The bag containing the letters is conveyed to the Aberdeen Post Office, where it is opened, and the letters are again subsorted. The letter for Muckle Flugga is placed in a pigeon hole labelled “Lerwick,” and a sorter then checks all the postal packets very carefully, because, in consequence of the remoteness of the islands, serious delay would happen if any were mis-sent. Then they are tied in separate bundles and are placed in a strong waterproof sack labelled “Lerwick.” The Monday steamer goes to Scalloway on the west side of Shetland, other steamers during the week go to Lerwick via Orkney, the steamer on Thursdays from Aberdeen sailing to Lerwick direct. But our letter is going to Scalloway, and it can arrive there about 2 P.M. on the Tuesday. The mails are then placed on a mail cart for conveyance to Lerwick on the east side of the island, six miles distant. At Lerwick the letter is again subsorted, and placed in another bag labelled “Lerwick to Haroldswick.” This place is on the island of Unst. The bag is conveyed by mail car leaving Lerwick at 9.15 P.M. on Tuesday, and this stage means a long drive of many miles north, with a break of a few hours at Voe. Mossbank, which is on Yell Sound, the dangerous channel which separates the island of Yell from the Shetland mainland, is reached at 7.30 A.M. on Wednesday. The bag for Haroldswick is here placed in a ferry-boat which starts at 8 A.M. and is due to reach the other side in an hour, the distance being three miles. The tide in Yell Sound has a speed of nine miles an hour, and in a gale of wind is the worst crossing in the British Isles. Ulsta is the landing-place on the other side, and a mail car takes the letter for the lighthouse five and a half miles to Burravoe, then another car takes it to Cullivoe, twenty miles further on, and the letter is opposite the island of Unst at 3 P.M. on Wednesday. Here is another ferry between the islands of Yell and Unst, across a channel one mile in width, and the ferryman should arrive at Tranavoe in Unst about 3.30 P.M. There a mail car takes the letter, and carries it eleven and a half miles across the island, and it arrives at Haroldswick the same evening at 6.30. Here the letter rests until the following morning, when a foot-postman starts for the shore station of the Muckle Flugga Lighthouse. But it may be here for weeks before the people on the shore can communicate with those on the lighthouse. The British Isles in these northern latitudes end in magnificent and dangerous rocks, and it is upon one of these, rising to a height of 200 feet, that the Muckle Flugga lighthouse is erected.
The letter has travelled practically the length of the British Isles from south to north, and in less than the same time another letter might have travelled from London to Athens, Cadiz, Gibraltar, Madeira or Tangiers. The Mauretania will probably reach New York on most of her voyages sooner than a passenger will travel the length of the British Isles. And that is simply because we use the old means of conveyance over a considerable portion of the distance. The Post Office owes much to the railway companies for the advances made in the quality of the rolling stock and in the condition of the permanent way. It was always possible to sort letters after a fashion while the train was in motion. But it is now possible to write and to type letters on the train, and we have come to this, that all the stages of a letter can be completed during a single journey. Yet directly we get away from the railway system in any part of the country we are back again in the eighteenth century, dependent on postboys, mail carts, the weather, and the state of the roads. The country is still full of samples of the travelling arrangements of all the centuries. There is no Travelling Post Office in the Hebrides or the Shetlands.
CHAPTER VI
THE PARCEL POST
Out of very small beginnings many great commercial enterprises have arisen, and the Parcel Post is not the only big business which sprang into being in a cellar. In the basement of the old General Post Office at St. Martin's le Grand in the year 1883 the Parcel Post began its work, and though it speedily outgrew this limited accommodation, not even the most optimistic of its supporters could have dreamed that in less than thirty years the General Post Office would be dealing annually with 118 million parcels, and that instead of a basement, many great buildings would be required in which to transact the business.
