THE VILLAGE POST OFFICE
All post offices other than a Head Office are called sub-offices. The
definition embraces busy town offices as well as the village post
office. The sub-office is usually managed by a man or woman who has
other visible means of support. In the vast majority of cases the
sub-office is a shop. And comprising as the ranks of sub-postmasters do
all sorts and conditions of men, it is not surprising if we find more
variety among this class of official than among the Head Postmasters.
The Head Postmaster is a Civil Servant; he has a tradition to keep up,
and he looks at official matters with a sort of professional eye. The
sub-postmaster, on the other hand, has, as it were, a foot in both
worlds, the commercial and the official, and he comes to his duties with
the training not of the Civil Servant but of the local tradesman. I
sometimes think that it is a good thing for the Post Office service that
so many of its servants should have this double interest; they are in
close touch with the public, they know its peculiarities across the
counter, and they are less likely to be strangled by red tape. The
sub-postmaster is often, of course, a highly educated man, and can take
a high place among any society of business men in his district; on the
other hand, in a small district or village he may be a man of slight
education who is only a degree above the working classes. A
sub-postmaster is often very human and unsophisticated; he is not
trained by the Civil Service Commissioners to write reports in proper
official style, and he often shocks the staid officials at headquarters
by the directness of his style. And considering the stock from which
sub-postmasters are often drawn, it is sometimes astonishing how well
the work of the Department is performed. For most of the duties proper
to a Head Office belong also to a sub-office. The responsibility is
perhaps less, but the sub-postmaster has frequently to be efficient in
all classes of Post Office work, to be an accountant, experienced in
banking business, and to know a good deal about telegraphy.
We are growing accustomed to the fact that any letter we write to the
remotest hamlet in the Kingdom is certain to be delivered at the
earliest possible moment; but it is only within a comparatively late
period that this has actually happened. Up to 1764 the Post Office
carried letters to post towns only, but did not undertake to deliver
them at the homes of the addressees, and in London only was there a
local post. This was the famous Penny Post, originally founded by
Dockwra in 1680, and soon afterwards taken over by the Crown. In 1764
authority was given for the establishment of this Penny Post within the
limits of any city or town, and thirty years later it was provided that
any Penny Post might be extended beyond the former limit of ten miles
from the town in which it was set up. But such posts were in fact only
set up in about half-a-dozen of the largest towns in the Kingdom, and at
that time neither benefited nor were intended to benefit the rural
districts.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century there were no rural or
village posts. Letters were conveyed by post to towns of any
considerable size, and were fetched from these places by arrangement on
behalf of the people living in the surrounding villages. Probably a
village generally employed its own messenger, paying him in some cases a
fixed sum as wages, and in others a penny or more on every letter
carried. Sometimes a pauper was employed for this work. Wealthy people
made their own arrangements. In 1801 the Post Office made efforts to
reach the villages, but right down to 1840 the service was fitful and
irregular, and was not uniform. The Government of Sir Robert Peel in
1843 decided that the principle on which rural posts should be
established should be based simply upon the number of letters for each
locality. “All places, the letters for which exceed 100 a week, should
be deemed entitled to the privilege of a receiving office and a free
daily delivery of their letters.” In 1850 this rule was still further
simplified, and the rule was now that a post should be established when
it would pay its way. Modifications of even this rule took place in
successive years, and the network of rural posts extended so much that
in 1862 the proportion of letters delivered to the addressees was
estimated to reach 94 per cent. In 1871 the Postmaster-General was able
to announce that he hoped “the time is not distant when a free delivery
at least two or three times a week will be provided for every house in
the country, however remote.” But it was twenty years before this pious
hope began to be fulfilled. At the end of 1892 it was estimated that
there were still about 32,000,000 letters a year not delivered by the
Post Office. Nearly 8,000,000 letters were in the next year brought into
free delivery, and the work of extension went on gradually until the day
of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in 1897, when it was announced that a
regular delivery of letters would be given to every house in the
Kingdom. We can now scarcely understand any other state of things to be
endurable for a day.
