Post house

“ The committee of 1829, after affirming the illegality of the existing system and declaring that the surplus revenue which was sent annually to Great Britain, was the result of starving the service, recommended the establishment of a provincial post office, subject to the legislatures. Post routes should be opened to every court house, and the charges on letters and newspapers conveyed by steamboats should not exceed twopence and one farthing each respectively. ”

“ He was a member of the committee of the house of commons which was appointed in 1837 to examine the proposition of Rowland Hill for penny postage.
As Hill's scheme involved an entire change in post office methods, the modus operandi at that time pursued was thoroughly set out to the committee, its weaknesses exposed, and the merits of the new proposition fully discussed. No observant man could attend the work of that committee without gaining definite views as to the principles upon which a post office should be conducted. ”

“ The Postmaster-General has to defend the policy and conduct of his Department in Parliament, 262and he has to pilot through the House in which he may be sitting all measures relating to the Post Office. He has magnificent opportunities, and as he is the largest employer of labour in the country, his policy on all industrial and working-class questions is a matter of national concern.
We often hear the question asked, “Does a change of Postmaster-General make any difference to the Post Office?” A change certainly makes sometimes a great difference to the staff. ”

“ In the Foreign Department with thirty-five men, there were only 250 superficial feet where they must perform their duties. The accommodations for receiving letters were so inadequate that when a foreign mail was being made up, the windows were crowded with an impatient and seething mob waiting for their turn to post their letters. The condition of the Penny Post Department was no better. In 1814 a committee of the House of Commons reported that a new General Post Office building was absolutely necessary. ”

“ Maitland's letter, which bears all the marks of having been written by the attorney general, Beverly Robinson, is a capital illustration of the vicious circle of deception sometimes practised by persons having a common purpose with reference to a scheme. The official class in York, as well as the secretary of the general post office, desired to defeat the wishes of the house of assembly respecting the post office, the family compact group, because any victory gained by the house threatened the privileges enjoyed by that class ”

“ Hill discovered, by a study of the postal statistics laid before the house of commons, that in consequence of the great volume of correspondence exchanged, the comparatively short distances letters were as a rule carried, and the highly developed system of transportation, the average cost of carrying a letter in the United Kingdom did not exceed one farthing. A sum equally small covered the expenses of administration and the maintenance of post offices. ”

“ The bar-room is at once the exchange, where hundreds of bargains are made under the influence of a glass of whiskey or gin, and the club-room, which resounds with political debate, and is the theatre of preparations for civil and military elections. At about the same time a post-office is established; at first the landlord commonly exercising the functions of postmaster. As soon as there are any dwelling-houses built, a church or meeting-house is erected at the charge of the rising community ”

“ The council (March 27, 1693) was of the opinion [51] that a post was necessary, and that there should be an allowance per letter, according to other places in like circumstances, proportionate to the distance from Boston, “Every one to pay for his own Lettr.” A record [52] in the “Journal of the Council and Assembly” of July 29, - 16 - 1693, says: “Maj. Vaughan and Mr. Waldron were appointed to prepare and drawe up a Bill for settling a Post Office in this Province,” and on the fourth of August the council concurred with the bill which had been passed by the lower house. ”

“ Next to this house was a post office, not an ordinary post office where stamps could be bought, but a harum-scarum place, full of postmen running up and down and emptying bags and hammering on letters and talking very loudly and very quickly. By this office Carlington Road made an abrupt rectangular turn past a tumble-down tarred fence, through whose interstices could be seen a shadowy garden full of very long pale grass and of trees with jet-black trunks. ”

“ In the evidence given by Franklin before the British House of Commons in the year 1766, in regard to the extent of the post office accommodation in North America, he made the following statement:—
"The posts generally travel along the sea coasts, and only in a few cases do they go back into the country. Between Quebec and Montreal there is only one post per month. The inhabitants live so scattered and remote from each other in that vast country that the posts cannot be supported amongst them. The English colonies, too, along the frontier are very thinly settled." ”

“ To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 561 Kingsland Avenue in University City, Missouri,
as the `Harriett F. Woods Post Office Building’.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. HARRIETT F. WOODS POST OFFICE BUILDING. (a) Designation.— The facility of the United States Postal Service located at 561 Kingsland Avenue in University City, Missouri, shall be known and designated as the `Harriett F. Woods Post Office Building’. ”

“ There are any number of people who dress well, and in every way appear well, but a lack of breeding is apparent as soon as you go into their houses. Their servants have not good manners, they are not properly turned out, the service is not well done, and the decorations and furnishings show lack of taste and inviting arrangement.
The personality of a house is indefinable, but there never lived a lady of great cultivation and charm whose home, whether a palace, a farm-cottage or a tiny apartment, did not reflect the charm of its owner. Every visitor feels impelled to linger, and is loath to go. ”

“ The other reason we love to visit a certain house is, on the contrary, entirely personal to the host or hostess. We love the house because we love its owner. Nowhere do we feel so much at home, and though it may have none of the imposing magnificence of the great house, it is often far more charming.
Five flunkeys can not do more towards a guest's comfort than to take his hat and stick and to show him the way to the drawing-room. ”

