Postal system

“ 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. ”

“ Neale, at his own cost, was to establish a postal system, comprising a general post office at a place agreed upon, and one or more subordinate offices in each county. Couriers were to be available to take letters anywhere within the colony—without postage if on public business, at rates fixed by the colony if they were private letters. But no person need employ the post office, should any other more convenient or cheaper mode of conveyance offer itself. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To establish post offices and post roads is the form of the grant; to create and regulate the entire postal system of the Government is the evident intent.”45
It is possible partially to explain the specific negativing of the power to cut canals on the ground that there was no limitation to those cases in which the construction would have been an aid to interstate commerce or the transportation of the mails. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Even in our early days, however, necessity being the mother of conception as well as of invention, my father, while testifying great admiration for the postal system generally, had repeatedly expressed the opinion that, even for fiscal purposes, postage was unwisely high, an opinion which in all probability tended to draw my attention to postal affairs. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A few weeks after his acceptance of office, and at Mr Baring's suggestion, he visited Paris to inspect the postal system there. He found it in many respects well ahead of our own. In France the old system never weighed so heavily upon the people as did our own old system upon us. The charges were [Pg 156] about two-thirds of our own for corresponding distances, but the number of a letter's enclosures was not taken into consideration, the postage varying according to weight. Though Paris was much smaller than London, its post offices were more numerous than ours, being 246 against our 237. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ Among the railroads upon which these cars are placed are the Pennsylvania Central, between Philadelphia and Pittsburg: in fact, the system is now so fully established that it has become an essential element in the whole organization of the postal department. Those employed in the several post-offices from which the light of order radiates, under this new system, can fully appreciate the advantages resulting from it, as merchants and others already acknowledge
“This radiated head of the Phœnix,”
as it rises above the ashes of the old fogy system. ”

“ Palmer, who afterwards became Controller-General of the Post-Office, proposed that mail-bags should be sent by passenger-coaches with trusty and armed guards. His advice, after some opposition, was acted on, and thus the mails came to travel six miles an hour, instead of three or four—the result being an immediate increase of correspondence, despite an increase of postage. Rapidity, security, regularity, economy, are the great requisites in a healthy postal system. ”

“ The consequences of this postal reform are marvelous to think of. The year before the new plan was adopted in Great Britain, one hundred and six millions of letters and papers were sent through the post-office. Year before last the number was one thousand four hundred and seventy-eight millions. In other words, the average number of letters per inhabitant has increased from three per annum to thirty-two. The United States, which ought to have taken the lead in this matter, was not slow to follow, and every civilized country has since adopted the system. ”

“ 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 use of travelling post offices, with mail clerks assorting and distributing the mails from the railways in the course of their trips, was an early feature of the postal service in Canada. This mode of utilizing the railways had been in operation in England since 1838, and before the leading railways in Canada were completed, an officer of the post office department was sent to England to study the system. Thus, by 1857, this system, which is the leading feature of mail conveyance and distribution, was in full course in this country seven years earlier than in the United States. ”

“ From 1827 he memorialised the post office for a system of inland penny postage, together with a proportionate reduction (to 3d. per ounce) for ocean postage, a subject on which he corresponded with Elihu Burritt and other American philanthropists. In 1851 he advocated a reduction in the postage of printed matter, and his persistent efforts at postal reform were recognised in 1883, when a testimonial of 400l., towards which the government contributed 50l., was presented to him. ”

“ It is estimated that the delivery division effects the delivery daily through the carriers assigned to the general office and to the various stations of approximately 5,000,000 letters, cards, and circulars, 800,000 papers, periodicals, and pieces of printed matter and small parcel-post packages, and 65,000 bulky parcel-post packages, or, in all, close to 6,000,000 pieces of mail of all classes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The control of the service in districts served by railway rests entirely in the hands of the railway companies. The postal administration takes no part directly in its management, but co-operates with the companies by affording certain small facilities in regard to parcels. For example, on payment of the usual delivery fee of 25 centimes a parcel may be delivered from the railway station to the local post office, where it will be retained in the poste restante. In districts not reached by the railway or their agents, the management of the service falls on the postal administration. ”

“ In Paris, at the present time, there is a completely separate indoor and outdoor staff for the newspapers and packets.
[668] It is only necessary to glance into a van containing railway parcels in order to realize how impossible it would be to apply to such packages the usual postal method of enclosure in sacks; and conveyance à découvert by railway companies on behalf of the Post Office would give rise to obvious practical difficulties. ”

“ Parcel mails are in the international service frequently denied the privilege of rapid transmission accorded to letter mails. [658] The developments of the present war have emphasized the essential distinction to be drawn between communications on the one hand, and packages of goods sent by parcel post on the other.
The general basis of postal rates is naturally affected in some degree by the fact that the Post Office is a State undertaking, and the propriety of Government control deserves [Pg 329] consideration. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On this route we can bring out clearly the fact that in many parts of Great Britain and Ireland the Post Office, in spite of mail trains and ingenious mechanical contrivances, is still dependent on quite primitive means for conducting its business. Moreover, directly we get away from the main lines of traffic, considerations of weather still affect postal operations almost as much as they used to do in the old coaching days. Let us address a letter to the Muckle Flugga Lighthouse, which is situated to the north of the island of Unst in Shetland. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”