CHAPTER IX.
CLAIMS FOR POST-OFFICE SERVICE.
In his Autobiography, Mr Anthony Trollope, many years a Post-office surveyor, records how he was employed in England, for a considerable period about the year 1851, revising and extending the rural-post service; and he there mentions the frequency with which he found post-runners to be employed upon routes where there were but few letters to deliver—while in other directions, where postal communication would have been of the utmost benefit, there were no post-runners at all. This state of things had no doubt had its origin in the efforts of influential persons, at some previous time, to have the services established for their own personal benefit; while persons in other districts, having less interest at headquarters, or being less imperious in their demands, were left out in the cold, and so remained beyond the range of the civilising influence. The posts in such cases, once established, went on from year to year; and though the arrangements were out of harmony with the surroundings, very often nothing was done—for in all likelihood no one complained loud enough, or, at any rate, in a way to prove effective.
But though the Department did wake up to the need for a better distribution of its favours in the country districts in 1851, there were earlier instances of surveyors attempting to lay down the posts for the general good, instead of for a select few, and in these cases the surveyors had sometimes a hard battle to fight. The following report from a surveyor in Scotland, written in the year 1800, will illustrate what is here mentioned. It is given at length, and will possibly be found worthy of perusal; for it not only shows both spirit and independence on the part of the surveyor, who was evidently a man determined to do his duty irrespective of persons, but it sheds some light on the practices of the post-runners of that period, and their relations with their superiors on the one hand, and the public on the other. It affords us, too, a specimen of official writing remarkable for some rather quaint turns and expressions. The report proceeds:—
"I am much obliged by the perusal of my Lord ——'s card to you of the 29th ultimo, with the copy of a fresh memorial from his lordship and other gentlemen upon the long-argued subject of the alteration of the course of the post betwixt Perth and Coupar-Angus.
"It is certainly one of those cases which hath become of tenfold more importance by the multiplicity of writing, than from any solid reasoning or essential matter of information to be drawn from it.
"It having fallen to my official duty to execute the alteration of this post proposed by my late colleague Mr ——, to whose memory I must bear testimony, not only of his abilities, but his impartiality in the duties of his office, and under the authority of the late respectable and worthy Postmaster-General Mr ——, whose memory is far above any eulogium of mine, I considered the measure as proper and expedient, equally for the good of the country in general, and the revenue under the department of the Post-office; and I can with confidence deny that it was 'hastily, inconsiderately, or partially' gone into, as this memorial would wish to establish. In this capacity, and under these circumstances, it is no wonder I could have wished the epithets used against this official alteration, of ignorance, arbitrary and oppressive proceedings, to have dropped from a person less honourable, respectable, and conspicuous than I hold the Honble. —— at the head of this memorial. Before this last memorial was presented, I understood from Mr ——, Secretary, in the presence of Lord ——, that any further opposition upon the part of the Blairgowrie gentlemen to a re-alteration was now given up; indeed this cannot be surprising if they had learned, as stated in the memorial, page 9, that they had protested, did now protest, and would never cease to complain loudly of it, until they obtain redress. Whether this argument is cool or arbitrary I have not time nor inclination to analyse, but having been removed from this ancient district of road, and given my uniform opinion upon the merits of the alteration itself, I have no desire to fight the memorialists to all eternity. Before, however, taking final leave of this contest, and of a memorial said to be unanswerable, I consider myself in duty and honour called upon to vindicate the late Mr ——, as well as myself, from the vindictive terms of 'ignorance, arbitrary, and oppressive' implied in the memorial, and which, if admitted sub silentio, might not be confined to the mismanagement of the Post-office, but to every other department of civil government. In order to this, I shall as briefly as I can follow the general track of the memorial, as of a long beaten road in which, if there is not safety, there is no new difficulty to encounter. It is needless to go over the different distances,—I am ready to admit them—they have not formed any material part of the question,—and the supposed ignorance of the surveyor here is not to the point. The alteration neither did nor should proceed upon such mathematical nicety. The idea of posts is to embrace the most extensive and most needful accommodation. In establishing a post to Blairgowrie it was neither ignorant nor arbitrary to take the line by Isla Bridge, which was the centre of the country meant to be served by it—that is, the Coupar and the Stormont and Highland district. It is of some consequence to observe here, that with all the great and rapid improvements mentioned in the memorial, of the lower or Coupar district, the upper or Stormont district was, upon the first year's trial, above one-half of its revenue to the Post-office, the second nearly or about three-fourths, and continuing to increase in proportion. Coupar-Angus revenue for the year ending 10th October last was £159, 3s. 7d., and Blairgowrie £123, 4s. 10d. Now, if the Coupar district of country, which contains in it a populous market-town, can produce no