AT THE POST OFFICE—_Continued_
The important Commission appointed in 1853 to revise the scale of
salaries of the Post Office employees held many sittings and did
valuable work.[199] Its report was published in the following year.
Rowland Hill's examination alone occupied eight days; and he had the
satisfaction of finding the Commissioners' views in accordance with
his own on the subject of patronage, promotion, and classification.
On the score that the business of the Post Office is of a kind which
peculiarly requires centralisation, the Commission condemned the
principle of the double Secretariate, and recommended that the whole
should be placed under the direction of a single secretary; that in
order to enable “every deserving person” to have within his reach
attainment to “the highest prizes,” the ranks of the Secretary's
Office should be opened to all members of the establishment; and
that throughout the Department individual salaries should advance
by annual increments instead of by larger ones at long intervals:
all advancements to be contingent on good conduct. It was also
advised that, to attract suitable men, prospects of advancement
should be held out; that improvement in provincial offices—then much
needed—should be secured by allowing respective postmasters, under
approval and in accordance with prescribed rules, to appoint their own
clerks; and that promotion should be strictly regulated according to
qualification and merit—a rule which in time must raise any department
to the highest state of efficiency. The abolition of a crying evil
was also advised. At the time in question all appointments to the
office rested not with the Postmaster-General but with the Treasury,
the nomination being in effect left to the Member of Parliament for
the district where a vacancy occurred, provided he were a general
supporter of the Government. It was a system which opened the way to
many abuses, and was apt to flood the service with “undesirables.”
The Commissioners advised the removal of the anomaly both for obvious
reasons and “because the power which the Postmaster-General would
possess of rewarding meritorious officers in his own department by
promoting them to the charge of the important provincial offices would
materially conduce to the general efficiency of the whole body.”
The relinquishment of patronage—a privilege always held dear by
politicians—was conceded so far as to allow to the Postmaster-General
the appointing of all postmasterships where the salary exceeded £175
a year, thus avoiding the application in all cases where the Post
Office is held in conjunction with a private business or profession. A
subsequent concession reduced the minimum to £120. The relinquishment
of so much patronage reflected great credit on the Administration then
in power.[200]
It is pleasant to remember that when, in after years, the postal
reform, by its complete success, had proved the soundness of its
author's reasoning, the Conservatives and “Peelites,” who of old
had opposed the Penny Postage Bill, seemed sometimes to go out of
their way to show him friendliness. One of the kindest of his old
opponents was Disraeli—not yet Earl of Beaconsfield—who, as Chancellor
of the Exchequer, invited the reformer to share his hospitality,
and especially singled out the new guest for attention. The first
Postmaster-General to invite Rowland Hill to his house was his second
chief, the Tory Lord Hardwicke, who had also asked Colonel Maberly,
but was careful to put the two men one at each end of the very long
table.
When, therefore, at last (in 1854) my father was given the post
Colonel Maberly had so long filled, and became thenceforth known
to the world as Secretary to the Post Office, it was with deep
gratification that he recorded the fact in his diary that “all those
to whom I had on this occasion to return official thanks had been
members of the Government by which, twelve years before, I had been
dismissed from office.[201] I could not but think that the kind and
earnest manner in which these gentlemen now acted proceeded in some
measure from a desire to compensate me for the injustice of their
former leader; and this view made me even more grateful for their
consideration.”[202]
The old hostility between Colonel Maberly and Rowland Hill was
scarcely likely to decrease while they remained, to use the sailor
Postmaster-General's favourite expression, “two kings of Brentford.”
Colonel Maberly had never been sparing of his blows during the long
agitation over the postal reform previous to its establishment; and
a dual authority is hardly calculated to transform opponents into
allies. It was therefore fortunate that the peculiar arrangement,
after enduring, with considerable discomfort, for seven and a half
years, was brought to a close.
We all have our strong points; and one of Colonel Maberly's was a
happy knack of selecting heads of departments, the chief Secretary's
immediate subordinates. They were an able staff of officers, unto
whom my father always considered that the good reputation the Post
Office enjoyed while he was its permanent head was largely due. With
their aid the reformer devised and matured measures of improvement
more rapidly than before—more rapidly because there was now far less
likelihood, when once authorisation had been obtained for carrying
them out, of seeing his proposals subjected to tiresome modifications
or indefinite delays, too often leading to entire abandonment. Thus he
was enabled to give most of his time to the work of organisation, to
him always, as he has said, “of all occupations the least difficult
and the most pleasant.” He encouraged his newly-acquired staff “to
make what proved to be a valuable change in their mode of proceeding;
for whereas the practice had been for these officers simply to select
the cases requiring the judgment of the Secretary, and to await his
instructions before writing their minutes thereon, I gradually induced
them to come prepared with an opinion of their own which might serve
in a measure for my guidance.” This placing of confidence in able and
experienced men had, as was but natural, excellent results.
The arrangement of secretarial and other duties being now settled,
reforms proceeded satisfactorily; new and greatly improved post
offices were erected, and older ones were cleared of accumulated
rubbish, and made more habitable in many ways. It was found that
at the General Post Office itself no sort of provision against the
risk of fire existed—an extraordinary state of things in a building
through which many documents, often of great value and importance,
were continually passing. Little time was lost in devising measures to
remedy this and other defects.
But, strange to say, in 1858 the construction and alteration of post
office buildings was transferred by the Treasury to the Board of
Works. Knowing that the change would lead to extravagance, Rowland
Hill essayed, but quite unsuccessfully, to effect a reversal of this
measure; and in support of his views instanced a striking contrast.
A new post office had been erected at Brighton, the cost, exclusive
of a moderate sum expended to fit it up as a residence, being about
£1,600. A similar building had now to be put up at Dundee, whose
correspondence was half that of Brighton. The Board of Works' estimate
came to four or five times that amount, and all that Rowland Hill
could accomplish was to bring the cost down to £5,700.
The first of the long series of “Annual Reports of the
Postmaster-General” was published in 1854. It was prefaced with an
interesting historical sketch of the Post Office from its origin,
written by Matthew Davenport Hill's eldest son Alfred, unto whom my
father was further beholden for valuable assistance as arbitrator
in the already mentioned disputes between the Post Office and the
railway companies. The modern weakness of apathy—most contagious of
maladies—seemed after a while to settle even on the Post Office, for,
late in the 'nineties, the issue was for a time discontinued.
