Parcels are accepted for localities not served directly by the contracting companies, but such parcels are conveyed only to the point served by railway nearest to the place of destination. It is left to the public to provide for their further transmission. In the case of parcels delivered only at the railway station, an advice of delivery is sent to the addressee by the company or their agents within twenty-four hours of the receipt of the
parcel. This advice is sent by post, and the postage, 5 centimes, is recovered from the addressee. If parcels are not called for within eight days, the sender is asked to give instructions regarding their disposal.
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. The service in such districts is, however, far from complete. There are in France some 36,000 communes, but the parcel post service extends only to some 12,000 railway stations, and only at about one-half of these can parcels be delivered at the residence of the addressee.[432] To a limited extent a service is given in certain localities not directly served by railway. In these cases, which are arranged only with the concurrence of the companies, the service is conducted by the ordinary road carriers.[433] The extension of the service in the rural districts is one of the problems which face the postal administration.[434]
A local parcel post service was established in Paris in 1881 by arrangement with the Compagnie des Messageries Nationales, but it did not prove profitable, and was discontinued in
1887. A new service was set up in 1890. The contractor is required to make two deliveries on week-days and one on Sundays and feast days (les jours fériés), and to maintain an office in each arrondissement. The system has, however, developed. Three daily deliveries are now given, and nearly 500 offices have been opened. The rate of postage is 25 centimes for parcels not exceeding 5 kilogrammes, and 40 centimes for parcels between 5 and 10 kilogrammes.
The total number of inland parcels posted during the year 1913-14 was about 52 millions.
PARCEL POST IN GERMANY
In the days of the horse-posts it was obviously undesirable to burden the mails with weighty packages, and the transmission of parcels by post was from the first discouraged in Germany, although not forbidden. Parcels were charged as letters by the half-ounce, a sufficiently high rate to prevent the use of the posts for their transmission to any inconvenient degree. The first Imperial posts did not, indeed, undertake the transmission of parcels. The business was left to private enterprise, and was conducted by the Boten-Anstalten. The posts themselves were, however, made use of for the transmission of parcels of merchandise for private individuals at least as far back as the Thirty Years' War. Owing to the dislocation of industry and commerce during that war and the high rates of postage charged, the number of parcels was extremely small, and their transmission was confined to limited areas.[435]