“ A gem of a house may be no size at all, but its lines are honest, and its painting and window curtains in good taste. As for its upkeep, its path or sidewalk is beautifully neat, steps scrubbed, brasses polished, and its bell answered promptly by a trim maid with a low voice and quiet courteous manner ”

“ As soon as the road was declared fit for travel post houses were placed upon it at intervals of about nine miles, and ferries were established for transportation across the broader rivers which crossed the road.
But although no regular postal system was in operation during the French regime, an arrangement existed from an early period, by which the letters of the governor and intendant were carried by an appointed messenger, who was permitted to take with him, [Pg 42] in addition to the official letters, any that might be entrusted to him by private persons. ”

“ When some one with real sympathy in his heart has taken the trouble to select and send flowers, or has gone to the house and offered what service he might, or has in a spirit of genuine regard, written a personal letter, the receipt of words composed by a stationer and dispatched by a professional secretary is exactly as though his outstretched hand had been pushed aside. ”

“ The cart stopped before the cane house of the intendente and that functionary rolled lazily from his hammock and signed a paper; the half-breed roused himself from the corrugated floor of split palm logs, and disappeared in the jungle paths of the scattered settlement to gather his crew, and by that I knew that at last my time for embarking on the muddy, swirling current of the Rio Beni had arrived. ”

“ The fact that you live in a house with two servants, or in an apartment with only one, need not imply that your house lacks charm or even distinction, or that it is not completely the home of a lady or gentleman. ”

“ The success of the meeting from the first moment was beyond all expectation. If any had fears that the men would be too suspicious of attending a gathering of this kind within the precincts of the building, and under the shadow of the department, they were mistaken. Almost directly the despatches were finished, and the duty done with for the night, they swarmed in from every part. From every other branch in the building—for the General Post-Office is a nest of branches, like a Chinese puzzle-box—and from outside offices they swarmed up the stairs and through every means of entry. ”

“ But as they neared the mining district the soil was bleak and barren. The mountain rivers were dry, and their beds made yawning gaps as though the earth had violently shuddered at her own desolation.
At last, about noon, they came to the village of Vencata Minore, which stood in a little plain of green. The house of Donna Marcella was set on a slight eminence and, compared with the surrounding habitations, was quite pretentious. It was kalsomined white, had a courtyard of its own, and back of it was a little fruit and flower garden. Donna Marcella was a buxom, thrifty, and dominating woman. ”

“ Heavens! but she is a disagreeable person!"
"She has reason for looking disagreeable," announced the Contessa Zoya with a meaning laugh; but more she would not say.
Giovanni leaned over Nina's chair. "Do you find the Romans attractive? How does our opera compare with that of New York?"
"The house seems made of cardboard," Nina answered. "I never thought our opera houses especially wonderful——"
"No?" Giovanni rallied her. "Is it possible that you have anything in America that is not the most wonderful in the world! I am sure you will say your opera house is bigger! And richer! ”

“ There are a few edifices of more pretension and of modern build, but not so strikingly as to put the rest out of countenance. The Post Office, when we found it, proved to be an ivied cottage, with a good deal of shrubbery round it, having its own pathway, like the other cottages. The whole looks like a real seclusion, shut out from the great world by those encircling hills, on the sides of which, whenever they are not too steep, you see the division lines of property and tokens of cultivation—taking from them their pretensions of savage majesty, but bringing them nearer to the heart of man. ”

“ Never in the recollection of any one now living has it been so easy to surround oneself with lovely belongings. Each year's achievement seems to stride away from that of the year before in producing woodwork, ironwork, glass, stone, print, paint and textile that is lovelier and lovelier. One can not go into the shops or pass their windows on the streets without being impressed with the ever-growing taste of their display. Nor can one look into the magazines devoted to gardens and houses and house-furnishings and fail to appreciate the increasing wealth of the beautiful in environment. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Then there was the fascination of the great high-way—the thin white line, sometimes straight, sometimes winding—which was human and alive in a way that a railway track can never be. Men were not then simply driven or shot into places; they drove through places; and they touched life at every point of the road.
The Post Office is, however, not administered by poets and artists, but by men of the type of Thomas Hasker. And to men like him the coming of the mail train was a matter for official rejoicing. ”

“ Instead of spending your every waking moment in electric-lighted restaurants and gambling rooms, you live in the sunshine, and in the open. Every house, nearly, has its patio or open court, [200] and no matter what your occupation may be, you seldom go indoors. ”

“ It happens from time to time that, owing to the stream of postal communications having been diverted from the old mail-road to a line of railway, or from other causes of like nature, it becomes desirable to reduce the post-office of a town from the condition of a principal office to that of a sub-office. This step not unfrequently gives rise to complaints, the inhabitants being under the impression that they will not in future be so well served. ”

“ It is, I think, undoubtedly true that the amount of accommodation given by the Post-Office of the States is small, as compared with that afforded in some other countries, and that that accommodation is lessened by delays and uncertainty.... Here in England, it is the object of our Post-Office to carry the bulk of our letters at night, to deliver them as early as possible in the morning, and to collect them and take them away for despatch as late as may be in the day; so that the merchant may receive his letters before the beginning of his day's business, and despatch them after its close. ”