The rural sub-postmaster has had enormously increased duties thrown upon
him in recent years, and it is possible that his pay has not kept pace
with his responsibility. The Department naturally takes advantage of the
fact that the work of the Post Office is a valuable addition to any
business, and that a man is provided with a big advertisement for his
particular trade when he is given the Post Office business. At any rate,
there is usually a demand in every place for the privilege of running
the Post Office. Still, the sub-postmaster is human, and he does not
always admit the justice of this kind of indirect payment. Towards the
end of 1907, many sub-postmasters were eagerly looking out for the
Report of the Parliamentary Committee on their condition. Something good
was expected. In January 1908, a new book of Rules for sub-postmasters
was issued and distributed, and one sub-postmaster in a remote country
district came to the conclusion that the book was the long-looked-for
Report, and fresh from great disappointment, and, as will be seen,
breathless with indignation, he wrote to his Head Postmaster as follows:
at the end of his letter he placed his first full stop.
“Sir I have read the new book of rules all through I see by it that sub
postmasters has gained nothing but lost all the privileges they had the
cannot speak of any thing the cannot speak for a member of parlment
county counceler or anything the cannot sell anything that does not
belong to the Post Office the cannot take an agency from any one the
belive that himself and his place all belongs to them the expect him to
look after Postboys mail car bad coin watch everything night and day
that belongs to the Post Office I have to keep the office opened for
twelve hours every day do everything attend to every one no one person
fit to do this or do what the Book expects them to do we have not sunday
to ourselves we must stay till four o'clock in the evening to prepare
the bag for the mail car we get no allowance for holidays one of us must
stop at home from church on Sunday on our turn to attend for the car
bees nearly always late on Sunday and gets no money for it I do not see
how the expects us to do it for nine pence a day or how can the expect a
man to live on it would be a fine thing for one to be a postman I would
have more pay and clothes when my three hours was over I could go where
I liked and had Sunday to myself there is no one under the goverment so
bad paid as country sub offices and still we have more to do than any
other one for we have to tie parsels rite the direction on letters and
parsels for most of the people for the do not no how last year I had to
sit up till 11 o clock at night riting after the 5 35 car came I had 34
regestered letters to compair with the list and check them put my
Initels after every one of them fill 34 receats 34 counterfoils so the
do not look to whet we have to do to prepare everything for the Postmen
next morning we have to handle letters from every one take their money
no matter what desease or sickness is in there house still we are not
allowed a doctor if anything happens we are not alowed anything it is
nearly a shame to be a country sub postmaster if the expect to do work
they should pay us I have to pay a man 12 shillings a week for 6 days
and he will oneley work 9 hours for me in summer and about 5 in Winter
so I see that nothing is left us but to resign as it will pay no one we
are not alowed to show our greevances in the press to the publick or
through a member of parliment we must leave all to them no less than a
pound a week would Pay to keep up to the new rules Keep marking time for
Postmen marking and dating everything in the new book they should give
us fair Play we waited with patience thinking the Commission would do
something for us but it made us worse it must be there was no one to
give evedence for us we have pens ink cealing wax too I think I have
rote some of our Grievence to you as you are onely one left to us to
write to your obedient servant.”
Here we have the duties and disabilities of a rural sub-postmaster all
described picturesquely in his own words, and the only defence we can
offer for the authorities is that the man has not resigned, and would
regard it as the greatest injustice of all if he were relieved of his
duties.
Yet sub-postmasters do deserve our sympathies. They endure much from an
irritable and impatient public. Occasionally, the suffering becomes
articulate. “I beg,” says a sub-postmaster, “to report that the man
called at the office to-day. I handed him the book, and complied with
your instructions. _I hope I shall never see him again._” We can almost
imagine the painful scene at the counter.
We are often ready enough to complain of the incivility and indifference
of the man or woman at the post office, but we don't realise how trying
we are to the much-harassed officials. A sub-postmaster was asked to
explain why he accepted irregularly a deposit in an account which had
already exceeded the limit. His reply showed that at least red-tape
methods do not prevail at his office, even though moral courage may be
lacking in the postmaster. “In order to avoid unpleasantness which
appeared to be imminent, I accepted the deposit.”
Sometimes so involved and difficult is the work put upon a slow-minded
country sub-postmaster, that it is often a case of the blind leading the
blind. A shaggy and a shambling man, obviously an agriculturist, entered
a rural post office. He knew all about crops, and was firmly convinced
that every sort of weather was bad for them. But he was weak in finance.