more than this proportion for the whole district, it is evident that the district of Stormont, with only as yet a little village for its head town, has more correspondence in regard to its state of agriculture and improvement as an infant district, than the parent district with its antiquity can lay claim to, and equally well entitled at least to be protected and nourished. Much is said of the memorialists' line of road, and of its being one from time immemorial. I have said in a former paper that this may be the case; many of the roads in Scotland, God knows, are old enough. But unless the feudal system should still exist upon any of them, I know of no law, no regulation, no compulsion, that can oblige the post, more than any other traveller, to take these old beaten tracks where they can find any other patent or better road. Nay, more,—as a traveller, I am entitled to take any patent road I choose, good or bad; and the moment this privilege is doubted in regard to the post, you resign at once the power of all future improvements so far as it belongs to your official situation to judge it, and let or dispose of in lease the use of your posts to particular and local proprietors of lands, who will be right to take every advantage of it in their power, and include it specifically in the rental of their estates, as I have known to be the case with inns in which Post-offices had formerly been kept.
"There are three great roads to the north of Scotland from Perth (besides one by Dunkeld)—viz., one by Dundee, &c., one by Coupar, &c., and one by Blairgowrie, which run not at a very great distance in general from each other in a parallel line. The great post-line or mail-coach road is by Dundee; and there is little chance, I believe, of this being departed from, as there is no other that can ever be equally certain. The next great road to the westward is by Coupar and Forfar, &c., and is supplied by branch-posts from the east or coast line. And the third or upper line is by Blairgowrie and Spittal of Glenshee, which have no post for 50, 60, or 70 miles; and if ever that part of the country is to have the blessing of a regular post, it surely ought not to be by branching from the coast-line through all the different centres, but by the more immediate and direct line through Blairgowrie. Every one will call his own line the great line; but surely, if I am to travel either, I should be allowed to judge for myself; and I believe it would be thought very arbitrary indeed, if, before I set out, a proprietor or advocate for any of these great lines should arrest my carriage or my horse, and say, You shall not proceed but upon my line. I confess myself so stupid that I can see no difference betwixt this and taking it out of the power of the Post-office to judge what line they shall journey mails. If this is not the case, then all the present lines of the post, however absurd and ridiculous they now are or may become, must, as they were at the beginning and now are, remain so for ever. And I would expect next to see legal charters and infeftments taken upon them as post-roads merely, and travellers thirled to them as corn to a mill. But in regard to the voluminous writings already had upon this subject, and now renewed in this last memorial, it may be necessary to be a little more particular.
"Setting the distances aside, which no persons should have a right to complain of except the inhabitants of Coupar and beyond it, by any delay occasioned on that account, what is the whole argument founded upon? That, by the alteration, the memorialists, some of them in the near neighbourhood of Coupar-Angus, but betwixt Perth and it, have had the privilege from time immemorial, as it is said, of receiving their letters by the post from Perth, and sending them back by the same conveyance to Perth, without benefiting the Revenue a single sixpence, which would accrue to it by such letters being either received from or put in at the office at Coupar-Angus, as they ought to be. For, so far as I understand the regulations of the office, they are to this purpose, that if any letters shall be directed for intermediate places, at least three-fourths from any Post-office, they shall be put into the bag and conveyed (if conveyed at all by post) to the Post-office nearest them, or at which they shall be written, one-fourth of the distance of the whole stage, and rated and charged accordingly. The Post-office could not be ignorant of this rule not being observed, for it was evident that very few letters for this populous and thriving district were put into the bag, except such as behoved to go beyond Coupar or Perth, and bearing the name of 'short letters.' It was impossible to convict the posts of fraud in carrying them without opening the letters, a privilege which cannot be exercised without much indelicacy as well as danger. But it required no penetration to discover that this was a very commodious and cheap way of corresponding, though it did not augment the revenue. It was an ancient privilege, and in that view it might be considered arbitrary and oppressive to meddle with or interrupt it. It is a little curious that the memorialists are principally gentlemen of property upon the road short of Coupar, and who require to be supplied daily with their small necessary articles from Perth. I have seen no remonstrance or complaint from the town of Coupar itself as to this alteration, nor of the consequent lateness of arrival and danger it is said to have occasioned, nor from a number of gentlemen beyond, whose letters come in the bag for the delivery of Coupar. The noise has chiefly been made by gentlemen who pay nothing for this post to Coupar-Angus, and it puts me in mind of an anecdote I met with of a gentleman who had influence enough with a postmaster in the country to get the post by his house, and deliver and receive his letters, proceeding by a line of road in which he avoided an intermediate office, and thereby saved an additional postage both ways.