In 1880 a Postal Conference was held at Paris with the view of creating an International Parcel Post, and at that Conference the British Post Office was represented, although, having then no Inland Parcel Post, it was unable to enter into any international agreement. But the example of foreign nations undoubtedly stimulated the energies of English officials, and in the two following years negotiations were carried on with the railway companies which finally resulted in an arrangement, to which legal effect was given by an Act of Parliament passed on the 18th August 1882, that the companies should receive eleven-twentieths of the postage collected upon all parcels carried by railway. It was from the outset intended to link the Inland to the International Parcel Post as soon as might be possible.
In the early days no parcel weighing over 7 lbs. could be sent by Parcel Post, and the charge for a parcel of this weight was 1s. To-day a 7 lb. parcel can be sent for 7d., and parcels weighing up to 11 lbs. are accepted. The charge for 11 lbs. is now 11d. The reduction in charges was a part of the Diamond Jubilee Reforms of 1897. The minimum charge of 3d. for a parcel not weighing over 1 lb. has remained unchanged since 1883.
The dimensions of a parcel must not exceed 3 feet 6 inches in length nor a total of 6 feet in length and girth combined. Ladies' hats are sent by the Parcel Post in large numbers, and grave fears were at one time entertained, when the hats were growing larger week by week, that the General Post Office would have to close its doors to these enormities. They were approaching perilously near the limit of 6 feet length and girth combined. It is difficult at all times to find out what determines a change of fashion; it is possible in this instance that the Parcel Post regulations may have influenced those mysterious individuals who decide what ladies are to wear; anyhow, the situation was saved by the introduction of “the pudding basin” hat, and though the large hat did not disappear, high tide in size had been reached.
In its early beginnings the Parcel Post was confined to the United Kingdom, but in 1885 it was extended to some of the Colonies and British dependencies, to India, Gibraltar and Egypt, to Malta, the Straits Settlements, Hong Kong, some of the West Indies, and South Africa. In the following year business was begun with Germany. Belgium, and Constantinople, and other continental countries were soon added to those we exchanged parcels with. Canada joined the system also in 1886, These foreign extensions were not always considered successes by the public. An indignant business man, complaining of the loss of parcels sent by him to Persia, wrote: “The Parcel Post Service was evidently established in Persia with the object of providing the officials of that country with food and clothing. The only articles which appear to reach their destination are the publications of the Religious Tract Society.”
We are accustomed to see in the windows of suburban houses cards bearing the letters C.P. or L.P.D., indicating that the carts of certain carrying agencies are required to call, but we should probably experience something in the nature of a shock if we saw in the windows a card lettered P.P. or G.R. to indicate that the Parcel Postman was to call. There is an accepted tradition with the public as well as with officials that the Post Office does not advertise. Mr. Fawcett was Postmaster-General when the Parcel Post was organised, and he broke through that tradition not only as regards the Parcel Post but also in dealing with the Post Office Savings Bank; and in the early days of the Parcel Post, cards were distributed to householders with the request that they should be placed in the windows when the Parcel Post cart was required to call. The cards were coloured with the Post Office red, and the lettering was white.
The chief Parcel Office is at Mount Pleasant, Clerkenwell. It is a district rich in historical associations. Here was the famous Bagnigge Wells, where Londoners used to stroll on summer evenings to drink a dish of tea and to enjoy the humours and fashions of the town. Here also stood the Coldbath Fields Prison, and gradually, as buildings surrounded the jail, the district lost prestige as a health resort. The prison authorities doubtless realised this, and decided to seek purer air for their 2000 visitors, and they removed their headquarters further into the country. The prison was thus thrown on the market, and after a period of negotiations the General Post Office took possession with the intention of erecting a pile of Government buildings on the site. The Parcel Post had rapidly outgrown its cramped quarters at St. Martin's le Grand, and in 1887 the business was transferred to the prison buildings. For some years the chief Parcel Sorting Office in Great Britain was located in the old prison treadwheel house behind massive and gloomy walls. The khaki-clad, barefaced gentry had departed to their country residence, and the huge treadwheels had been removed to make way for the Parcel Post.