L E GRAND TOME SECOND. IDe.. 1893 THE FOLDI-PEZZOLI COLLECTION AT MILAN 993 Their action is distinguished by great spirit, and their forms are well drawn, though rather coarsely painted. In the background is a blue sky crossed by bars of white cloud. On the base of the throne is this inscription : EX DEO EST CHAKITAS ET IPSA DEUS EST. Although Italian pictures form the chief attraction of this Oallery, it includes a few early Flemish and Grerman works of no mean excellence. Among these, the most important is an altar- piece in the Sola Neva (23). It is divided into five compartments. The central panel is occupied by a picture of the Annunciation. In the side compartments on the right hand are painted St. Oregory and Anthony the Abbot, St. Anthony of Padua, and St. John the Baptist. In those on the left appear the two St. Catherines, St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Jerome. It will be observed that the design of this interesting work is far better than its execution, and some allowance must be made for the restorer’s brush. But the character of the details and the delicate handling of the landscape background—to say nothing of the unrepaired cracks, or rather open joints (of which there are two extending down the whole length of the picture)—are presumptive evidence of genuineness. The draperies are quite in accordance with the taste of early Flemish art, brilliant in colour, crisp and somewhat ‘ papery ’ in fold, but care¬ fully studied. The faces are not remarkable for physical beauty, but realise strong individuality of expression. This necessarily condensed description of the principal pictures in the Poldi-Pezzoli collection has been based on notes made during a recent visit to Milan. Perhaps even a brief record of its attractions may induce other English travellers to devote a spare morning to the examination of an interesting, but rarely frequented. Gallery. Chaeles L. Eastlake. 994 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June POST OFFICE ^PLUNDERING AND BLUNDERING^ Six years ago I published in the Times a list of sixty postal reforms and grievances, and since that period no less than thirty-seven of these have been carried out or remedied. It may be worth while to continue this process of purging the postal administration of its failings ; and I therefore propose to make public a series of arbitrary decisions by the postal authorities, expound¬ ing and enforcing the regulations in the Post Office Guide. These regulations, tolerably severe in the original text, are made infinitely more oppressive by the official interpretation of them. In the hands of the Secretary to the Post Office and his staff they are as elastic and full of traps as were the statutes against Dissenters in the hands of Lord Jeffreys and his bench of Justices. Perhaps the most distin¬ guishing characteristic of the decisions alluded to is their consistent meanness towards the public, which is even more striking than the ingenuity displayed in whittling down every postal privilege to an irreducible minimum, and hampering every branch of the service with provisoes, vetoes, warnings, and conditions that may trip up the unwary purchaser of a stamp. If a man would travel by railway he buys a ticket, takes his seat, and is smoothly whirled away to his destination; but if he would have a letter, newspaper, or parcel transmitted it must be weighed, classified, inscribed with certain particulars, tied up, or left unfastened in a special fashion, and so forth, in accordance with some thirty or forty pages of rules (in small print), not one word of which can be ignored without imminent risk of fine and confiscation. The web of petty ordinances spun by the official spiders at St. Martin’s-le-Grrand is marvellous for tenuity and symmetry, but it is ill calculated to withstand the broom of reform. We are above all things a business people : we pay handsomely for our post office; we look to have the service made as cheap, efficient, and accessible as possible. Hence it continually happens that some indignant Briton, smarting under the scourge of one or other of the innumerable ‘regulations,’ remon¬ strates with the local postmaster, who, blandly indexible, makes the unhappy complainant feel that he is regarded very much as a refrac- 1893 POST OFFICE ‘PLUNDERING (& BLUNDERING^ 995 i CP 0 o % tory tramp in a casual ward. As a rule the sufferer’s wrath finds harmless vent in a naughty word or two ; but sometimes he is weak enough not to know when he is beaten, and he ‘ writes to the Secre¬ tary.’ Such a rash man is then tantalised with dilatory official circulars until he insists on a categorical reply. Upon this his attention is called to one of the regulations, which is quoted for his information, and the local postmaster is pronounced to have done no more than his duty. In a recent article Sir Arthur Blackwood wrote that ‘ the British public, seen through Post Office spectacles, is a mean public; ’ and> after loftily ‘ referring to the fact that he and his colleagues are ‘ officers of the Crown,’ he mentions, incidentally, that ‘ the Secretary receives a lot of complaints,’ reprimands the complainants for being dissatisfied with ‘ the usual stereotyped answer that it shall receive consideration,’ but finally, in a burst of candour, observes, ‘ I do not say that we are by any means immaculate, or incapable of improve¬ ment.’ At first sight it may appear strange that the public, after paying the department so lavishly that the latter nets an annual profit of between 3,000,000^. and 4,000,000^., should be accused of shabbiness. The explanation lies in the fact that the officials and the public look upon the service from opposite points of view. The unsophisticated taxpayer, as already pointed out, regards it as an organisation which he pays to perform certain work for him. The Secretary appears to think that the Post Office still exists by virtue of the royal prerogative, and poses rather as a benevolent despot than a dutiful retainer. It is easy to understand the feehngs of such a magnate when ‘ a lot of complaints ’ come pouring daily into his office from aggrieved outsiders, who pooh-pooh the prerogative, and, not content with such privileges as are graciously conceded to them in the Post Office Guide, actually have the audacity to ‘ ask for more.’ Such conduct he can only stigmatise collectively as ‘ meanness, ’ and his customary repHes to such canaille are worthy of the Grrand Monarque in his palmiest days. A large number of these snubbed and baffled petitioners have in the last resort brought their grievances to my notice, in the hope^ perhaps, that the machinery of Parliament might be made available. It will probably be sufficient, however, to direct pubhc attention to a few of these complaints, with a view of discovering on which side the ‘ meanness ’ hes. I propose to select a few representative cases from letters which I have received during the last month or two. Let us first take the refusal of the postal authorities to transmit duplicates or imitations of type-writing at the book-post rate. As is weU known, it is possible to print off in a few hours, by Hthography, or the mimeograph, a large number of copies of any type-written 996 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June document. The Post Office refuses to carry these copies at the halt- penny rate, on the ground that it cannot distinguish them from original type-written letters. I have laid before the department a plan for protecting the revenue against any such fraud, but of course in vain. My correspondent writes— The Edison Mimeograph Company, London, E.C. By the regulations of the Post Office, handwriting on the mimeograph will go by book rate, but the imitation of the type-writing the authorities refuse to pass. I think that the time has now arrived, seeing that the type-writer is getting so much used, when the authorities could well undertake to distinguish between matter written on a type-writer and matter duplicated by either the printing press or the mimeograph. Any intelligent lad can distinguish one from the other. If an absolute safeguard be required, the Post Office authorities have only to require that the copies shall be fastened together, to facilitate com¬ parison. Again, I have long urged the department to permit the transmis¬ sion through the post of any card whatever of the regulation size, bearing an adhesive halfpenny stamp. By adopting this plan the Post Office would save many thousands a year, since they would be free from the necessity of providing the material of post cards, the manufacture of which costs 283^. per million. The halfpenny stamps only cost 161, a million. I may next give a typical instance of what I may call (borrowing from Sir A. Blackwood’s vocabulary) ‘ Post Office meanness.’ Our postal authorities, not content with an annual profit exceeding 3,000,000^., have contrived to turn an honest penny by clipping the post cards which they supply for transmission to foreign countries. To clip a post card—the poor man’s only vehicle of communication with his friends in the colonies—is to my mind hardly less hateful than to clip the coin of the realm. The British post card is sold to us (or was until lately, I am told) composed of 22J- per cent, of clay; and it is at once the smallest and dearest sold in the Postal Union. The late Postmaster-Greneral wrote to me that the department had received no complaints on this subject, and that the large cards cost more for carriage. I replied— House of Commons. Dear Sir James Fergusson,— . . . The impression is generally prevalent that •any complaint to the secretarial department at St. Martin’s-le-Grand will merely produce one or more of those courteously-worded but inflexible printed circulars with which we are all so familiar. To obtain redress or reform public opinion must be brought into play. . . . Even if the weight of the old and favourite card were to affect the payments for carriage to any notable extent, they might surely have been brought down preferably by employing a lighter material, or, better still, by inducing foreign governments to revise their scale of transit charges. In the case of a post card 1893 POST OFFICE ^ PLUNDERING (Sc BLUNDERING^ 997 the writing space is so limited that any diminution of it largely impairs the useful¬ ness of the card. • J. HEira^iKER Heaton. If the public hits upon any device for accelerating the delivery of correspondence, not bearing the official imprimatur, it is promptly tabooed. Thus a gentleman writes to me from the Carlton Club— Formerly I used regularly to send a stamped letter to the railway station and a penny with it, which was handed to the guard, and the guard took it straight on to his destination. Now a regulation has been issued against this, and I have to pay twopence to the railway authorities, besides the penny on the stamped letter. In France and Germany in all through trains there is a railway letter box. Why