Post office

“ 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. ”

“ It is not in human nature that the gentlemen of the Post Office should view your plan with friendly eyes. If they are good-natured persons, as I dare say they are, they will forgive you in time; but they have much to overlook. That a stranger should attempt to understand the arcana of our system of postage better than those whose duty it was to attain to such knowledge, was bad enough; that he should succeed, was still worse; but that he should persuade the country and the Parliament that he had succeeded is an offence very difficult to pardon. ”

“ 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. ”

“ How the Post Office Department Helps the Farmer
Of all the great Executive Departments, the Post Office comes closest to the people and is of particular interest to the farmer living away from the great avenues of postal service supply. The Postmaster General, from his service in Congress, where the needs of the farmer are known, coupled with the opportunities of his present position, was able to render him a great service, and that he has done so, that his administration has shown his successful efforts in this direction cannot be questioned nor denied. ”

“ Post Office servants often point with pride to what their Department has achieved, but the truth must be told, and it is that the credit cannot be claimed by the officials. We might almost say that, as far as the Department is concerned, the increase is mostly unearned increment. The increase in population, and especially the advance in the means of communication, are the two chief causes; it is the people who have made the Post Office, not the officials. ”

“ The Post Office has too generally lagged behind other institutions in the progress of improvement, instead of being, as it might be, an example to the country of skilful and energetic management. Previously to the improvements of Mr. Palmer, the mail was about twice as long in proceeding from town to town as the stage-coaches. Mr. Palmer's improvements brought up the Post Office to an equality with other commercial institutions of his day, and, as stated by the Commissioners, led to an enormous increase of revenue. ”

“ Even where the population is stationary, there is increase: the post office is more in request by the inhabitants. Rarely, indeed, is there a tale to tell of decline. There is one curious instance in recent years of a Head Office being reduced to the rank of a sub-office on account of bad times, and it is curious because the explanation lies back in the mail coaching days. ”

“ Stop the supplies and every post office in the country will feel the effect very quickly. Nothing is too small or insignificant to be supplied by the Stores. If a department wants a packet of pins it applies to the Stores: if it requires a safe or a telegraph pole the Stores will supply the article. If an official requires a uniform the Stores will fit him as well as a West End tailor. The business done is colossal; the figures of the Stores Department are in some respects the most interesting in the Post Office. ”

“ The Act sets forth that "Experience having shown that the settling a Post Office is the best means to maintain trade, convey dispatches, and discover dangerous designs, it is enacted that there shall be but one Post Office, and one Postmaster-General and Controller to settle Posts, who shall carry all [Pg 236] letters except those sent by known carriers, or merchants' letters of advice sent by ship-masters; also, except private letters sent by messengers. He is to have the horsing of all who ride by post." ”

“ 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. ”

“ But the true explanation lies often in the birth-rate or in the opening of a new railway, and the Post Office reaps what others have sown. And there have been times when the Post Office administrator, proud of what he has done and what his Department is doing, has tried to say “Thus far shalt thou go and no further” to the reformers. “Why not remain satisfied with the perfection I have been the humble means of securing?” The official mind usually requires some driving force from outside before it can see the necessity for another advance. ”

“ 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 301become one. ”

“ The Post Office is always delighted to hear of its difficulties being adjusted by the complainants themselves: it can rarely speak out its own mind to the obtuse, the ignorant, and the careless. And it is not the uneducated folk who give the most trouble. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Work who had direct supervision of the 52,000 post-offices and more than two-thirds of all postal workers. By persistent efforts to build up the spirit of the great army of postal workers and bring the public and the post-office into closer contact and more intimate relationship, the postal system has been placed at last on a footing of service to the public. ”

“ There are too many officials in the public service who resemble this bishop: the influence of “the system” on their official characters has been to develop in them a sort of consciousness of caste. But I have written this story of the Post Office in vain if I have not brought out clearly the human side of the Department, and if I have not shown that, although it is in appearance and working a huge machine, yet the human factor counts in the highest as well as the lowest duties of the Service. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ In these cities all the transportation of mail between the railroad stations and the post offices as well as in the collection and delivery services is performed by automobiles owned by the Post Office Department itself. ”

“ The term 'branch post office,' within the meaning of the act, includes every place within such office where letters are kept in the regular course of business, for reception, stamping, assorting, or delivery. Of course, a letter thrown upon the floor, or laid upon a desk appropriated to other and different purposes, could not be said to have been deposited in the post office ”

“ Still the public ought clearly to understand that such services are not included in a postmaster's duties, and the inquiries might as reasonably be addressed to the Chief of the Fire Brigade or the Lord-Lieutenant of the county. But perhaps these gentlemen already receive their share of miscellaneous attention.
There are people who think that in a huge undertaking like the Post Office, which works largely by routine, personalities don't count for much. There are others who think that by minute organisation the success of a system can be guaranteed. ”

“ Officers and men alike were always alert in the discharge of their duties, and their courtesy was unfailing. No trouble was ever too great for them to take: their sole concern was that those longed-for letters from home might reach the expectant owners as quickly as possible. At Modder River the post office was a miserable room in which you could not have swung your arm, much less your arm and a cat, but in that wretched apartment the heroes of the Postal Corps kept cheerfully to their work with unflagging zeal. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In 1819, a steamer was put on the Upper Ottawa, running between the head of the Long Sault and Hull, and the Duke of Richmond appealed to Sutherland to open post offices on the river route. The deputy postmaster general at first demurred on the ground of expense, but he withdrew his objections on a guarantee being given by a number of gentlemen interested in the district, that the post office should be saved against any loss which might ensue. ”

“ The committee, in its Report, referred especially to my evidence, and, in the main, adopted my view, expressing an opinion “that the companies should afford to the Post Office, at the same charge as would be paid by private individuals for similar services, every assistance which might add to the convenience of the public. [230] They think that no railway should have any claim to be considered as fulfilling its obligations to the district in which it is situate which fails to facilitate in this way the postal communications of that district.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ In most towns there is a time in every day at which the work in the post office is light, as also a delivery at which the amount of letters, &c., might be considerably increased without inconvenience, and circulars so posted as best to suit these opportunities, provided always they came in sufficient numbers and were taken to the head office, might reasonably be dealt with on lower terms, perhaps at half the present rate. ”

“ England, France and Germany antedate us in the establishment of rural delivery, but the service there is bureaucratic, originating always with the post office officials and dominated by red tape requirements. Ours is democratic and cooperative. It is established upon petitions sent through Representatives in Congress, irrespective of party affiliation. However, any application received from a postmaster, or individual, showing reasonable warrant for the establishment of a rural route in any community will be given careful consideration by the Department. ”

“ In 1787, as soon as they had become fairly established, they petitioned the government for the extension of the post office into the new districts, and two years later post offices were opened at Lachine, Cedars, Coteau du Lac, Charlottenburg, Cornwall, New Johnston, Lancaster, Osnabruck, Augusta, Elizabethtown and Kingston. [142]
This was as far as the regular mail couriers ran. Trips were made once a year during the winter, and in summer, every opportunity afforded by vessels going up to lake Ontario, was taken advantage of for the despatch of mails. ”