However, it had come to his ears that it would be a sound scheme to
invest money in the local post office. Therefore he entered the curious
building—half grocer's shop, half village club, and perfumed with
cheddar—that served as a post office. The sub-postmaster explained the
system to the man.
“But, mister, can I withdraw my money whenever I want to?”
“Of course you can, fat'ead,” was the answer. “You can drore it
ter-morrer ... if you give a fortnight's notice.”
The habit of talking to the people in their own idioms is to be
commended. In rural districts it inspires more confidence, and is better
understood than official regulations.
The sub-office is frequently an hereditary institution. It has been in
the same family for generations. There is a sub-office at Churchill near
Enniskillen, in Ireland, which has passed down in direct succession from
father to son since the year 1750. In 1882 the salary was £3 a year, but
the Postmaster-General specially increased the amount to £12 in
consideration of the lengthened period in which the office had been held
by members of the family.
The Post Office in Ireland in old days was served light-heartedly
compared with these strenuous times. I have read in an old newspaper of
1821 how the postmaster of Lismore, aged ninety-seven, and almost old
enough to know better, won a wager. He travelled to Fermoy in a
Dungarvan oyster tub, drawn by a pig, a badger, two cats, a goose, and a
hedgehog, with a red nightcap on his head, a pig-driver's whip in one
hand, and a cow's horn for musical purposes in the other. In these days
he would have had to furnish a written explanation to the Secretary.
Possibly it would have been similar to that furnished by a modern
sub-postmaster, who had been accused of certain vagaries in the
performance of his duties: “I know I am not Perfect by a Long Way, but
it does not make it any Better. I was not Drunk because I hadd no Bear.”
The explanation of another respecting the misconduct of one of his
subordinates was: “As Mr. —— is generally a careful officer, and was
probably not on duty at the time the error was made, he has been let off
with a caution.”
The Post Office has employed women in its service since the earliest
times. The sub-postmistress of the village is often a most useful
officer. She sometimes takes her duties more seriously than the man; she
likes the opportunity of managing things which the office gives her: the
sense of being “On his Majesty's Service” helps her to magnify her
office. And she is usually quite refreshingly free from officialism. One
of their number was asked in an official memorandum to state why she had
not yet furnished an explanation of an irregularity a few weeks back,
and she replied: “I was too angry with myself to do anything.” What need
was there of an official caution in face of such sincere repentance!
But the sub-postmistress is often extremely strong-minded and masterful,
especially if she is of mature years, and it is extremely difficult for
either her chiefs or the public to move her in any course she has
adopted. The Department was informed by one lady that she was about to
be married, and when she was asked the usual questions whether she would
remain the housekeeper, she replied magnificently: “I have made no
change. I hold entire dominion over the present post office premises,
otherwise there would be no marriage.” The proposal scene in this case
must have been shorn of a good deal of the romance one usually
associates with such experiences. Sometimes the sub-postmistress marries
one of her male assistants, and she is in the proud position of being
able to extract written explanations from, and to administer cautions
to, her husband. And yet there have been instances where the public
service did not suffer by this arrangement, nor was the home life
apparently put much out of gear. Sometimes the sub-postmaster marries a
female assistant, and I read in a service paper this touching confession
of one of the inconveniences arising from such an act: “My wife is also
my first assistant, and during the first three years of our married life
we obtained our holidays together. Last year, however, exception was
taken to this by the Surveyor, who stated my wife ought to take charge
during my absence on annual leave. I appealed to the Secretary, _and the
decision went against me_.” I think “the decision went against _me_” is
a very pretty touch.
The sub-postmistress is of course often one of the village folk herself,
and she is frequently exposed to gossip and unworthy suspicions. The
lady who had charge of a certain village post office was strongly
suspected of tampering with parcels entrusted to her care. If anything
went wrong with them in any part of the Kingdom she was to blame. One
day a rosy-cheeked youngster, dressed in his best clothes, entered the
post office and carefully laid a huge slice of iced cake on the counter.
“With my sister the bride's compliments, and will you please eat as much
as you can.”