cannot we have such a convenience attached to all our trains in this country ? I would go further and ask, why should we not have a letter box on every tram-car and omnibus, to be'cleared at the terminus ? Another complaint needs no elaboration. It appears that the Post Office authorities regard the fragment of an old handbill, used for a newspaper wi'apper, as ‘ a communication in the nature of a letter." Hitherto people have used such scraps for the sake of economy. The department discourages such thrifty notions, and requires a new, special wrapping sheet in all cases. Next we meet with a piece of brilliantly red tape. An official letter announces that a person may not drop an important letter into the bag of a postman who has just emptied a pillar box. He must march to the next pillar box a yard in front of the postman, and drop in his letter just before the latter comes up. The actual facts of this case were that a gentleman asked a country postman returning from his round to take a letter for him to the post office, as there was no messenger available. Of course, in view of the regulation, the postman declined to run any risk. I cannot see why a postman should not allow his bag to be used, on emergency, as a collecting receptacle for letters. Another subject of frequent complaint appears to be the levying of excessive ‘ porterage" charges for telegrams, when the addressee lives outside a certain radius. In some country districts, peopled by farmers, this charge amounts to a denial of the privilege of telegraphic communication with markets, and the outer world generally. It has been proved to me that a boy will often earn far the Government perhaps 10s. for ‘ porterage ’ in a morning, while his weekly wage only amounts to 5s. A correspondent has recently recalled my attention to the rapacious charge (against which I have so often protested) of 2d. instead of IcZ. on the receipt for a telegraphic message, the cost of transmission of the message itself being only sixpence, while a penny stamp is sufficient on a receipt for 100^. The Post Office will not use its despotic power to soften and refine the manners of the people, and anything in the nature of 998 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June politeness introduced into a paper sent by book post is pounced upon as a pretext for a fine. Such a document must contain only tbe skeletons of sentences; it must demand a debt with brutal frankness, and convey descriptions of quality and indications of route with military brevity and mathematical precision. The subjoined is a case in point:— Deptford, London, S.E. Dear Sir,—Some few years ago we 'hQ,di printed at the foot of our invoice forms the words, ‘ The above sent to your esteemed order per . . . ’ The Post Office authorities objected to our invoice being sent at circular rate, on the ground that the sihaYQpi'inted words were regarded as of the nature of a letter. We could put simply ‘ sent per . . (which we now do), and it would be allowed to go at circular rate. Too often when Parliament encourages the department to adopt a real reform, much of the expected benefit to the pubhc is inter¬ cepted by some pedantic requirement or unconscionable extortion. Thus, when the prmlege of the telegraphic remittance of money was tardily conceded it was made to bristle with charges and commissions. A gentleman writes— Smethwick Hall, Staffordshire. Dear Mr. Heaton,—I had occasion to make a remittance of 3/. the other day, and paid a commission of and a telegraph charge of Qd. (I 5 . 2d. in all). I found, after three days’ trouble, however, that the expense of the remittance was further increased by a separate and distinct telegram having to be sent to the payee, advis¬ ing that the amount is lying to be claimed at the post office. This brings the cost of the remittance of 3Z. up to Is. Sd., which seems extortionate. When the great towns are sucking the population from our rural districts, and we are paying 30,000,000^ a year to the foreigner for dairy and garden produce which British cultivators might supply, it would seem good policy to furnish exceptionally cheap postal facilities to our own countrymen. I have proposed an ‘ Agricultural Parcels Post ’ rate of IcZ. a pound, but the postal officials exhaust themselves in finding objections to it. A gentleman (farming 4,000 acres) has written to me, ‘ I believe that, if properly worked, an Agricultural Parcels Post would do more than anything to make small holdings profitable.’ And others point out that when the present rates have been met the price secured for the articles posted does not cover the cost of production. A collection of these letters will be found in the Mark Lane Express for the 18th of May, 1891. The subjoined communication irresistibly recalls the story of the conscientious Scottish innkeeper who would only supply small glasses of punch on Sundays, sternly replying to all remonstrances, ‘We dinna sairve lairge glasses on the Sawbath : ’— 6 Wedderburn Road, Hampstead, N. Dear Sir,—The post office is open all Sunday for the sale of stamps, &c. I asked there this morning (Sunday) for a packet of reply post cards, and was told that ordinary post cards were sold there on Sundays, but not reply post cards. It is impossible to contemplate with patience the effects of the 1893 POST OFFICE ^PLUNDERING & BLUNDERING^ 999 regulations respecting the registration of newspapers. In order that a publication may be ‘ registered,’ and thus become transmissible by post at the cheap halfpenny rate, two Seventeenth-century conditions must, amongst others, be complied with. ^ 1. ‘ The publication must consist wholly or in great part of poli¬ tical or other news, or of articles relating thereto, or to other current topics, with or without advertisements. 