My acknowledgments are due to Messrs Jarrold and Sons of Norwich and Warwick Lane, E.C., for their kind permission to include a schoolboy's essay on the postman in my chapter dealing with that official. The essay is to be found in a book entitled The Comic Side of School Life, by H. J. Barker.
The Post Office has many critics, friendly and unfriendly, but it counts its[counts its] friends in millions, and I have written this book with the belief that a closer knowledge of the Department with which we all have dealings will be acceptable.
EDWARD BENNETT.
CONTENTS
| CHAP. | PAGE | |
| I. | Postboys and Mail Coaches | [17] |
| II. | The Penny Post | [31] |
| III. | Lombard Street and St. Martin's le Grand | [43] |
| IV. | King Edward's Building | [56] |
| V. | The Travelling Post Office | [69] |
| VI. | The Parcel Post | [83] |
| VII. | Motor Mails | [98] |
| VIII. | The Undelivered Postal Packet | [108] |
| IX. | Money Orders and Postal Orders | [125] |
| X. | The Post Office Savings Bank | [137] |
| XI. | The Telegraph | [155] |
| XII. | The Telegraph (continued) | [170] |
| XIII. | The Telephone | [181] |
| XIV. | Engineers, Stores and Factories | [195] |
| XV. | Ocean Mails | [208] |
| XVI. | The Postal Union | [222] |
| XVII. | Concerning Foreign Post Offices | [231] |
| XVIII. | The Post Offices of the Empire | [246] |
| XIX. | The Postmaster-General and the Permanent Staff | [261] |
| XX. | The Head Postmaster | [276] |
| XXI. | The Village Post Office | [289] |
| XXII. | The Postman | [304] |
| XXIII. | The Post Office Guide | [317] |
| XXIV. | Old Age Pensions and other Activities of the Post Office | [332] |
| Index | [350] |
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
| Heaving Overboard the Mails | [Frontispiece] | |
| PAGE | ||
| The Mail Coaches Leaving London | [20] | |
| Mail Coach and Train | [34] | |
| St. Martin's le Grand | [48] | |
| The Blind Section | [62] | |
| The Travelling Post Office— | ||
| Interior | [70] | |
| Suspending the Pouch | [76] | |
| Pouch and Net | [76] | |
| Pouch taken | [76] | |
| Apparatus for Receiving Pouch | [78] | |
| Apparatus for Delivering Pouch | [78] | |
| The Parcel Post Hospital | [94] | |
| The Custom House Officers at Work | [96] | |
| The Sorting Office | [110] | |
| A Postcard | [114] | |
| A Postcard | [120] | |
| A London Postman (Old Style) | [126] | |
| The Woodpecker and the Telegraph Post | [156] | |
| Telegrams on Telephone Wires | [172] | |
| The Telephone Detective | [182] | |
| Three Minutes' Conversation by Telephone | [192] | |
| Underground Telephone Wires | [198] | |
| How Treasure was Brought to London | [210] | |
| St. Kilda Mail | [219] | |
| The Postal Union Monument | [228] | |
| A Post Office Stone | [255] | |
| The River Postman | [258] | |
| The Sorting School | [280] | |
| The Postman's Bell | [306] | |
| A Country Postwoman | [314] | |
| A Nest in a Letter-box | [328] | |
THE POST OFFICE
& ITS STORY