"This line was also a very ancient one, and from time immemorial a line too upon which our forefathers had fought hard and bled; but their children somehow or other had discovered and adopted what they thought a much better line. I said the delivery of short letters was not all the advantages privately had by the old plan of the post to Coupar-Angus. This post was in the known and constant habit of carrying a great deal more than letters for the inhabitants short of, as well as for Coupar itself; and in the delivery of various articles upon the road, and receiving reimbursements for his trouble one way or other, he lost one-fourth of his time; and if, as the memorialists assert, there are fewer places to be served on the Isla road, it is a demonstration that the longest way is often all the nearest, and upon this head I have already ventured to assert, and still do, that by a regular management which may be easily accomplished, the post may come sooner by Isla to Coupar than ever it did formerly by the ancient road; and if it was possible to watch and hunt after the irregularity of the post as established upon the old system, the memorialists would find themselves in no better situation than they now are. I beg to mention here a specimen I met of this old system of private accommodation, with the consequence that followed, which may illustrate a little upon which side the imputation of ignorance, arbitrary, and oppression may lie. Having met this post with a light cart full of parcels, and a woman upon it along with the mail, I charged him with the impropriety of his conduct as a post, and threatened that he should not be longer in the service. 'Oh,' says he, 'sir, you may do as you please; I have served the country so long in this way, that if you dismiss me, the principal gentlemen on the road have determined to support me, and I can make more without your mail than I do by it.' He was dismissed. He was supported by a number of names which it is not now in my power to recollect, but which are well known in Coupar-Angus, and he issued in consequence hand-bills that, being now dismissed as a post, he would continue to carry on as before; and it was not till the arbitrary hand of the Solicitor of the Post-office fell upon him, that he would either have been convicted or discouraged from his employ.
"In this view, therefore, and not from ignorance, I know it is better for the Revenue in some instances to pay for 19 miles of a post, than 14 or 15, and to pay for three short runners than one long one. We have no greater faith in Blairgowrie than Coupar posts, and they were both put upon the same footing; and notwithstanding all the arguments stated against the measure, or upon the absurdity, arbitrary, and oppression, so much insisted on, I am still humbly of the opinion, which was maturely weighed and decided, that the system now in practice was best for the Revenue, whatever it might be to particular individuals; and in this decision I only followed the coincident opinion of judgments much superior to my own.
"A great deal is said upon the danger of committing care of bags or letters to two separate runners instead of one. With regard to carrying letters privately, or executing commissions, it may be so. This is the great inconvenience felt from the change. But is there any instance where posts have opened any of the bags containing letters, and thereby committed felony? Is there any instance where a wilful and felonious delay has happened here more than may be natural to any change of bags anywhere else in the kingdom? I have heard of their not meeting sometimes so regularly in very bad or stormy weather. This will happen to the most regular mail-coaches and horse-posts in Britain; and before such general objections are to be founded upon, wilful and corrupt misconduct should be proved, such as I am able to do upon the old system of one post only.
"The poor blacksmith is next brought forward. I do not know that a man's character is to be decided by his calling. He was engaged by the Office to keep a receiving-house for the runners. He is paid for his trouble by Government, and is as much under the confidence and trust of the Office, till he proves himself unworthy of it, as the postmasters of Perth, Coupar-Angus, or Blairgowrie. It is not surprising, however, that this poor blacksmith should be in general terms decided unfit for such duty, when officers who should have been much better acquainted with the hammer and nails of office, do not know how to drive them!