One passage alone in the First Report shows how satisfactory was the
progress made. “On the first day of each month a report is laid before
the Postmaster-General showing the principal improvements in hand,
and the stage at which each has arrived. The latest of these reports
(which is of the usual length) records 183 measures, in various stages
of progress or completed during the month of December 1854. Minor
improvements, such as extension of rural posts, etc., are not noticed
in these reports.”[203]
Another small periodical publication first appeared in 1856, which,
revised and issued quarterly, is now a well-known, useful little
manual. This was the _British Postal Guide_. Its acceptability was
made evident by its ready sale, amounting, not long after its issue,
to 20,000 or 30,000 copies. Two years later an old publication known
as the _Daily Packet List_ was rearranged, enlarged, and turned into
a weekly edition, which, as the _Postal Circular_, accomplished much
useful service. Had the Treasury allowed the extension of the sphere
of this little work, as recommended by the Postmaster-General and
Rowland Hill, it could have been so extended as to become a postal
monitor, correcting any possible misconceptions, and keeping the
public constantly informed as to the real proceedings of the Post
Office.
By November 1854 the diarist was able to write that his “plan has been
adopted, more or less completely, in the following States: Austria,
Baden, Bavaria, Belgium, Brazil, Bremen, Brunswick, Chile, Denmark,
France, Frankfort, Hamburg, Hanover, Lubeck, Naples, New Grenada,
Netherlands, Oldenburg, Peru, Portugal, Prussia, Russia, Sardinia,
Saxony, Spain, Switzerland, Tuscany, United States, and Wurtemberg.”
It seems worth while to repeat the long list just as my father gave
it, if only to show how much, since that time, the political geography
of our own continent has altered, most of the tiny countries and all
the “free cities” of mid-nineteenth-century Europe having since that
date become absorbed by larger or stronger powers. It will be noticed
that Norway and Sweden had not yet followed the example of the other
western European countries. But the then “dual kingdom” did not long
remain an exception.
Among the first European powers to adopt the postal reform were,
strange to say, Spain and Russia, neither of which was then accounted
a progressive country. In September 1843 the Spanish ambassador
wrote to Rowland Hill asking for information about postal matters,
as his Government contemplated introducing the postage stamp, and,
presumably, a certain amount of uniformity and low rates. Not long
after, news came that Russia had adopted stamps. The chief motive in
each case was, however, understood to be the desire to prevent fraud
among the postmasters.
Although Spain moved early in the matter of postal reform, Portugal
sadly lagged behind, no new convention having been effected with that
country, and, consequently, no postal improvements, save in marine
transit, made for fifty years. In 1858, however, mainly through the
good offices of the British Ministers at Madrid and Lisbon, and of Mr
Edward Rea, who was sent out from London by the Postmaster-General for
the purpose, better postal treaties were made, both with Spain and
Portugal. Even with such countries as Belgium, Germany (the German
Postal Union), and the United States, progress in the way of treaties
was very slow.
The postal revenues of all these European countries were smaller than
our own, Portugal's being less than that of the city of Edinburgh.
Small indeed is the connection between the amount of a country's
correspondence and the number of its population. According to an
official return published in the _Journal de St Petersburg_ in 1855,
the letters posted during the year throughout the huge empire of
Russia were only 16,400,000, or almost the same number as those posted
during the same year in Manchester and its suburbs.
By 1853 a low uniform rate of postage was established over the length
and breadth of our even then vast Indian Empire; a few outlying
portions alone excepted. For many years after the introduction of the
new system, involving, as it did, complete adoption of Rowland Hill's
plan, the Indian Post Office did not pay expenses; but by 1870 it
became self-supporting.[204]
It has sometimes been asserted that, in his eagerness to make his
reform a financial success, Rowland Hill cut down the wages of the
lower strata of employees. Nothing could be more untrue. Economy,
he believed, was to be obtained by simpler methods and better
organisation, not by underpaying the workers. While at the Post
Office he did much to improve the lot of these classes of men. Their
wages were increased, they had greater opportunity of rising in the
service, a pension for old age combined with assistance in effecting
life assurance, gratuitous medical advice and medicines,[205] and
an annual holiday without loss of pay. The number of working hours
was limited to a daily average of eight, and a regulation was made
that any letter-carrier who, taking one day with another, found his
work exceed that limit, should be entitled to call attention to the
fact and obtain assistance. An exhaustive enquiry was made as to
the scale of wages paid, the hours of work required, etc.; and the
report, when published, told the world that the men of similar rank in
other callings, such as policemen, railway porters, and several more,
were not so well treated as their brethren in the postal service.
So clearly, indeed, was this proved that public endorsement of the
fact was at once evidenced by a marked increase of applications for
situations as sorters, letter-carriers, etc.
A striking proof of this recognition of a truth came at first hand to
Rowland Hill's knowledge. He was consulting an old medical friend,
and in the course of conversation the latter said that his footman
wished to obtain an appointment as letter-carrier. Whereupon my
father pointed out that the man was better off as footman, because,
in addition to receiving good wages, he had board, lodging, and
many other advantages. This, answered the doctor, had already been
represented to the man; but his reply was that in the Post Office
there was the certainty of continuity of employment and the pension
for old age. The fact that the employees in a public department are
not, like many other workers, liable at any moment to be sent adrift
by the death or impoverishment of their employers, constitutes one of
the strongest attractions to the service. Has this circumstance any
connection with the growing disinclination of the poorer classes to
enter domestic service?
In 1854 rural distribution was greatly extended, 500 new offices being
opened. This extension, it may be remembered, was one of several
measures which were persistently opposed by the enemies of the postal
reform. How much the measure was needed, and, when granted, how
beneficial were its results, is shown by the fact that it was followed
by the largest increase of letters which had taken place in any year
since 1840, or a gain on 1853 of 32,500,000.
The measure affected several hundreds of different places and a
very large percentage of the entire correspondence of the United
Kingdom. Formerly there were to every office limits, sometimes narrow,
sometimes wide, beyond which there was either no delivery, or one
made only at additional charge, generally of a penny a letter: an
arrangement which, in spite of my father's repeated efforts to amend
it, outlived the introduction of the new postal system for more than
fourteen years, and in the districts thus affected partially nullified
its benefits. Not until this and other survivals of the older state
of things were swept away could his plan be rightly said to be
established.