The sub-postmistress smiled delightedly. “How very kind of the bride to
remember me. Did she know of my weakness for wedding-cake?”
“She did,” answered the youngster coolly, “and she thought she'd send
yer a bit of it this afternoon, just to take the edge off yer appetite
before she posted boxes to her friends.”
Rightly or wrongly the rural post office is supposed to know all the
secrets and scandals of the neighbourhood. When private information
leaks out, it is usually the post office which is suspected. And
especially is this the case when there are women at the post office.
Sometimes the interest in the affairs of the village is quite open. A
woman enters a rural post office.
“Anything for me?” she asks.
_Rural Postmaster._ I don't see nothen'.
_Woman._ I was expectin' a letter or postcard from Aunt Spriggs tellin'
when she was comin'.
_Rural Postmaster_ (_calling to his wife_). Did you see a postcard from
Mrs. Hayfork's aunt, Sally?
_His Wife._ Yes; she's comin' on Thursday.
In the _Christian World_ of the 20th September 1901 there appeared an
excellent description of the village post office in an article entitled
“The Scottish Coast Village.” “The real centre of the world for us is
the village post office. It does everything except the one thing which
is supposed to be the duty of a post office—distribute the letters. That
is done from a neighbouring village by a five-mile-an-hour-easy postman,
who when he has delivered our letters and returned to his own office a
mile and a half away has still a thirteen-mile tramp amongst the
scattered farms. Summer and winter, through snow and mud, in burning
heat or freezing cold, he fulfils his daily task, and has never missed a
mail nor caught a cold.
“But if our post office does not distribute the letters it would be
difficult to name anything else which it will not do. There the chance
tourist leaves his bicycle and waterproof while he looks round the
village and has a dip in the sea; thither turns the inquirer after lost
property or the fine weather which will not come; groceries, draperies,
stationery, tobacco, all are found among its exhaustible stores;
anything will be provided within reasonable time, and 'prescriptions are
carefully made up' at forty-eight hours' notice from the country town
twelve miles away. The postmaster and shop-keeper is one of those
willing, handy men, often found in such positions, who are the acting
representatives of Providence to the helpless visitor. He will take any
amount of trouble for you; never loses his temper amid the
thousand-and-one inquiries which assail him all the day long; and gives
up part of his Sabbath rest—well earned—to leading the singing of the
village choir. This he does with an accompaniment of the foot which
ensures excellent time, though in itself a little disconcerting.”
There are hundreds of village post offices which would answer to this
description; we all go straight to the post office when in a strange
place, if we are in the slightest difficulty. The post office is there
“On his Majesty's Service” to get us out of trouble. Unhappy is the
village without a post office. Yet there is, or was until recently, a
village on the edge of the Norfolk marshlands where there was no doctor
for seven miles, no telegraph office for delivery within five miles, and
where, until a very late date, the only village post-box was a slit in a
hollow elm against the churchyard. In such villages as this, the news of
the world comes through the postman. If he has no letter to deliver in
the place, the news as well as he stops away.
Writing in 1897, the author of the delightful _Pages from a Private
Diary_ spoke of the effect of the increase of postal facilities on the
sluggish-minded country-folk.
“People who are accustomed to the business-like promptitude of the young
men and maidens in town offices have little idea of the casual way in
which things are managed with us. A month or two since, having to
register a letter containing a small present for the golden wedding of
an old friend which had reached me too late for our own despatch, I
drove to a village on the railway where the mails leave a few hours
later. The following dialogue ensued:—
“_Postmaster._ Do you know how old I am?
“_I._ No; are you seventy-five?
“_Postmaster._ Seventy-five! I'm as old as Mr. Gladstone. Don't look it,
don't I? No, I mayn't look it, but I am. I've been postmaster here for
fifty years or more. Yes, I ain't so young as I have-a-been. Good-day,
sir.
“_I._ But I want a letter registered.
“_Postmaster._ Registered! Well, I hardly know how. You see, I'm an old
man now. Oh yes! I've registered 'em in my day, but I don't somehow like
the responsibility. No, I don't feel as if at my age I ought to take the
responsibility. You see I've been postmaster here man and boy for....
“In the end I had to take the letter home again.”