"A very short explanation to the idea mentioned by the memorialists that the opposition by the Blairgowrie gentlemen rose from the supposition that they were to be cut out of their post altogether. I never heard of this before, nor do I know this idea to have existed. The Blairgowrie district did not interfere with the Post-office, nor the Office with them, more than has happened in writing; nor, so far as consists with my knowledge, have I heard or understood that the Coupar district wished to deprive Blairgowrie of an office. That Coupar wishes to have Blairgowrie subservient to and passing through it is clear enough. But they do not advert that, as both Coupar and Blairgowrie are within one stage of Perth; had Coupar gone through Blairgowrie or Blairgowrie through Coupar, the law might say that one of them must pay an additional rate from Perth—that is, 4d. instead of 3d.; and which both Mr Edwards and I were clearly of opinion would rather have injured than improved the Revenue, as has been experienced in some similar cases. This legal distinction my Lord —— does not appear to have observed. It is, however, stated, that by this plan of going through Coupar to Blairgowrie a very easy and direct communication would be established betwixt the two places. This I have no doubt of for private business-parcels, money, &c., &c.; because it would be easier for Blairgowrie to communicate in this way by one runner, by one with Coupar and two to Perth, than by two to Coupar and two to Perth, and for Coupar to communicate with Perth by one than two each way. This is harping on the old key. But it is a reduction of service, like the shortening of the road here, I do not wish to see. I do not want a reconciliation of this kind; and whatever obloquy I may endure, with imputation of ignorance and other general epithets of a similar kind, I believe the memorialists, upon cool reflection, may be more inclined to ascribe these observations to proceed from honest zeal rather than wanton opposition. If it should be otherwise, I shall remain very satisfied that I have given my judgment of it according to conscience; and I cannot be afraid, if it is necessary, that the whole writings upon the subject should be again submitted to the final decision of his Majesty's Postmaster-General. In regard to the power of altering the course of the posts, I am decidedly of opinion the question ought to go to their lordships' judgment; but as to any personal opposition to the memorialists, I disclaim it; and as they say they are determined to fight till they conquer, I would now retire from the contest, with this observation, that, though such doctrines and resolutions may be very good for the memorialists, they would, in my humble opinion, if generally expressed and followed, be very bad for the country."
It is really surprising how some of the ideas and practices of the feudal times still survive, ancient arrangements coming up from time to time for revision, as those who suffer acquire greater independence or a truer conception of their position in the State. Quite recently the Postmaster-General was called upon to settle a dispute between the Senior Magistrate of Fraserburgh and Lord —— (the local seigneur) as to who had the right to receive letters addressed to "The Provost" or "Chief Magistrate" of Fraserburgh, both parties claiming such letters. His lordship had hitherto obtained delivery of the letters, on the ground of his being "heritable provost" or baron-bailie, titles which smell strongly of antiquity; but the modern Provost and Chief Magistrate being no longer disposed to submit to the arrangement, appealed to headquarters, and obtained a decision as follows—viz., that he being Senior Police Magistrate, should receive all communications addressed to "The Provost," "The Chief Magistrate," or "The Acting Chief Magistrate," and that Lord —— should have a right to claim any addressed to the "Baron-Bailie." The surprise is, that the ancient method of disposing of the letters should have been endured so long, and that a town's Provost should have been so slighted.
Personal interest, unfortunately, often steps in to prevent or hinder the carrying out of reforms for the general good; even the selfishness of mere pleasure placing itself as an obstacle to the accomplishment of things of great consequence in practical life. The Post-office being called upon to consider the question of affording a daily post to a small place in Ireland, which until then had had but a tri-weekly post, a gentleman called upon the postmaster to urge that things might be left as they were, stating as his reason that the change of hours, as regards the mail-car, rendered necessary in connection with the proposed improvements, would not suit himself and some other gentlemen, who were in the habit of using the car when going to fish on a lake near the mail-car route! Is not this a case showing a sad lack of public spirit?