The Post

“ The operation of the law establishing the Post Office, as it relates to the transmission of newspapers, will merit our particular inquiry and attention, the circulation of political intelligence through these vehicles being justly reckoned among the surest means of preventing the degeneracy of a free government, as well as of recommending every salutary public measure to the confidence and co-operation of all virtuous citizens. ”

“ I am happy to find matters are managed so impartially in the post-office here. Nothing like a public cant for making matters find their true level. Tell the postmaster, then, I’ll keep the letter, and the rather, as it happens, by good luck, to be intended for me. ”

“ The fountain-head of the Post-office establishment of this country, whose personal embodiment is the Postmaster-General, possesses very ample means for the collection of information of various kinds through its willing and trusty agents, to be found in every corner of the empire ”

“ Yet, even with this precaution, to the chagrin of the authorities, the morning papers had accurate accounts of the proceedings. The invisible reporters were never looked for in the proper place, for they stationed themselves by one of the open windows of the underground kitchens which looked into the Post-Office yard; and through these windows every word of the speakers floated upward to be deftly caught by the eager reporter in waiting. ”

“ The editorship of the Evening Post made him not merely a news vender but a molder of public thought, and his entrance into the world of opinion gave him more of an interest in life itself and less in his own emotions. ”

“ Young girls, foolish widows, old maids, and weak-minded men, who could without much publicity send and receive communications through “Blood’s Express,” found a post-office somewhat too dignified an institution for their childish intellects.
Still, this class of people,—and it takes all kinds to make up a world,—added to another class who make of crime a pastime and licentiousness a pleasure, adopted other modes of carrying on their “vocation,” which we here allude to under the head of “Indecent postal matter.”
397
XV.
Tales of the Post-Office. ”

“ Government officials have a wonderful power of passive resistance and an insensibility to argument and proof which might be envied by a lamp-post. It was thought a brilliant rejoinder when one of these Post Office dunderheads replied to Palmer’s scheme for supplanting the slow and uncertain post-boys by fast coaches with the observation that there was no reason why the post should be the swiftest conveyance in England! ”

“ To the postmaster of York he writes in a strain advising like conciliatory dealings with the public. "I cannot imagine," says he, "why you should not think yourself sufficiently empowered by my last and former letters to do right to the merchants in all their just demands; nay further, to gratify them sometimes in little disputes (though they be in the mistake) rather than exasperate and disoblige gentlemen that support the office by their correspondence. ”

“ PRACTICABILITY
BY ROWLAND HILL.
"The facility of frequent, punctual, and quick communication, which the institution of the Post Office was calculated to secure, may be justly classed among the elements of profitable commerce. It is essential to the purposes of government and subservient to all the ends of national policy." — Eighteenth Report of the Commissioners of Revenue Inquiry, 1829.
"The principle of the Post Office at its establishment, as is distinctly laid down in the 12th Charles II., was to afford advantage to trade and commerce. ”

“ During the course of last winter horses were obliged to be occasionally employed; and it is often the case that a strong highlander, with so great a weight upon him, cannot travel more than two miles an hour, which greatly retards the general correspondence of this extensive district of country."
These humble servants of the post office, travelling over considerable tracts of country, would naturally become the means of conveying local gossip from stage to stage, and of spreading hearsay news as they went along. ”

“ I am letting the World speak for itself merely as an example of what many splendid newspapers have accomplished as leaders in public movements. The New York Evening Post is another example, it having long led popular demand for vocational guidance and control. ”

“ The postmasters were very dilatory in sending up their moneys to the head office, and admonitory letters were daily sent out urging upon them greater punctuality. These varied in terms from a gentle reminder to the veriest threat. The following is a fair specimen of the latter:—"By yours of the 8th you promise to pay the money due for last quarter when you receive this quarter's accounts. I am resolved no man shall be employed by me (in this office) that does not clear every quarter immediately after it is due. ”

“ It is said, that it is the interest of society to make some pecuniary sacrifice for the purpose of sending the post into remote places; because, generally speaking, they are the less penetrable retreats of ignorance. ”

“ Newspapers are distributed on the same principle as are the letters.
The newspaper department of a post-office is one that may well be called the “reservoir” of the press: here flows all that makes up that vast institution, here comes the highest standard of our literature, down to the meanest sheet venality produces. A number of men are constantly employed in the newspaper room, or, as we term it, “the rotunda of literature.” This is emphatically the wholesale room; for they deal in bulk. Papers coming singly, directed to individuals, pass through the same process as do the letters. ”

“ He’s not used to being challenged and he won’t be squeamish. You will have the whole of his Press against you, and every other journalistic and political influence that he possesses. He’s getting a hold upon the working classes. The Sunday Post has an enormous sale in the manufacturing towns; and he’s talking of starting another. Are you strong enough to fight him? ”

“ As far west as Chicago, and as far south as Atlanta his columns were looked to daily as the best on industry and finance printed.
A position of equal preëminence was held by the Evening Post’s literary department, the record of which repays examination in detail. Falling heir in 1881 to the literary editor and traditions of the Nation, the Post became the first American newspaper to publish book criticism that was consistently expert, discriminating, and of high literary quality. James Bryce doubted whether there was any criticism in the world as good as the old Nation’s. ”

“ We cannot see, for our part, why it should not attract men of the first talents and the most exalted virtues. Why should not the discussions of the daily press demand as strong reasoning powers, as large and comprehensive ideas, as profound an acquaintance with principles, eloquence as commanding, and a style of argument as manly and elevated, as the debates of the Senate? ”

