Postal address

“ Let the Direction be written very plain; this will save the postman trouble, and facilitate business by preventing mistakes.
226. Postal District
If the Address be in London add the letters of the postal district in which it happens to be, for this also saves trouble in the General Post Office. Thus in writing to the publishers of "Enquire Within," whose house of business is in the East Central (E.C.) postal district, address your letter to Messrs. Houlston and Sons, Paternoster Square, London, E.C.
227. ”

“ This is only one way in which you can be independent of the ordinary mail service. I suspect that many persons who have not a Postal Guide in their possession are ignorant of the fact that a letter weighing 4 oz. may be handed in at a passenger station for immediate transmission by railway. This is a convenience to many people who have lost the post and are near a railway station. Then you can use the telephone to speed up your mail service. You can telephone a letter to a post office, and it will be taken down in writing there and despatched by express delivery. ”

“ All such parcels have to be examined at comparative leisure, and the public would be surprised to learn what a large amount of time is spent by the Post Office in making good the many defects and shortcomings in addresses on parcels and other postal packets. The Parcel Post comes in for many kicks from the public, but in justice it must be said that the officials spare no pains to trace the proper 91addresses of parcels. They exercise, too, great ingenuity in the task, and books of reference are in constant use. ”

“ Even in our great cities they have no regular daily courses, save in a few business districts. If the ordinary city resident would dispatch a parcel by express, he must go after an express wagon on foot or by telephone. The post-man—our public expressman—comes to our doors one, two, three, four times a day, or oftener. We have but to substitute a machine post for our overburdened foot post and, with a perfected system of collection and delivery of insured parcels at reasonable rates, we shall have a postal express at hand, ready and competent to do our bidding on our own terms and conditions. ”

“ The third is where a letter or parcel is addressed to a patron at a post office giving the route number and the number of the patron’s box. The fourth system is where mail is addressed to the patron at an office giving the section and township where the patron lives. This latter system is used by the railroads relative to freight and express matter and definitely locates a person in any part of the United States. The addition of the rural route number and box makes the most complete designation possible. ”

“ The classified [Pg 47] or carrier stations are practically complete post-offices, so far as the public is concerned, affording full facilities for the sale of stamps, money-orders, postal savings, registration of mail, acceptance of parcel post, the distribution of mail, etc., and for the delivery and collection of mail by carriers. The financial stations afford all the conveniences mentioned for the benefit of the public, except that they do not make delivery of mail nor effect its distribution. ”

“ Many persons are in the habit of addressing letters and circulars for firms and individuals, simply, “Philadelphia,” “New York,” &c. This practice not unfrequently occasions delay in such letters reaching their rightful owners. In all cases, however well the firm may be known, it is most essential, to insure their correct delivery, that the street or locality in which they reside, and the number of the house, should form a portion of the address. ”

“ When the mails are ready, they are sent from the Post-Office in various ways. Those for one or two country roads are sent to a local railway station, and taken in charge by the railway guard, who drops the bags at the different points on the line according to their address; others are carried by mail gigs under one or more private contractors, while the rest are taken [Pg 237] by country-walking postmen, who make certain journeys during the day, returning in the evening with the letters and bags they have gathered during their travels. ”

“ The habit of purchasing by mail is rapidly assuming enormous proportions in this country, and the custom has been catered to, in such a manner, that the ranchman on the plains may wear a latest style metropolitan custom-made suit, while his daughters may equip herself a la Fifth Avenue—all by inspection of a catalogue, a postal money order and a letter. ”

“ Perceiving that residence at Brighton, and therefore custom to the railway, would be increased by every addition to postal facilities between that town and the metropolis, I induced the directors to make an offer to the Post Office for the conveyance of a mail by every train without any additional expense to that department. ”

“ Indeed, it is somewhat doubtful whether it could be material at all in view of section 5468, declaring that the fact that any letter, etc., has been deposited in any post office or branch post office, or in charge of any agent of the postal service, shall be evidence that the same was 'intended to be conveyed by mail,' within the meaning of section 5467. ”

“ The postal system is a despair, the couriers lounging idly along the road, taking often a week to go 200 miles, while postmasters take letters from the mail when they please, and are the tools of the Government. ”

“ Letters for the different departments of the Government in London may be prepaid, or otherwise, at the option of the sender. [Pg 325] Letters addressed by the public to the district surveyors of the Post-Office, on postal business, may also be sent without postage, though all letters addressed to local postmasters should be prepaid by stamps. It is absolutely forbidden that information respecting letters passing through the Post-Office should be given to any persons except those to whom such letters are addressed. ”

“ In spite of the increase in the number of post offices there were still in 1880 as many as 19 million people, the greater half of the whole nation, and 17,000 localities, outside the limits of the postal service. ”

“ Postal cards are likewise a relief to that large class of persons who by sealed envelope are roused to inquisitiveness. As such a closed letter lies on the mantel-piece unopened, they wonder whom it is from, and what is in it, and they hold it up between them and the light to see what are the indications, and stand close by and look over your shoulder while you read it, and decipher from your looks whether it is a love-letter or a dun. The postal card is immediate relief to them, for they can read for themselves, and can pick up information on various subjects free of charge. ”

