week.
One of the many changes that have taken place in the manners and customs
of the people as affecting the Post Office is very noticeable as regards
the observance of St. Valentine's Day. Thirty years ago the votaries of
the patron saint, in their thousands, vied with each other, year after
year, to honour his memory, and make the Post Office the medium of
sending to every close friend some kind of love token, ranging from the
artistic production at one guinea, down to the humble penny fly-leaf
which contained the simple but expressive pleading, at the bottom of a
neat woodcut, "O come, true love, be mine." Only too often, however, the
day was made the occasion to strike a blow at the fickle lover by means
of some gross caricature. On the eve of St. Valentine the energies of
the staff, which was limited as compared with now, were formerly greatly
taxed to get rid of the enormous piles of packets which flooded the
various receptacles in the city. All this is, however, changed; the
occasion now passes by almost unnoticed in the sorting office and by the
postmen.