2. ‘ It must be printed and published in the United Kingdom, and in numbers at intervals of not more than seven days.’ Both of these absurd rules, based upon a legislative enactment, would long ago have been abohshed, with the newspaper stamp duty, the tax on paper, and other hateful imposts, if the departmental chiefs had only taken a firm stand with the Treasur}'’. The effect of them is not only to confer valuable bounties on the proprietors of daily newspapers—no man objects to that—but to place a formidable obstacle in the path of those who disseminate useful and entertaining information in larger proportion than accounts of current events. A paper consisting wholly of market prices is in effect subsidised, while a religious, scientific, or educa¬ tional periodical is fined at each appearance. Many proprietors of periodicals actually pad their columns with bald discussions of ‘ cur¬ rent topics,’ so as to become qualified for registration. Thus the editor of the British and Colonial Druggist says— You may, perhaps, be amused to hear that when special issues of this journal take place we are obliged to increase the weight of each copy by about two ounces, in order that it may go at the newspaper rate. Again, Messrs. Oscar Sutton and Co., of Preston, say— It is necessary to take out the tiny tissue paper pattern that is given as a supplement once a month with the Queen to prevent surcharge. It is stated on the front page of the Queen : ‘ Postage without pattern, one halfpenny; with pattern, or hd. Sir Arthur Blackwood, in the article referred to, is particularly severe towards those members of the public who object to some of the estabhshed charges for telegraphic transmission. The following communication from a person well acquainted with the subject will, 1 fear, once more stir up his wrath :— If a member of the public addresses a telegram to, say, Harrison, Coleman Street, London, E.C., the name will be traced in the directory and the message delivered. If it were addressed Harrison, 3 Coleman Street, E.C., and Harrison’s were at 2, it would be charged Qd. for ‘ amended address,’ though well known. It has been pointed out how jealously the officials watch for any¬ thing resembling ‘ a communication in the nature of a letter ’ on the cover of a newspaper. In one case brought to my knowledge the matter of fact details, ^ Published every Saturday. One penny. Offices: 2 Bridge Street. Works : Bankside, Darwen,’ were printed on the 1000 TRE NINETEENTH CENTURY June cover; and for bearing this announcement, intended for the eyes of all mankind, each newspaper was pronounced liable to full letter postage. Surely absurdity could hardly be carried farther. When a man pays letter rate, he pays for the privacy of his communication; there is no other consideration for the extra charge. In this case there was no attempt at concealment, and the matter printed was an essential part of the contents. The fine cannot be regarded as a punishment intended to keep the address on the cover free from other matter; for it is distinctly divided from the space reserved for the address by two ruled lines; and, moreover, the sender of a newspaper is already permitted to write or print on the cover ‘ a reference to any page of, or place in, the newspaper.’ It seems un¬ reasonable that one may write on the cover, ‘ See round seventeen of “ Great Fight,” top of p. 4,’ or, ‘ See Gladstone’s peroration, bottom of p. 5,’ and not, ‘ Published every Saturday. One penny.’ Again, the ‘ name and address of the sender ’ may, according to the Post Office Guide, be inscribed on the cover. In this case the publisher was the sender, yet he is not allowed to add his address. Into this trap many an unlucky publisher must have fallen. Only yesterday (March 15) I received the following— 31 Parliament Hill Road, N.W. Sir,—I recently received a copy of the Scottish Leader newspaper for which I was charged letter rated 3c?. because the halfpenny stamp was affixed partly to the wrapper and partly to the newspaper. The Post Office authorities maintained that this closed the newspaper against inspection. This does seem a very vexatious regulation, and I pray you to urge its abolition. Another draconic ordinance is the one providing that double the deficiency shall be exacted from the receiver of an insufficiently paid letter. Being unable to punish the real offender, the sender, the postal officials visit his negligence on the innocent receiver. So the Arab in the story, having been beaten by his master, revenged him¬ self by kicking a stray dog, which, being afraid to retaliate, bit a passing child. There can be no justification for levying more than the actual deficiency, as is done in Canada and other colonies. Let a victim be heard. I can’t be expected to spend an additional \d. on a foreign post card to demand this overcharge of hd. from the party who has let me in for it, particularly as she is my wife’s aunt, who sends me the formal announcement of her daughter’s approaching marriage with a young captain. I should, perhaps, willingly pay the post office 2^c?. for this interesting news, but why 5c?. ? We now approach the subject of the Express Letter Service, which was