“ Postmasters and their assistants in the above matter, as well as in all their official intercourse with the public, are expected to afford every accommodation, and to treat every person having business at their offices with every courtesy.
Mail couriers to receive letters en route.
Mail couriers are bound to receive letters offered to them whilst on the road between one post office and another, provided that when a letter is so offered the distance from the nearest post office exceeds one mile. Such letters are termed Way Letters, and are subject to the ordinary rates of postage. ”

“ In these days, when postal facilities have so enormously extended, and cheap and rapid communication by letter has become so completely a part of our everyday life, like the air we breathe or the water we drink, few persons ever trouble themselves to think how it would be possible to exist without them; and those who are not old enough to remember the former state of things, under a postal system which the authorities at St. Martin's-le-Grand of that day regarded as almost a marvel of perfection, can hardly picture to themselves the inconvenience to which the public had then to submit. ”

“ The need for a more general understanding of the purpose of the postal establishment, its internal workings and the problems of operation, is paramount if it is to afford the ultimate service which it is prepared to render. ”

“ The mail was dispatched in wagons from the main post office at Knoxville to the office of a mail transfer clerk at the railway station, the wagons being operated by persons having contracts for the purpose with the United States postal authorities. For claimant's convenience, the post office authorities consented that its newspapers might be weighed, for mailing, at the railway station instead of at the post office; claimant furnishing scales for the purpose. ”

“ This system, which was suggested by the celebrated Rowland Hill, originated at a period in English postal history when the requirements of trade and commerce demanded a revisal of the code. Perhaps no man was better qualified for the purpose than was Mr. Hill. In 1839 railroad post-offices were in use for mail-bags. Each railway company provided a car, when desired to do so by the postmaster-general, for the exclusive use of the mails. These cars were fitted up with boxes to facilitate the distribution and reception of the mails. ”

“ It is stated that over 54,000 neighborhoods are under the present system receiving mail at post-offices where money orders and postal notes are not issued. The extension of this system to these communities is especially desirable, as the patrons of such offices are not possessed of the other facilities offered in more populous communities for the transmission of small sums of money. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Mail bags, parcel post receptacles, official bicycles, and telegraph instruments are supplied in large quantities. Over 11,000 bicycles, carriers, and trailers are in use throughout the Kingdom, and the mileage covered by them amounts to 150 million miles per year.
Miscellaneous postal stores, such as stamps, seals, scales, weights, telegraph paper, string, sealing-wax, are purchased by the Stores for the Post Office. Printed matter, pens, ink, paper, and office requisites, 202though stocked and distributed by the Stores, are supplied by the Stationery Office, Whitehall. ”

“ The postal system, one of the most powerful organs which modern civilisation has placed at the command of Government, has, mainly under the auspices and by the agency of Sir Rowland Hill, been, within the last quarter of a century, not merely improved, but transformed. ”

“ In any case, a postal service should be limited to parcels of moderate size and weight, because the Post Office, as at present organized, is for the most part adapted to the handling of packets which can be delivered by foot-messengers. In rural [Pg 332] districts this is almost universally the rule. [666] It is frequently necessary in the towns to separate entirely the parcel post traffic from the ordinary light letter post traffic (except in those parts of the service where the parcel post traffic is very restricted) , to provide a separate staff, and to furnish different equipment. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is not just that the farmer, who receives his mail at a neighboring town, should not only be compelled to send to the post-office for it, but to pay a considerable rent for a box in which to place it or to wait his turn at a general-delivery window, while the city resident has his mail brought to his door. ”

“ The rural carriers, for instance, must be familiar with the regulations that cover the delivery of mail, registration of letters, taking applications for money-orders, sale of stamps, supplies, etc., but the inspector must also know all of these and also be able to determine when the establishment of a route is warranted, to lay out and fix the schedules and prepare a map and description of the route, also measure the routes if the length is in dispute, inspect the service, ascertain whether it is properly performed, and give necessary instructions to the carriers and postmasters. ”

“ The Post Office Department requires the railroad company to take the mail from the post office wherever the office is within 80 rods of the depot, and the company has an agent, and in many cases to perform the terminal service regardless of the distance between the post office and the station. ”

“ One more point on the subject of postal conveyance by railway. It shall be the last.
The Post Office discharges three functions in connection with letters and other postal documents. They are, collection, transmission, and delivery. The first and last are performed by Post Office servants; transmission, except for certain portions of foot rural transport, is invariably by contract. It is transmission alone that makes a letter of value as a means of intercommunication between persons residing, or situated, more or less distantly from one another. ”

“ ON OLD ROADS AND SLOW COACHES.
If we seem in this chapter to make a divergence from the stream of postal history, it is only to make passing reference to the tributaries which helped to feed the main stream. The condition of the roads, and no less the modes of travelling, bore a most intimate relationship, at all the points in its history, to the development of the post-office system and its communications throughout the kingdom. The seventeenth century, as we have seen, was eventful in important postal improvements ”