The Russian Postmaster-General recently drew up a regulation that all ladies employed in the Postal Service must wear a feminine edition of the rather smart uniform which is worn by the male officers. It is described as having “blue piping at the sides and button-holes and metallic badges. The coat used by both sexes will be much the same, except that the ladies' sleeve will be wide and fashionable.” The Continent is always in advance of us in the matter of uniform.
The number of postwomen has increased lately, probably on account of the migration of men to the towns. For it is in the more distant and sequestered districts that the postwoman is to be found, and this explains the fact that one remembers so rarely to have come across a lady on her postal round. One of these ladies, Mrs. Elizabeth Dickson, retired in 1908 after having walked 129,392 miles in thirty years. Her walk was between Melrose and Gattonside in Scotland. She had not once been late on duty, and had only been absent on sick leave for fourteen days. She was sixty-eight before she found the daily tramp of 13½ miles too much for her strength.
Another lady, Mrs. Jane Wort of Overton, Hampshire, was left a widow in 1876 with a stepson, when she was forty-six years old, and then took up the duties of postwoman. Her daily round was from 16 to 17 miles a day, and she maintained this for over thirty years. Only twice during these years had she been off duty, both absences being due to sprains to hands and ankles, which were caused by falls in slippery weather when going her rounds.
The records of the postmen are full of similar instances of hard work and long distances covered, and I have mentioned the ladies in particular because they are in the minority, and are presumed to be the weaker sex. It is, however, not everybody who thrives under this regular and exhausting labour. “Well, Mrs. Biggs,” said a district visitor to one of her parishioners, “I am sorry your husband is poorly: I think a little exercise would do him good.” And Mrs. Biggs answered sadly, “I'm afraid it's done him 'arm, mum; he's been a letter carrier now for twenty years.”
By Permission of
Messrs. Martin Pirie.
A Country Postwoman.
This is a portrait of Jane Wort, a postwoman of Overton, Hampshire. For nineteen years her daily round amounted to from sixteen to seventeen miles a day. When she was over seventy years of age her round was reduced to eight miles a day. For nearly thirty years she had never been off duty.