forced upon the postal authorities by public opinion, and which they undertook with about as much grace and cheerfulness as a bucking horse displays while being saddled and mounted. Not only are the porterage charges, as in the case of telegrams, far too 1893 POST OFFICE ^PLUNDERING & BLUNDERING^ 1001 high in comparison with the wages paid to the messengers, but the service is hampered with the necessity of filling up a complicated form, writing certain words on a particular part of the cover, and, above all, attending at some post office to hand the message over the counter. This last provision is puerile and vexatious. Why cannot an express letter be stamped with a special crimson stamp, or a • stamped crimson envelope used, and posted in the nearest pillar box overnight, so as to be delivered the first thing in the morning, as in every country wherein common sense governs the postal administra¬ tion ? I append a pregnant note from a correspondent:— England. I sent express letter, addressed to City. Found nearest post office did not forward express letters, tiad, of course, to take it to one that did, which, was some considerable distance away. Had to pay I 5 . postage. Belgium. Express letter would only require to be posted in the first bus passing. Postage, ^d. Among the regulations which seem to have been ingeniously devised for the sole purpose of worrying trade is that fixing the minimum of the pattern or sample post at lii. A book packet weighing two ounces may be sent for but a sample weighing two ounces costs \d. An enterprising manufacturer, who desires to scatter broadcast small shreds of linen as patterns, has thus to face an expenditure for postage of nearly four guineas per thousand shreds. He naturally shrinks from submitting to such extortion, and refrains from pushing his trade. It is to be regretted that the postal authorities have fixed so high a charge as twopence for the registration of a letter. Out of the total of 1,767^ millions of letters posted last year only 12,000,000, or 1 in 417, were registered. With a penny fee this number would be at least trebled, and the heavy loss in stolen postal orders, to say nothing of the temptation to the employees, would be done away with. If there be one direction in which, by general consent, the authorities have neglected their duty, it is in the postal service of rural and especially outlying districts. From all directions complaints pour in of the neglect with which country residents are treated. Letters take a day to reach them from London, while London letters reach Paris or Brussels in eight hours. There are but one delivery and one collection a day—always at the most inconvenient hours. Thus I know of one case in which the outgoing post starts twenty minutes before the incoming one has arrived, so that nobody writing to that village can expect a reply until the next da}^, or third day. It is unwise to add to the disadvantages of provincial life. We all lament the crowding of country folk into the congested centres of population; and here is the Post Office doing its best to drive the remaining population of our hamlets and farm-houses into the towns. VoL. XXXIII—No. 196 3 X 1002 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June There is, moreover, a growing tendency in the postal administra¬ tion to neglect the less remunerative branches of the service. It seems to be an established rule, for instance, that remote and sparsely peopled localities should not be supplied with a telegraph office unless the householders will guarantee the department a certain sum per annum, and the consequence is that nobody who wishes to keep in touch with the markets or to feel the pulse of trade wiU reside in such districts. Such a policy intensifies the discomforts incidental to residence in out-of-the-way places, keeps away capital, and drives the labouring population into the towns in search of work. Here are a few words from a country rector about this matter:— Ayering Rectory, Stroud, Gloucestershire. ^Ve have a population of 894, mostly within a mile of our village office, and yet we have to send a distance of three miles for a telegram message, a savings bank, or a money order, while our own post office, close at hand, could afford us all these needed facilities. The Secretary of the General Post Office requires a guarantee of 28/. before he- will grant us a telegraph office. One of the most obstinately persistent postal perversities is the dead set made at all kinds of ‘ halfpenny business,’ as it is elegantly called. This is probably connected with the Secretary’s mistaken belief that there is a loss on all such business. Not content with refusing to Englishmen the privilege enjoyed by foreigners of send¬ ing any card of the proper size through the post with a halfpenny stamp on it, the authorities have drawn up a bewildering list of forty- six different charges for post cards, the smallest being three farthings for a single card. The term ‘ halfpenny post card ’ is, in fact, a mis¬ nomer in this country; our Post Office knows of a three-farthing post card (the smallest and dearest in the world), but nothing so vulgar as a halfpenny can be tolerated. History repeats itself. When postage stamps were introduced, the haughty clerks of the depart¬ ment formally remonstrated against the indignity of being required to sell these tiny adhesive labels, at a penny each, across a counter,, like any common grocer or draper. One would have expected this wealthy