London—whose then population formed one-tenth and its correspondence
one-fourth of the United Kingdom—was also not neglected. It was
divided into ten postal districts,[206] each of which was treated as a
separate town with a local chief office in addition to its many minor
offices. The two corps of letter-carriers—the general postmen and
those who belonged to the old “twopenny post”—which till this time
existed as distinct bodies of employees, were at last amalgamated;
their “walks” were rearranged, and a new plan of sorting at the chief
office was instituted, while the letters and other missives intended
for the different districts, being sorted before they reached London,
were no longer, as of old, sent to St Martin's-le-Grand, but were
at once dispatched for distribution to the local chief office whose
initials corresponded with those upon the covers. Door letter-boxes
increased in number in the houses of the poorer as well as of the
richer classes; and the use, in addition to the address, on the
printed heading of a letter of the initials denoting the postal
district from which it emanated, and on the envelope of that where it
should be delivered—a use to which the public generally accustomed
itself kindly—greatly facilitated and expedited communication
within the 12 miles circuit, so that thenceforth it became possible
to post a letter and receive its reply within the space of a few
hours—a heartily appreciated boon in the days when the telephone was
not. As a natural consequence, the number of district letters grew
apace, and the congestion at St Martin's-le-Grand was perceptibly
lessened. At the same time, the Board of Works to some extent amended
the nomenclature of the streets and the numbering of houses. The
most important delivery of the day, the first, was accelerated by
two hours; in some of the suburbs by two and a half hours. That
is, the morning's letters were distributed at nine o'clock instead
of at half-past eleven. Since that time, and for many years now,
the delivery has been made at or before eight o'clock. Nothing
facilitated these earlier deliveries more than the sorting of letters
_en route_; and the practice also enabled more frequent deliveries
to be made. Improved communication with the colonies and foreign
countries, through better treaties, was likewise effected; and each
improvement was rendered easier by the rapid growth everywhere of
railways and shipping companies, and the increased speed of trains and
steamships.
In 1855 “the system of promotion by merit,” recommended by my father
and endorsed with approval by the Civil Service Commissioners “was
brought into full operation. In the three metropolitan offices, when
a vacancy occurred application for appointment was open to all; the
respective claims were carefully compared, and, without the admission
of any other consideration whatever, the claim which was adjudged
to be best carried the day. To keep our course free from disturbing
influences, it was laid down that any intercession from without in
favour of individual officers should act, if not injuriously, at
least not beneficially, on the advancement of those concerned.” ...
“By the transfer to the Post Office of appointment to all the higher
postmasterships, opportunity for promotion was greatly enlarged,
and posts formally bestowed for political services now became the
rewards of approved merit. This change obviously involved great
improvement in the quality of the persons thus entrusted with powers
and duties of no small importance to the public. In the provincial
offices a corresponding improvement was, in great measure, secured
by delegating the power of appointing their subordinates, under
certain restrictions, to the respective postmasters, who, being
themselves responsible for the good working of their offices, were
naturally led to such selection as would best conduce to that end.
This delegation, so far as related to clerks, was made on the
recommendation of the Civil Service Commissioners; and the trust
being satisfactorily exercised, was subsequently extended to the
appointment of letter-carriers also.” The measure worked well. “From
the different departments of the metropolitan offices, and from
the provincial surveyors the reports of its operation were almost
uniformly satisfactory. Officers were found to take more personal
interest in their duties, to do more work without augmentation of
force, to make up in some degree by additional zeal for the increased
yearly holiday that was granted them, and to discharge their duties
with more cheerfulness and spirit, knowing that good service would
bring eventual reward.”[207]
The new system of promotion by merit worked far better than that of
the Commissioners' examinations for admission to the Civil Service.
As regards the letter-carriers, it has always been found that the
men best fitted for this duty were those whose previous life had
inured them to bodily labour and endurance of all kinds of weather.
The new educational requirements in many instances excluded these
people, while giving easy admission to shopmen, clerks, servants,
and others accustomed to indoor and even sedentary life, who were
little fitted to perform a postman's rounds. The Duke of Argyll, then
Postmaster-General, requested the Commissioners to adopt a somewhat
lower standard of acquirement. At the same time he authorised the
subjection of candidates for the office of letter-carriers to a
stricter test as regards bodily strength, with the result that about
one man in every four was rejected. By these means, and the greater
attention paid to the laws of sanitation in offices and private
dwellings, the health of the department gradually reached a high
standard.
That the plan of confining admission to the service to candidates
who have passed the Civil Service examinations is not without its
drawbacks, is seen by the following extract from a Report by Mr
Abbott, Secretary to the Post Office in Scotland. “Considering,” he
says, “the different duties of the account, the secretary's and the
sorting branches, I am inclined to believe that the examination should
have more special reference to the vacancy the candidate is to fill
than to his general knowledge on certain subjects proposed for all
in the same class, more especially as regards persons nominated to
the sorting office, where manual dexterity, quick sight, and physical
activity are more valuable than mere educational requirements.”[208]
As may be surmised by the foregoing, Rowland Hill was one of the many
clear-sighted men who declined to yield unquestioning approbation
to the system of competitive examinations introduced by the Civil
Service Commissioners; nor did longer acquaintance with it tend
to modify his opinion on the subject. The scheme, he thought,
“worked unsatisfactorily, the criteria not being the best, and the
responsibility being so divided that no one is in effect answerable
for an appointment made under it. The consequence of its adoption has
been, in many instances, the rejection of men who gave promise of
great usefulness, and the admission of others whose usefulness has
proved very small.[209] If no way had been open to the public service
but through competitive examination as now conducted, I cannot say
what might have been my own chance of admission, since on the plan
adopted, no amount of knowledge or power in other departments is
regarded as making up for deficiency in certain prescribed subjects.
Under such a system neither George Stephenson nor Brindley would have
passed examination as an engineer, nor perhaps would Napoleon or
Wellington have been admitted to any military command. The principle,
if sound, must be equally applicable to manufacturing and commercial
establishments, but I have heard of none that have adopted it. Indeed,
a wealthy merchant lately declared (and I believe most of his brethren
would agree with him) that if he had no clerks but such as were
chosen for him by others, his name would soon be in the _Gazette_.
I have always been of opinion that the more the appointments to the
Post Office, and indeed to other departments, are regulated on the
principles ordinarily ruling in establishments conducted by private
individuals, the better it will be for the public service. The
question to be decided between candidates should be, I think, simply
which is best fitted for the duties to be performed; and the decision
should be left to the person immediately answerable for the right
performance of the duty.”[210]
While tranquillity reigned at St Martin's-le-Grand from, and long
after, 1854, not only among the heads of departments, but generally
throughout the office, and while reports from all quarters,
metropolitan and provincial, bore testimony to efficient work
accomplished and good conduct maintained, it was inevitable that in a
body so numerous as was that of the lower grade employees some amount
of discontent should arise. Promotion by merit, in whatever class, has
few charms in the eyes of those who are deficient in the very quality
which insures promotion, and who, perhaps for many years, have drawn
steady payment for ordinary duty so performed as to become scarcely
more than nominal. In every large community there are certain to be
some “bad bargains” who, though practically useless as workers, have
often abundant capacity for giving trouble, especially, maybe, in the
way of fomenting a spirit of mutiny.[211]
At the Post Office this spirit manifested itself even while every care
was being taken to ameliorate the condition of this multitudinous
class of employees, and to rectify individual cases of hardship, and
while, even during the time of insubordination, many respectable
men outside the postal walls were showing their appreciation of the
advantage of a letter-carrier's position over that of men of like
class in other callings, by applying for appointment to that corps.