“ At a rate of postage so low as one penny, a great number of explanatory letters on business, and letters on matters of detail, would be written. Occasions are of constant occurrence in which we do not write, and are not written to, because the matter, though important enough to write upon, is not important enough to pay, or to cause others to pay, the postage. I refer here to questions as to the mode of conveyance of goods, as to the colour or pattern of articles ordered, or to an ambiguous or an illegible phrase in a letter received, and a thousand other matters. ”

“ There are now very few of them remaining, and these very old men. These officers of the Post Office mixed with all sorts of people, learned a great deal from the passengers, and were full of romance and anecdote. We remember one guard whose conversation and accounts of funny things were so continuous that his hearers were kept in a constant state of ecstasy whenever [Pg 71] he was set agoing. His fund of story seemed inexhaustible, and we can imagine how hilariously would pass away the hours on the outside of a mail-coach with such a companion. ”

“ To these letters must be added the 652,000,000 of post-cards and other communications by the halfpenny post, and the enormous number of newspapers, which bring the total number of communications passing through the post to considerably above two billions. I venture to say that this is the most stupendous result of any administrative change which the world has witnessed. If you estimate the effect of that upon our daily life; if you pause for a moment to consider how trade and business have been facilitated and developed; how family relations have been maintained and kept together ”

“ Little demand for political discussion existed in America, but there was a great demand for news, and since there were but few coffee-houses, such as London contained, it was natural that the postmaster should be the central figure for the trade in gossip. ”

“ With regard to the administration of the Post Office, it may be remarked, that so long as the office of Post-master General is a political appointment, it is impossible that the individual selected, however anxious he may be efficiently to discharge his duty, can do more than acquire a general knowledge of the vast and complicated mechanism he is supposed to direct. ”

“ Probably there are not more than half a dozen pens in all Park Row and four of them are on The Evening Post.
We find the difference in spirit not so great. There is a great deal about the terrific strain of newspaper work and how a brutal city editor will drive a finely tempered reporter until he has had the best of his brains and then toss him aside like a withered violet. ”

“ Connected with the increased attention given to news is the greater vogue of the newspaper “poster” or contents-bill, which is exhibited in the streets. The poster has acquired commercial importance for indicating the possession of some special news without revealing its whole nature, and the tendency has been to have fewer lines and fewer words in larger type, in order to catch the eye more impressively. ”

“ The loss to the revenue is, however, far from being the most serious of the injuries inflicted on society by the high rates of postage. When it is considered how much the religious, moral, and intellectual progress of the people, would be accelerated by the unobstructed circulation of letters and of the many cheap and excellent non-political publications of the present day, the Post Office assumes the new and important character of a powerful engine of civilization ”

“ Let the papers be directed to the Postmaster-General, and have no political, but a mere local bearing, and make a map which will be plain, and if convenient let the men who vouch the facts be Whigs as well as Democrats. ”

“ The post-office has a great charm at one period of our lives. When you have lived to my age, you will begin to think letters are never worth going through the rain for.” ”

“ The Postmaster General of the United States, who, almost invariably, is a mere politician, is at the head of one of the greatest enterprises in the world, yet the mails go on. The men who sort letters must know their business. ”

“ But it is the old Evening Post still; a newspaper which, with a history one of the longest and richest in American journalism, has from generation to generation preserved the same sterling character. The objects of its conductors may be easily stated. They wish to keep it as public-spirited as the Evening Post of Hamilton and Coleman; as ardent in defense of democracy and the oppressed as the Evening Post of Leggett; as dignified, elevated, and fearless as the Evening Post of Bryant, Bigelow, and Godwin ”

“ Pitt. (The few, whose curiosity or fancy should lead them to turn over the Journals of that date, may find a small proof of this in the frequent charges made by the Morning Chronicle, that such and such essays or leading paragraphs had been sent from the Treasury.) The rapid and unusual increase in the sale of the Morning Post is a sufficient pledge, that genuine impartiality with a respectable portion of literary talent will secure the success of a newspaper without the aid of party or ministerial patronage. ”

“ It would like to have, of course, but it would not be fair to the business men who are paying ten thousand dollars a page to be advertised in it, for the Saturday Evening Post to let any other man—any man who is not dead yet, be advertised in it. ”

“ One essential qualification of a great editor, a masterful personality, was so distinctively possessed by Mr. Godkin that it may be doubted whether any other American daily since the Civil War has been so much the expression of a single mind and character as the Evening Post from 1883 to 1899. ”

“ Quite recently a machine of the kind has been introduced into the Bristol Post Office. The machine, which is of modern invention, goes by the name of the "Columbia" Cancelling Machine, and is manufactured by the Columbia Postal Supply Company, of Silver Creek, New York, U.S.A. It is said to be in use in many Post Offices in the large towns of America and other countries. The public will no doubt have noticed the new cancelling marks on the postage stamps, as the die and long horizontal lines are very striking. ”

“ The Civil War was the heroic age of American press enterprise, and while the Evening Post conducted a less extensive war establishment than the Herald, Tribune, or Times—the Herald spent $500,000 on its correspondence—Nordhoff saw that it maintained a creditable position. ”

“ That it is of high importance to the success of the Commerce, Manufactures, and Agriculture of this country, and to the promotion of civilization in every form, that communication by post should be swift, certain, and cheap. ”