administration, whose thousands of croupiers are raking in gold for it by millions, would disdain to wring an extra farthing from a poor man or woman applying for a post card. But, as we all know, a commercial corporation has neither a nose to be pulled nor a conscience to be pricked. The following letter calls attention to another example of the mischievous effects of Post Office blundering. It will be seen that, owing to the excessive charges made for the conveyance of parcels over small distances, trade is diverted from small country towns to the metropolis, and the postal revenue is, on the whole, a loser. My correspondent’s pathetic picture of the half-ruined tradesman seeking half-bricks, not to throw at his persecutors, but in order to make his 1893 POST OFFICE ‘PLUNDERING & BLUNDERING^ 1003' parcels more ponderous, and so defeat the regulations, ought to touch the hearts of the tyrants at St. Martin’s-le-Grrand. Here is his letter :— I am a tradesman in a country town which is the centre of a large agricultural district. Our customers in agricultural districts are widely scattered—say six, seven, or more miles in each direction. Supposing a customer of mine wants a particular article which can he got either from a local tradesman or from London; a 7-lb. parcel would cost a shilling in coming from London. In this case the railway company would get 55 per cent, of the shilling, the remainder going to the Post Office. If the customer sent to the local tradesman—say, six miles—it would cost a shilling, just the same amount as from London, but the Post Office would get the whole shilling. This is, how’ever, not the only difficulty, for the customer would receive the parcel from London as soon as he would from the local tradesman. A postman said that if I would make it (my parcel) over 11 lbs. weight with a brick or stone he would take it for threepence. Lately, however, an inspector has- been here and given strict orders that all parcels under 11 lbs. must go through the post. ANffiy should tradesmen be put to the trouble and annoyance of having to seek bricks and stones to over-weight parcels ? AVe are handicapped in the race with large centres, like London, Manchester, &c. Uniformity of rates, as of anything else, is very beautiful in theory, but does not always work so well in practice, and this I venture to suggest is a case in point. Are the Post Office people the masters- of the public, or are they servants of the public ? I think it ought not to be a very difficult thing to adopt a local rate for short distances. It should be possible to transmit postal orders from one part of the Empire to another. This reform, which is urgently needed in the interests of trade, and of the poorer classes here and in the colonies, seems to be highly obnoxious to the postal authorities. The Colonial Governments would willingly agree to adopt a uniform type of postal order, such as is used throughout the United Kingdom. There is no great difficulty in the matter, for we already receive from^ and pay postal orders to at least seven British possessions, including, India. I may add that British orders are payable at Malta and Gibraltar. I should like to point out also that, while it costs only a. penny to remit ten shillings from Hong Kong, India, or Newfound- land to England, it costs sixpence to remit ten shillings from England to Hong Kong, India, or Newfoundland. There is one common feature in all the diversified petty tyrannies practised by the Post Office on the public: they all tend to swell the postal revenue. The dodge exposed in the next missive is particu¬ larly neat, and specially profitable. My servant yesterday at Charlbury post office asked for a postal order for 3^, They said they had none, and persuaded her to take one for 2s. and one for H., and pay poundage, thus gaining As it was t/ieir fault, not hers, ihe<' should either have given her two for I 5 . 6cl. each, or, at any rate, not chaiped more than Id. This is not the first time this trick has been played there. A correspondent calls my attention to another grievance. The 1004 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June Post Office charges for the despatch of parcels to India Scl. per pound, and to Australia 9cZ. per pound, while the shipping agents only charge 3cZ. per pound. The only possible explanation of such an excess charge is that the Post Office would rather not be troubled with parcels for the colonies, although it is worth the while of private firms to advertise for the carrying of such j)arcels. In yet another instance are our officinls lagging behind the age. I allude to the unnecessarily high charge made for commission on foreign and colonial money orders of small amount. The smallest fee which the department condescends to accept is 6d., which covers the transmission of a sum not exceeding 21. Now it fre¬ quently happens that a person residing in this country wishes to order a, newspaper or other small article from a foreign country, or some place in the colonies ; or he may wish to ask a question and prepay postage on the reply. He has to pay in commission six times the price of the desired newspaper, or if he would buy a sixpenny maga^ 2 ine the commission increases the cost of it about 100 per cent. The effect of this fleecing is to kill small trade of the description alluded to, and to place a further obstacle in the way of the circula¬ tion of the best colonial and foreign literature in this country. That it is sheer