Misrepresentation is a principal factor in stimulating disaffection,
and, for reasons other than sympathy with the alleged victims of
supposed tyrannical employers, is sometimes, though, happily, rarely,
employed by those who, as non-officials, are sheltered by anonymity
as well as by extraneity from participation in such punishment as may
befall the better-known disaffected.
From an early period of Rowland Hill's career at the Post Office
he was subjected to almost constant personal attacks on the part
of a certain weekly newspaper. Many were written with considerable
plausibility, but all were void of substantial truth, while others
were entire fabrications. All too were of the sort which no
self-respecting man condescends to answer, yet which, perhaps all the
more on account of that contemptuous silence, do infinite harm, and
by an unthinking public are readily believed. Many of these attacks
were traced to men who had left the postal service—to the no small
advantage of that service—and whose dismissal was supposed to be
the work of the permanent postal head; and one such man at least, a
scribe with a ready pen, and ink in which the ingredient gall was
over-liberally mingled, vented his spleen during a long succession
of years with a perseverance worthy a better cause. As the newspaper
in question had rather a wide circulation—since when did harmful
literature fail to meet ready sale?—and the postal employees were,
in many cases, no wiser than their fellow-readers, it was perhaps
not unnatural that the attacks, which were directed more frequently
and angrily against the postal reformer than against his colleagues,
should meet with credence. “It certainly was rather ill-timed,” says
Rowland Hill, on hearing[212] of a particularly vicious libel, “for
in the previous month (November 1858) I had induced the Treasury to
abandon its intention of issuing an order forbidding the receipt of
Christmas boxes, and also had obtained some improvement in their scale
of wages, the Treasury granting even more than was applied for.”[213]
It was not long before the agitation assumed a still more serious
form, no fewer than three anonymous letters threatening assassination
being received at short intervals by the harassed reformer. The
heads of the different postal departments, becoming alarmed for the
safety of the permanent chief's life, advised his temporary absence
from the Office; and Mr Peacock, its solicitor, who knew that an
expert had satisfied himself and others that the handwriting of the
first of these letters could be traced to a certain postman who had
been giving much trouble of late, proposed immediate arrest and
prosecution. But, on comparing the suspected man's actual handwriting
with that, disguised though it was, of the anonymous letter, Rowland
Hill disagreed with the expert's view, and refused assent to so
drastic a proceeding; happily so, for later circumstances seemed to
point to justification of the adverse opinion. My father also declined
to absent himself from the Office, and even when a fourth letter
appeared, in which were mentioned the place, day, and hour when the
fatal blow would be struck, he still, as was his custom, walked the
last half mile of his way to work, armed only with his umbrella, and
on the fateful occasion passed the indicated spot without encountering
harm of any kind. Later than this, somehow, word of the anonymous
letters reached my mother's ears, though not, of course, through her
husband; and thenceforth she made it her daily practice to drive down
to the Post Office, and accompany him home.
This episode would hardly be worth the telling did it not serve to
show how little need there generally is to pay attention to letters,
however threatening, when written by persons who dare not reveal their
identity. On occasions of this sort memory brings back to mind the
story of the brave Frenchman who at the time of the Franco-German
war wrote to the then newly-proclaimed German Emperor, William I.,
at Versailles, to remind him of sundry ugly passages in his life,
and to threaten him with condign punishment—the writer being a near
neighbour, and appending to his letter his actual name and address.
This man at least had the courage of his opinions. The anonymous
scribbler is seldom so valorous.
In 1858 “The Post Office Library and Literary Association” was
established, the institution being aided by the delivery of lectures,
an enterprise in which several of the leading officials participated.
Mr West gave a fascinating discourse on etymology; and Rowland Hill
took his turn by lecturing on the annular eclipse of the sun (“visible
at Greenwich”) which happened in that year.[214] In 1859 similar
institutions were started at most of the London district offices, and
in some provincial towns.
When the volunteer movement was in the heyday of its youth, the
Post Office was one of the earliest of the great public departments
to establish a corps of its own, whose exploits were humorously
related by “Ensign” Edmund Yates, under the heading “The Grimgribber
Rifle Volunteers,” in several numbers of _All the Year Round_ of
the period. The corps became amalgamated with the “Civil Service”
volunteer force, of which fine body it was perhaps the pioneer company.
“I wrote,” says Rowland Hill, “to the Postmaster-General, Lord
Colchester, on the subject (of raising a volunteer corps), and
obtained his ready sanction. Upon my communicating with the heads
of departments, I was told that there would be readiness enough to
volunteer if only the expenses could be provided for, or reduced to a
low rate; that the men would willingly give their time, but thought it
somewhat unreasonable that there should be a demand for their money
also. The difficulty was overcome by the same means, and I suppose to
about the same extent, as in other corps; but from that day to this I
have been unable to understand the policy or propriety of making men
pay for liberty to serve their country, a practice which must, in the
nature of things, debar large numbers from enrolment. The movement was
not limited to the chief office, and was especially satisfactory at
Edinburgh.”[215]
In July 1859 Sir Edward Baines, proprietor of the _Leeds Mercury_,
wrote to introduce to Rowland Hill the inventor of the Post Office
Savings[216] Bank scheme, Mr (afterwards Sir) Charles Sikes, a banker
of Huddersfield—a scheme which has been a great convenience to people
of limited means. Depositors and deposits have increased, till the
modest venture launched in 1860, under the auspices of the Chancellor
of the Exchequer, Mr Gladstone, has grown into a colossal undertaking.
Sir Charles, with characteristic lack of self-advertisement, never
sought reward of any kind for the good work he had initiated. He was
satisfied with the knowledge that it had proved of immense benefit to
his fellow-men. He long survived the carrying into practical shape of
his scheme; and now that he is dead, his invention has, of course,
been claimed by or for others.
The postal reform is one which, save as regards its most salient
features, has been established somewhat on the “gradual instalment
system,” each instalment, as a rule, coming into operation after a
hard struggle on the part of its promoter, and several years later
than when first proposed. Prepayment of postage, for example, one of
the most essential parts of my father's plan, was long allowed to
remain optional, although he had “counted upon universal prepayment
as an important means towards simplifying the accounts, with
consequent economy of time and expense, the expedient of double
postage on post-payment being regarded as a temporary mode of
avoiding the difficulties naturally attending a transition state;
and though hitherto deferring the measure to more pressing matters,
I had always looked forward to a time suitable for taking the step
necessary to the completion of my plan. The almost universal resort
to prepayment had rendered accounts of postage very short and easy,
but obviously universal practice alone could render them altogether
unnecessary.”[217]
The attempt to make prepayment compulsory was renewed in 1859, the
proportion of unpaid letters having by that date become very small.