There is one thing which you will rarely obtain in a rural post office,
and that is incivility. This as a rule is associated with “the
business-like promptitude of the young men and maidens in town offices,”
and the country postmaster's manners are often superior to his
intelligence.
The smaller the place, the more limited, of course, is the field of
selection by the authorities. Let me give one or two specimens of the
applications for appointment which are received.
“DEAR SIR,—I see you have two vacancies for two sub-postmasters, and I
feel I should very much like to become one. Would you kindly let me
know where they are situated and what money is allowed. I have money
and I have brains, and I pride myself as being straightforward,
honest, and true, with purity of soul, simplicity of mind, and honesty
of purpose.”
This man had, no doubt, painted from his own model a picture of the
ideal country postmaster as conceived by the poet and the literary man
who, writing in Fleet Street, dream of the sanctifying influence of the
countryside. But the inhuman Department declined to take the man at his
own valuation, and his qualifications were not considered sufficient.
Here is another:—
“DEAR SIR,—I rite to aplie for the applacation for the Post Office
seeing the Bill out an I have sold the stampes now as good five years
now an I should be please to take the Office up from yours truly——”
I now give an application from a woman who was conscious of her
educational failings but suggested a way by which they could be
circumvented:—
“SIR,—I hear that E—— T—— is done with the care of the Post Office and
I ofer myself as a candate for the ofice through the Rev. —— i am a
widow and as a shop and I have a grand daughter stoping with me a good
scholar.
“I remain &c.”
This is an application which would be seriously considered by the
Department: the grand-daughter would be the stand-by of the post office.
It is often asked, Why does not the Post Office demand Civil Service
certificates from all its officers? The question, of course, is simply
one of expense. The employment of persons with a higher standard of
education would mean a higher rate of payment, and this would lessen the
annual contribution which the Post Office makes to the Treasury. There
can be little doubt, however, that the multifarious duties which are now
thrown on the village post office are a severe strain on the uneducated
official, and he causes an infinitude of trouble at the Head Office,
which has to rectify his mistakes. This is the sort of thing which
frequently occurs. A sub-postmaster was asked why he accepted the
signature of a certain Nurse Jones as witness to an important document.
His instructions were that the document must be signed in the presence
of a commissioner for oaths or a notary public. He replied: “Nurse Jones
is one of a body of nurses who is _well known_ in the neighbourhood.
Nurse Jones was therefore regarded as a notary public.”
But even with the drawback of possessing so many agents who belong to
the half-educated and quarter-educated classes, the Post Office gets a
good deal out of its country officers. Many possess plenty of shrewdness
and native intelligence, and business is got through with or without the
help of the regulations. They are sometimes not to be side-tracked even
by a railway company. There was at a certain date some irregularity in
the mail service in the Romney Marsh district. The local official
explained “that on Friday last the mails were only got off by running
after the train, and to-day in the same manner. On Saturday we failed to
catch up the train.” Evidently the South-Eastern and Chatham Railway
were beginning to accelerate their train service.
There remains to be considered the village post office itself, and post
office architecture is usually a rather painful subject. The modern
standard post office is obviously built for utility, and little regard
is paid to what fits in with the spirit of the place. But there are
hundreds of village post offices all over the United Kingdom which are
the delight of the artist and the tourist. Just as a hymn or a psalm
seems to contain an added beauty because of the feeling in the singer
that it has perhaps brought joy and consolation to men and women through
the centuries, so the little gabled cottage or shop covered with ivy
appeals to us not only through its beauty but through its long
connection with the joys and sorrows of the village. Those of us who
have visited Tintagel know the cottage called the “old post office.” It
is of the fourteenth century, small but commodious; it has a fireplace
which is so constructed that the inhabitants could sit round the fire
without being betrayed by the light to passers-by. It is fitted up with
conveniences for the use of smugglers. And over all stretch great roof
timbers black with the smoke of ages. That, however, is a disused post
office; there are beautiful offices still to be found, especially in our
southern villages, and every lover of the country-side demands of the
Post Office authorities that the standard pattern should be confined to
the suburbs and the new townships. We will willingly put up with a
village postmaster who indulges in euphonious spelling if they leave us
our pretty ivy-clad post office full of associations which bind it to
the village.