rapacity which prescribes these heavy fees is proved by the simple fact that very much lower—in fact, quite fair and reasonable— rates are charged by France in such cases. ' F. M., Boulogne, writes :— Fancy some one in England, requiring an answer to a letter, having to obtain a post-office order for ^d. and to pay If I sent you bs. from here it would cost me 6 fr. 30 plus 10 cts. 6 fr. 40 = 5*’. \^d. One cannot help sympathising with the irritation of the com¬ plainant who next steps forward. In order to get a post card into an envelope, with a view to enclose it to a correspondent for a reply, he cut off' a little of the margin, and the officials pounced on this act of ^ mutilation ’ as an excuse for fining the recipient \d. (the letter rate). Any complaint would, of course, merely produce a printed formal letter, referring to regulation No. 2 on the subject of post <jards, which forbids any cutting of a post card. But what right have the officials to issue such a regulation ? After they have sold the post card it becomes the purchaser’s property, and one fails to «ee why he cannot trim off the ends and so reduce the size of it before posting it. It is absurd to pretend that uniformity of size and shape is essential in the case of a post card any more than of an •envelope; and envelopes, as we know, are of the most diversified sizes .and fantastic patterns. Moreover, there are already two different sizes of post cards, the inland and the foreign. To cap all, we have only to remember that cards bearing communications in identical terms will be carried by the Post Office for a halfpenny each, though of (fifty differejDit .shapes and sizes, while the size of the official post card 1893 POST OFFICE ^PLUNDERING & BLUNDERING^ 1005 must not be altered. The only possible inference is that there exists at St. Martin’s-le-Grand a fanatical hatred of ‘ halfpenny business/ as low, common, unremunerative, &c., and this is why I dwell on what may at first sight appear a minor grievance. But who has not ex~ perienced the annoyance of finding that he has no envelope at hand large enough to hold a post card, which the authorities will persist in issuing of the old-fashioned oblong shape, as if determined that it shall not fit the modern square envelope ? My friend writes— I paid the \d. and sent the post card so marked to the General Post Office, saying that I did not know there was any rule against cutting a post card, and that if there was it ought to be expunged, as what harm can it do to the post card. Post Office, or postal revenue ? The recent attempt to patch up the postal order system will only make the rent worse. Postal orders are fast displacing money orders for the transmission of small sums. Thus in the last ten years the^^ annual commission on money orders has sunk from 217,000^. to 130,000^., while that on postal orders has risen from 44,000L to nearly 229,000^. The one drawback is that the public will not take the trouble to fill up postal orders, or to keep particulars of them, and consequently thieves still tear open and destroy large batches of letters in order to obtain blank postal orders, just as the diver destroys hundreds of oysters to secure half a dozen pearls. The wise¬ acres who control these matters would remedy the evil by inflicting additional penalties on careless persons for neglect to fill in the names of the payee and the paying office. They hope thus to 'pre-- vent the public from posting or transmitting blank postal orders from hand to hand, instead of buying a fresh postal order for each trans¬ action. Now, inasmuch as the Post Office has the use of the money paid for the order during several days, and a small paper currency^ while not affecting the banks, is of great service to the public, this is by no means a generous policy. But the true policy, evidently, is to adopt a safer method of transmission. This may probably be found in the Continental system of the ‘ Mandat-Carte,’ which has proved so successful in Switzerland and Germany. The transmitter purchases a post card, on which spaces are marked to be filled in with the name of the payee, &c., and a short message. He then hands it over the counter with the amount to be transmitted, and the clerk gives him a receipt. The letter- carrier who takes the card to the payee also takes the money, and obtains a receipt, so that the transaction is complete, and no risk is involved from first to last. Some time ago I presented to the then Postmaster-General a memorial, signed by 210 Members of Parliament, asking that the hour, as well as the date of collection, &c., might be stamped on all postal matter. This is done, with much advantage to the interests 1006 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June of business, in several British colonies and foreign countries, and was formerly done in England (in 1818). The postal authorities, how¬ ever, refuse to make this concession, the reason of their refusal doubtless being that it enables the public to trace, check, and con¬ trol the movements of correspondence—in other words, to bring home unerringly to the officials any negligence of which they may have been guilty. Another case of hardship to a poor man and meanness on the part of the Post Office was this : On the 30th of September last M. bought two halfpenny newspaper wrappers from the Post Office for \^d. He found he had no use for them, and wishing to send a letter he cut the two halfpenny stamps from the wrappers and pasted them on