But the public generally were insensible to the advantage to the
service which economy of time and labour must secure, while the few
active malcontents who thought themselves qualified to be a law
unto themselves, if not to others, raised so much clamour that it
was considered advisable to postpone issue of the edict. An error
of judgment, perhaps, since the public soon becomes accustomed to
any rule that is at once just and easy to follow; as indeed had
already been shown by the readiness—entirely contrary to official
prediction—with which prepayment had, from the first, been accepted.
After all, submission to compulsory prepayment of our postage is not
one whit more slavish than submission to compulsory prepayment of our
railway and other vehicular fares, a gentle form of coercion to which
even those of us who are the most revolutionary of mind assent with
exemplary meekness.
So far back as 1842[218] Rowland Hill had recommended the
establishment of a parcel post, but, although renewing his efforts
both in 1858 and 1863, he was forced to leave accomplishment of this
boon to later reformers. In the last-named year, however, the pattern
post came into operation.
In 1862 he was able to make important alterations in the registration
of letters. Allusion has already been made to the ancient quarrel
between a former Postmaster-General and my father over the amount
of fee, the political head of the office wishing to keep it at 1s.,
Rowland Hill to reduce it to 6d., a reduction easily obtained when
in 1846 the latter entered the Post Office. A largely increased
number of registered letters had been the result. The fee was now
still further reduced, the reduction being followed by an even larger
increase of registered letters; while the registration of coin-bearing
letters was at last made compulsory. Before 1862 coins had often
been enclosed in unregistered letters, at times so carelessly that
their presence was evident, and abstraction easy. As a natural
consequence, misappropriation was not infrequent. After the passing
of this necessary enactment the losses diminished rapidly; the number
of letters containing money posted in the second half of that year
increased to about 900,000, and the number of those which failed to
reach their destination was only twelve.
While it is undeniable that occasionally a letter-carrier or sorter
has been responsible for the disappearance of some articles—at times
of great value—entrusted to the care of the department, the public
itself is frequently very far from blameless. As has already been
shown, carelessness that can only be called culpable sometimes throws
temptation in the men's way. In the course of a single twelvemonths,
nearly 31,000 letters entirely unaddressed were posted, many of which
contained money whose sum total amounted to several thousands of
pounds.
The number of things lost in the post through negligence to enclose
them in properly secured covers, or through placing them in covers
which are imperfectly addressed or not addressed at all, so that
sometimes neither sender nor intended recipient can be traced, is very
great. In one twelvemonths alone the accumulations at the Dead Letter
Office sold at auction by order of the Postmaster-General comprised
almost every description of wearing apparel from socks up to sealskin
jackets and suits of clothing, Afghan, Egyptian, and South African war
medals, a Khedive's Star, a pearl necklace, some boxes of chocolate,
a curious Transvaal coin, and several thousands of postage stamps.
Did none of the losers dream of applying for repossession of their
property ere it passed under the auctioneer's hammer; or did they
resign themselves to the less troublesome assumption that the things
had been stolen?
Simply to avoid payment of the registration fee—whose present amount
can hardly be found burdensome—people will hide money or other
valuables in some covering material that is inexpensive, or that may
be useful to the recipient, such as butter, puddings, etc., which are
sent off by the yet cheaper parcel post. One of the most flagrant
cases of deception was that of a lady living in Siam, who dispatched
to the old country several packages said to contain stationery
and walking-sticks, and valued at £7, 10s. 0d. Suspicion was
aroused—perhaps by the odd combination of treasures—and the parcels
were opened, when the “stationery and walking-sticks” of modest value
resolved themselves into a superb collection of diamonds and other
jewels worth about £25,000.
The Post Office is often reproached for slowness or unwillingness
to adopt new ways; and, as a rule, the accusations are accompanied
by brilliant and highly original witticisms, in which figure the
contemptuous words “red tape.” For the apparent lack of official zeal,
the reproaching public itself is often to blame. Its passion—dating
from long past times, yet far from moribund—for defrauding the
department which, on the whole, serves it so well, yet with so few
thanks and so many scoldings, is one chief bar to possible reforms.
When, for example, the book-post was established in 1846,[219] all
sorts of things which had no right to be where they were found used
to be hidden between the pages. In one instance, a watch was concealed
in an old volume, within whose middle leaves a deep hole had been
excavated which was artfully covered over by the outside binding and
by several pages at the beginning and end of the book. To the casual
observer it therefore presented an innocent appearance, but fell
victim to post-official, lynx-eyed investigation.
“With every desire to give the public all possible facilities,” wrote
my father in his diary, “we were often debarred from so doing by the
tricks and evasions which too frequently followed any relaxation of
our rules.”
Even the great Macaulay transgressed strict postal regulations, being
in the habit, as his nephew tells us in one of the most delightful
biographies ever written, of sending him, when a school-boy, letters
fastened with sealing-wax, the seal hiding the welcome golden “tip.”
As the use of seals has almost entirely died out, and sealed missives,
even in Macaulay's time, were coming to be looked at with suspicion—as
probably containing something worth investigation—by those through
whose hands they pass, the boy was fortunate in that his uncle's
letters reached him safely.
Very unreasonable, and sometimes downright absurd, are many complaints
made by the public. A lady once wrote to the authorities saying that
whereas at one time she always received her letters in the morning,
they now only reached her in the evening. The fact was that, through
the making of better arrangements, the letters which used to come in
with the matutinal tea and toast were now delivered over-night.
The following is a rather curious story of theft. The cook in a
gentleman's family residing at Harrow one day received an unregistered
letter from Hagley, near Birmingham, which, when posted, contained a
watch. On reaching its destination the cover was found to enclose a
couple of pebbles only. She at once went to her master for advice. An
eminent geologist was dining at the house. When he saw the enclosures,
he said: “These are Harrow pebbles; no such stones could be found
at Hagley.” This showed that the letter must have been tampered
with at the Harrow end of the journey. The postal authorities were
communicated with, and an official detective was sent to Harrow to
make enquiries. Something about the letter had, it seems, attracted
notice at the local post office—perhaps the watch had ticked—which
proved that the packet was intact when handed to the letter-carrier
for delivery. He had not, however, given the letter to the cook, but
to the butler, who passed it on to the cook. The delinquent, then,
must be either the letter-carrier or the butler. The letter-carrier
had been long in the postal service, and bore an excellent character.
Suspicion therefore pointed to the butler. He was called into the
dining-room, and interrogated. He denied all knowledge of the watch,
and declared he had given the packet to the cook exactly as he had
received it. But while the interrogation was proceeding, his boxes
were being examined; and, although no watch was found in any, the
searchers came upon some things belonging to his master. Taxed with
their theft, the man pleaded guilty, but once more disclaimed all
knowledge of the watch. On some pretext he was allowed to leave the
room, when he retired to the pantry, and there committed suicide.
As time wore on, during the ten years which followed 1854 and my
father's appointment as Secretary to the Post Office, he sometimes
found that his earlier estimate of former opponents was a mistake.