it. This was against postal regulations, and the receiver of the letter was fined 2d. —viz. a penny postage, a penny fine—and, in addition, the postal authorities stamped over and •destroyed the two halfpenny stamps, for which the sender had paid the Government \\d. jMr. E. A. Phipson, Selby Oak, Birmingham, also writes— It really requires a lifetime to find out all the tricks wliicli tlie ingenious ■officials of the Post Office take such pains in devising to entrap the innocent .public. Only to-day I discovered that if a letter is sent in a newspaper wrapper ■the embossed stamp does not count. \ E. P. A. writes— Another mean trick has been played by the postal authorities at St. Martin’s- le-Grand in excepting post cards from the new regulation for free redirection. Why •on earth should the Post Office have such a spite against post cards, which might pay better than anything else, if not so ignorantly hampered and restricted ? One card (mind) costs \d., not ^d., if one has not change. At this point I propose to summarise under various heads some miscellaneous complaints and suggestions which have come under my notice, and which have been collected from various sources. When a telegraph clerk makes a mistake in transmission, and an important word in the message is thereby rendered unintelligible, the department charges for a repetition of the entire despatch, instead of charging for the undecipherable word. What would be said of a cobbler who charged the price of a pair of new boots for p)utting on a patch ? The telegraphic money order system should be simphfied; the charges should be reduced at least to the Indian rates; and, above all, in order to prevent fraud, mistake, and delay, the money should, .as in India, be sent with the telegram to the residence of the ^addressee. At some post offices the fee for a private box is 21. 2s., as the fee goes to the Crown. At others it is 1^. Is., and goes to the post¬ master. There should be a uniform charge, not exceeding 11. Is. 1893 POST OFFICE ^ PLUNDERING dc BLUNDERING’ 1007 The Postmaster-General would render a vast service to trade if he would persuade the Chancellor of the Exchequer to sanction the institution of the ‘ cash on dehvery ’ system, for which many of my correspondents are sighing. Under this the postman who delivers a parcel of goods at the same time receives the price of them, which is then paid over by the Post Office to the tradesman who sends them, a small commission being deducted. Every shopkeeper would hail the introduction of this plan, which is in full force in several great countries, including India. In Egypt, indeed, the Post Office actually collects biUs and debts on commission. The advantages are obvious. Here is a picked, trained, trustworthy civil servant passing every door in the kingdom at least once a day. He is accustomed to the collection of fines for deficient postage, under rules which render mistake or fraud impossible. All that is required is an extension of this existing system to the parcel post, and in a moment five-sixths of our tradesmen would be made independent of vans, porters, messengers, and carriers, while customers would receive their purchases more quickly. A post card would convey an order to a shop, and by return of post the book, or other article demanded, would, ' without further trouble to the sender of the post card, be laid on his table. Many thousands of commercial men would rejoice to see a parcel post established to the United States, of whose foreign trade about oO per cent, is done with the United Kingdom. Yet an American can send parcels by post to the Bahamas, Barbadoes, British Honduras, Jamaica, and other British possessions. In view of the vast interests involved our officials should leave no stone unturned to secure this privilege for us. Beginning at the fountain-head, one would like to see the Post Ojffice Guide itself reformed in the direction of simplicity, and on the principle of consulting above all things the public convenience. It should be reaUy a ‘ Guide,’ and not an examination paper full of ‘ springes to catch woodcocks.’ If a model be required the United States Mail Postal Guide may be recommended, which is full of sug¬ gestions calculated to save the 'public from falling into error, or suffering worry and delay. It is a favourite allegation of the postal authorities that they would be happy to concede this or that privilege to the pubhc if some wickedly worded Act of Parliament did not stand in the way of their benevolent intentions. Now, if it were not presumptuous to introduce my own humble personality, I would here undertake to get through Parhament in a week any amending Bill which would reheve the pubhc from such vexations and disabilities as have been pointed out. Parliament is always anxious to pass without debate every suggestion in the interests of the public made by the Postmaster- General. 1008 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June Before bringing this article to a close I should like to point out that most of the grievances here summarised were brought to the knowledge of the department years ago, and are still ‘ under con¬ sideration/ It is obvious, therefore, that any criticisms with which they are prefaced can have no application whatever to the present Postmaster-General, who only came into office last autumn. I now leave my readers to decide whether ‘ a mean public ’ has not still much to complain of at the hands of the Post Office. J. Henniker Heaton.