When on the eve of entering the Post Office in 1846, he was, for
instance, especially advised to get rid of Mr Bokenham, the head of
the Circulation Department.[220] The new-comer, however, soon learned
to appreciate at their just value Mr Bokenham's sterling qualities
both in official and private life. So far from “inviting him to
resign,” my father, unasked, moved for and obtained that improvement
in position and salary which his ex-adversary so thoroughly well
deserved, and which any less disinterested man would probably have
secured for himself long before. Nor was Mr Bokenham's the only
instance of genuine worth rewarded by well-merited promotion in
position or salary, or both.
Another former strong opponent had been Mr William Page, unto whose
efforts the successful conclusion of that treaty, known as “The
Postal Union,” which enables us to correspond with foreign nations
for 2-1/2d. the half-ounce, was largely due. At the present day
2-1/2d. seems scarcely to deserve the term “cheap” postage, but in the
middle of the nineteenth century it was a reduction to rejoice over.
No visitor was more welcome to our house than Mr Page, who was one
of the most genial and least self-seeking of men. He was a staunch
“Maberlyite,” and, even when most friendly with us, never concealed
his attachment to the man to whom he owed much kindness, as well as
his own well-deserved advancement, and the appointment to the postal
service of his two younger brothers. This unswerving loyalty to a
former chief naturally made us hold Mr Page in still warmer esteem,
since the worship of the risen sun is much more common and much less
heroic than is that of the luminary which has definitely set. When my
father died, Mr Page, at once and uninvited, cut short an interesting
and much-needed holiday in Normandy because he knew we should all wish
him to be present at the funeral.
But although the situation at the Post Office greatly improved after
the chief opponent's translation to another sphere of usefulness, the
old hostility to the reform and reformer did not die out, being in
some directions scotched merely, and not killed.
One of the most prominent among the irreconcilables was the novelist,
Anthony Trollope. But as he was a surveyor, which means a postal
bird of passage or official comet of moderate orbit regularly moving
on its prescribed course, with only periodic appearances at St
Martin's-le-Grand, he did not frequently come into contact with the
heads there. He was an indefatigable worker; and many of his novels
were partly written in railway carriages while he was journeying
from one post town to another, on official inspection bent. On one
occasion he was brought to our house, and a most entertaining and
lively talker we found him to be. But somehow our rooms seemed too
small for his large, vigorous frame, and big, almost stentorian voice.
Indeed, he reminded us of Dickens's Mr Boythorn, minus the canary,
and gave us the impression that the one slightly-built chair on which
he rashly seated himself during a great part of the interview, must
infallibly end in collapse, and sooner rather than later. After about
a couple of hours of our society, he apparently found us uncongenial
company; and perhaps we did not take over kindly to him, however
keen our enjoyment, then and afterwards, of his novels and his talk.
He has left a record in print of the fact that he heartily detested
the Hills, who have consoled themselves by remembering that when a
man has spent many years in writing romance, the trying of his hand,
late in life, at history, is an exceedingly hazardous undertaking. In
fact, Trollope's old associates at the Post Office were in the habit
of declaring that his “Autobiography” was one of the greatest, and
certainly not the least amusing, of his many works of fiction.
But Anthony Trollope had quite another side to his character beside
that of novelist and Hill-hater, a side which should not be lost sight
of. In 1859 he was sent out to the West Indies on official business;
and, although a landsman, he was able to propose a scheme of steamer
routes more convenient and more economical than those in existence,
”and, in the opinion of the hydrographer to the Admiralty, superior to
them even in a nautical point of view.”[221] Nevertheless, the scheme
had to wait long for adoption. Indeed, what scheme for betterment has
_not_ to wait long?
Whenever my father met with any foreign visitors of distinction, he
was bound, sooner or later, to ask them about postal matters in their
own country. The examined were of all ranks, from the King of the
Belgians to Garibaldi, the Italian patriot, whom he met at a public
banquet, and presently questioned as to the prospects of penny postage
in Italy. Garibaldi's interest in the subject was but languid; the
sword with him was evidently a more congenial weapon than the pen—or
postage stamp. When, later, Rowland Hill told his eldest brother of
the unsatisfactory interview, the latter was greatly amused, and said:
“When you go to Heaven I foresee that you will stop at the gate to
enquire of St Peter how many deliveries they have a day, and how the
expense of postal communication between Heaven and the other place is
defrayed.”
To the year 1862 belongs a veracious anecdote, which, although
it has no relation to postal history, is worth preserving from
oblivion because its heroine is a lady of exalted rank, who is held
in universal respect. In connection with the Great Exhibition of
that year, whose transplanted building has since been known as the
Alexandra Palace of North London, my father came to know the Danish
Professor Forchammer; and, when bound for the Post Office, often took
his way through the Exhibition, then in Hyde Park, and the Danish
Section in particular. One morning he found the Professor very busy
superintending a rearrangement of the pictures there. A portrait had
just been taken from the line in order that another, representing
a very attractive-looking young lady, which had previously been
“skied,” might be put into the more important place. The young lady's
father had not yet become a king, and the family was by no means
wealthy, which combination of circumstances perhaps accounted for
the portrait's former inconspicuous position. On my father's asking
the reason for the change, Professor Forchammer replied that a great
number of people was expected to visit that Section to-day to look at
the portrait, and it was imperative that it should be given the best
place there, in consequence of the announcement just made public that
the original was “engaged to marry your Prince of Wales.”
My father parted with great regret from Lord Clanricarde when the
Russell Administration went out of office. His kindness and courtesy,
his aptitude for work, his good sense and evident sincerity, had
caused the “Secretary to the Postmaster-General,” after a service of
nearly six years, to form a very high opinion of his chief.[222]
Lord Clanricarde's successor, Lord Hardwicke, belonged to the rough
diamond species; yet he tried his hardest to fulfil intelligently
and conscientiously the duties of his novel and far from congenial
office. He had a cordial dislike to jobbery of any kind, though once
at least he came near to acquiescing in a Parliamentary candidate's
artfully-laid plot suggesting the perpetration of a piece of
lavish and unnecessary expenditure in a certain town, the outlay
to synchronise with the candidate's election, and the merit to be
claimed by him. Happily, Lord Hardwicke's habitual lack of reticence
gave wiser heads the weapon with which to prevent so flagrant a job
from getting beyond the stage of mere suggestion. It was the man's
kind heart and dislike to give offence which doubtless led him into
indiscretions of the sort; but amiable as he was, he had at times
a knack of making people feel extremely uncomfortable, as when, in
conformity with his own ideas on the subject, he sought to regulate
the mutual relations of the two chief Secretaries, when he called
in all latchkeys—his own, however, included—and when, during his
first inspection of his new kingdom, he audibly asked, on entering
a large room full of employees, if he had “the power to dismiss all
these men.” The old sailor aimed at ruling the Post Office as he had
doubtless ruled his man-of-war, wasted time and elaborate minutes
on trivial matters—such as a return of the number of housemaids
employed—when important reforms needed attention, and had none of the
ability or breadth of view of his predecessor.
Lord Canning was my father's next chief, and soon showed himself
to be an earnest friend to postal reform. It was while he was
Postmaster-General, and mainly owing to his exertions, that in
1854 fulfilment was at last made of the promise given by Lord John
Russell's Government, to place the author of Penny Postage at
the head of the great department which controlled the country's
correspondence—a promise in consideration of which Rowland Hill, in
1846, had willingly sacrificed so much. When Lord Canning left the
Post Office to become Governor-General of India, my father felt as
if he had lost a lifelong friend; and he followed with deep interest
his former chiefs career in the Far East. During the anxious time
of struggle with the Mutiny, nothing pained my father more than the
virulent abuse which was often levelled at the far-seeing statesman
whose wise and temperate rule contributed so largely to preserve to
his country possession of that “brightest jewel of the crown” at
a season when most people in Britain lost their senses in a wild
outburst of fury. Lord Canning's management of India won, from
the first, his ex-lieutenant's warmest admiration. The judgment
of posterity—often more discerning, because less heated, than
contemporaneous opinion—has long since decided that “Clemency Canning”
did rightly. The nickname was used as a reproach at the time, but
the later title of “The Lord Durham of India” is meant as a genuine
compliment, or, better still, appreciation.[223]
The Duke of Argyll—he of the “silvern tongue”—succeeded Lord Canning,
and showed the same aptitude for hard work which had distinguished
his predecessors. His quickness of apprehension, promptitude in
generalisation, and that facility in composition which made of his
minutes models of literary style, were unusually great. When he left
the Post Office he addressed to its Secretary a letter of regret at
parting—an act of courtesy said to be rare. The letter was couched in
the friendliest terms, and the regret was by no means one-sided.
Lord Colchester, the Postmaster-General in Lord Derby's short-lived
second Administration, was another excellent chief, painstaking,
hard-working, high-minded, remarkably winning in manner, cherishing
a positive detestation of every kind of job, and never hesitating to
resist pressure on that score from whatever quarter it might come. His
early death was a distinct loss to the party to which he belonged.
For Lord Elgin, who, like Lord Canning, left the Post Office to
become Governor-General of India, my father entertained the highest
opinion alike as regarded his administrative powers, his calm and
dispassionate judgment, and his transparent straightforwardness of
character. “He is another Lord Canning,” the postal reformer used
to say; and that was paying his new chief the greatest compliment
possible.
So far, then, as my father's experience entitled him to judge,
there are few beliefs more erroneous than that which pictures these
political, and therefore temporary masters of the Post Office—or,
indeed, of other Governmental departments—as mere “ornamental
figure-heads,” drawing a handsome salary, and doing very little to
earn it. The same remark applies to my father's last chief, who was
certainly no drone, and who was ever bold in adopting any improvement
which seemed to him likely to benefit the service and the public.
Hitherto the reformer had been fortunate in the Postmasters-General
he had served under; and by this time—the beginning of the
'sixties—everything was working harmoniously, so that Mr (afterwards
Sir John) Tilly, the then Senior Assistant Secretary, when contrasting
the present with the past, was justified when he remarked that, “Now
every one seems to do his duty as a matter of course.”
But with the advent to power in 1860 of the seventh chief under whom
my father, while at the Post Office, served, there came a change;
and the era of peace was at an end. The new head may, like Lord
Canning, have had knowledge of that hostility to which the earlier
Postmaster-General, in conversation with Rowland Hill, alluded. But
if so, the effect on the later chief was very different from that
upon Lord Canning. At this long interval of time, there can be no
necessity to disinter the forgotten details of a quarrel that lasted
for four years, but which will soon be half a century old. Perhaps
the situation may be best expressed in the brief, and very far from
vindictive reference to it in my father's diary. “I had not,” he
wrote, “the good fortune to obtain from him that confidence and
support which I had enjoyed with his predecessors.” Too old, too
utterly wearied out with long years of almost incessant toil and
frequently recurring obstruction, too hopelessly out of health[224] to
cope with the new difficulties, the harassed postal reformer struggled
on awhile, and in 1864 resigned.
He was sixty-eight years of age, and from early youth upward, had
worked far harder than do most people. “He had,” said an old friend,
“packed into one man's life the life's work of two men.”[225]
FOOTNOTES:
[199] The Commissioners were Lord Elcho, Sir Stafford Northcote, Sir
Charles Trevelyan, and Mr Hoffay.
[200] “Life,” ii. 245-249.
[201] These were, of course, the “Peelites”—the members who, together
with their leader, had seceded from the Tory party on the Free Trade
question.
[202] “Life,” ii. 225, 226.
[203] “Life,” ii. 267.
[204] “Life,” ii. 317.
[205] A medical man had now been added to the staff, the first so
appointed being Dr Gavin, a much-esteemed official, who perished
untimely, if I remember rightly, at Newcastle-on-Tyne, during the
awful visitation there of the cholera epidemic of 1853.
[206] Afterwards diminished to eight.
[207] “Life,” ii. 298-301.
[208] “Life,” ii. 300. At this time the Post Office staff numbered
over 24,000, of whom more than 3,000 served in the London district.
[209] A thirty or more years old example of this rejection returns to
memory. A young man—a born soldier, and son to a distinguished officer
in the Engineers—failed to pass the inevitable Army examination.
The subject over which he broke down was some poem of Chaucer's, I
think the immortal Prologue to _The Canterbury Tales_—that wonderful
collection of masterly-drawn portraits of men and women who must have
been living people over five hundred years ago. Even an ardent lover
of him “whose sweet breath preluded those melodious bursts that fill
the spacious times of great Elizabeth with sounds that echo still,”
has never yet been able to perceive what connection the strains of
“Dan Chaucer, the first warbler,” can have with the science of modern
warfare. The born soldier, it was said, was fain to turn ranchman in
the American Far West.
[210] As regards this oft-discussed matter, it seems that
Herbert Spencer was of like mind with my father. Speaking in his
“Autobiography of Edison,” the great philosopher says that “that
remarkable, self-educated man” was of opinion that “college-bred men
were of no use to him. It is astonishing,” continues Herbert Spencer,
“how general, among distinguished engineers, has been the absence of
education, or of high education. James Brindley and George Stephenson
were without any early instruction at all: the one taught himself
writing when an apprentice, and the other put himself to school when
a grown man. Telford too, a shepherd boy, had no culture beyond
that which a parish school afforded. Though Smeaton and Rennie and
Watt had the discipline of grammar schools, and two of them that of
High Schools, yet in no case did they pass through a _curriculum_
appropriate to the profession they followed. Another piece of
evidence, no less remarkable, is furnished by the case of Sir Benjamin
Baker, who designed and executed the Forth Bridge—the greatest and
most remarkable bridge in the world, I believe. He received no regular
engineering instruction. Such men who, more than nearly all other
men, exercise constructive imagination, and rise to distinction only
when they are largely endowed with this faculty, seem thus to show by
implication the repressive influence of an educational system which
imposes ideas from without instead of evolving them from within.”
(“Autobiography,” i. 337, 338.) The remarks are the outcome of Herbert
Spencer's perusal of a biographical sketch of the celebrated engineer,
John Ericsson. In this occurred a significant passage: “When a friend
spoke to him with regret of his not having been graduated from some
technical institute, he answered that the fact, on the other hand,
was very fortunate. If he had taken a course at such an institution,
he would have acquired such a belief in authority that he would never
have been able to develop originality and make his own way in physics
and mechanics.”
[211] In writing of the discontents which occasionally troubled the
postal peace during the mid-nineteenth century, it must be clearly
understood that no allusion is intended to those of later times. In
this story of an old reform the latest year at the Post Office is
1864; therefore, since this is a chronicle of “ancient history” only,
comments on the troubles of modern days, which the chronicler does not
profess to understand, shall be scrupulously avoided.
[212] He never wasted his time in reading the attacks, even when some
good-natured friend occasionally asked: “Have you seen what Blank has
just written about you?”
[213] “Life,” ii. 328.
[214] Some of us enjoyed a capital view of the eclipse at Swindon in
fine weather and pleasant company. Our friend, Mr W. H. Wills, who was
also present, wrote an amusing account of the eclipse—appending to it,
however, a pretty story which never happened—in _Household Words_. The
eclipse was soon over, but the great astronomical treat of the year
was, of course, Donati's unforgettable comet, “a thing of beauty,”
though unfortunately not “a joy for ever,” which blazed magnificently
in the northern hemisphere for some few weeks.
[215] “Life,” ii. 334.
[216] Here was another reformer from outside the Post Office. Yet
one more was Sir Douglas Galton, who first proposed that the Post
Office should take over the telegraphic system. His father-in-law, Mr
Nicholson of Waverley Abbey, sent the then Captain Galton's paper on
the subject to Rowland Hill in 1852. The communication being private,
my father replied also privately, giving the project encouragement,
and leaving Captain Galton to take the next step. He submitted his
plan to the Board of Trade, whence it was referred to the Post Office.
The Postmaster-General, Lord Hardwicke, did not view the scheme with
favour, and it was dropped, to be resumed later within the Office
itself. Had Captain Galton's proposals been resolutely taken up in
1852, the British taxpayers might have been spared the heavy burden
laid upon them when, nearly twenty years later, the State purchase of
the Telegraphs was effected “at a cost at once so superfluous and so
enormous.” (“Life,” ii. 251, 252.)
[217] “Life,” ii. 335.
[218] “Report of the Select Committee on Postage (1843),” p. 41. Also
“Life,” ii. 336.
[219] Professor de Morgan was one of the many literary and scientific
men who took an interest in the book-post when first proposed. At the
outset it was intended that no writing of any sort, not even the name
of owner or donor, should be inscribed in a volume so sent, but the
Professor descanted so ably and wittily on the hardship of thus ruling
out of transit an innocent book, merely because, a century or more
ago, some hand had written on its fly-leaf, “Anne Pryse, her boke; God
give her grace therein to loke,” that not even the hardest-hearted
official, and certainly not my father, could have said him nay; and by
this time any writing, short of a letter, is allowed. The Professor
had a wonderfully-shaped head, his forehead towards the top being
abnormally prominent. He was devoted to mathematics, and gave much
time to their study; thus it used to be said by those who could not
otherwise account for his strange appearance, that the harder he
worked at his favourite study the keener grew the contest between the
restraining frontal bones and protruding brain, the latter perceptibly
winning the day. A delightful talker was this great mathematician,
also a pugilistic person, and on occasion not above using his fists
with effect. One day he was summoned for an assault, and duly appeared
in the police court. “I was walking quietly along the street,” began
the victim, “when Professor de Morgan came straight up to me——”
“That's a lie!” exclaimed the disgusted mathematician. “I came up to
you at an angle of forty-five degrees.” This anecdote has been given
to several eminent men, but Professor de Morgan was its real hero.
[220] By shear ability, industry, and steadiness, Mr Bokenham had
worked himself up from a humble position to high rank in the Post
Office. One day a rough but pleasant-looking man of the lower
agricultural class came to London from his and Mr Bokenham's native
East Anglia, and called at St Martin's-le-Grand. “What! Bill
Bokenham live in a house of this size!” he exclaimed. He had taken
the imposing, but far from beautiful edifice built in 1829 for his
cousin's private residence.
[221] “Life,” ii. 288.
[222] In Edmund Yates's “Recollections” many pleasant stories are told
of Lord Clanricarde, to whose kindness indeed the author owed his
appointment to the Post Office.
[223] “The close of his career as Postmaster-General,” wrote my father
many years later, “was highly characteristic. For some reason it was
convenient to the Government that he should retain his office until
the very day of his departure for the East. Doubtless it was expected
that this retention would be little more than nominal, or that, at
most, he would attend to none but the most pressing business, leaving
to his successor all such affairs as admitted of delay. When I found
that he continued to transact business just as usual, while I knew
that he must be encumbered with every kind of preparation, official,
personal, and domestic, I earnestly pressed that course upon him,
but in vain; he would leave no arrears, and every question, great or
small, which he had been accustomed to decide was submitted to him
as usual to the last hour of his remaining in the country. Nor was
decision even then made heedlessly or hurriedly, but, as before, after
full understanding.... In common with the whole world, I regarded
his premature death as a severe national calamity. He was earnest
and energetic in the moral reform of the Post Office, and had his
life been longer spared, might perhaps have been the moral reformer
of India.... That such a man, after acquiring a thorough knowledge
of myself, should have selected me for the difficult and responsible
post of Secretary to the Post Office, and have continued throughout
my attached friend, is to me a source of the highest gratification.”
(“Life,” ii. 353-355.)
[224] He had been still further crippled in 1860 by a paralytic
seizure which necessitated entire abstention from work for many
months, and from which he rallied, but with impaired health, although
he lived some nineteen years longer.
[225] “Life,” ii. 353-363. Yates, in his “Recollections,” gives
a vivid character sketch of this political head of the office.
The portrait is not flattering. But then Yates, who, like other
subordinates at St Martin's-le-Grand, had grievances of his own
against the man who was probably the most unpopular Postmaster-General
of his century, does not mince his words.