“The hope of the post office shut down the slit with a snap; and the queue settled down to more patience and more beating time.”
The German accepts this as a part of his divinely organised scheme of things; it is the Englishman who meditates murder.
Many of us are familiar with the French Post Office. In many ways the French have been in advance of our own methods. It is only since 1897 that we have had in this country a complete system of rural posts, but as early as 1830 a law was passed in France, that in every village where there was no post office, there should at least be a delivery of letters every two days. In 1877 the Chief of the French Post Office could say with justice that the rural delivery in France was the most perfect in the world. The real hero of the French Postal Service, it has been said, is the rural postman. From year's end to year's end he trudges on, without a rest even on the greatest holidays. In France nothing less than a revolution stops the postman's rounds, and even then he has often been seen, bag in hand, smiling on the summits of barricades with the bullets whistling around him.
The most stirring times in the history of the French Post Office were during the war of 1870-71. The efforts to maintain the postal system led to acts of great heroism on the part of the officials. The first expedient was to organise a pigeon service carrying microscopic despatches, prepared by the aid of photographic appliances. On their arrival in Paris these were flattened out and thrown by means of the electric lantern on to a screen, copied by clerks, and despatched to their destination. The number of postal pigeons employed was 313. The second expedient was to establish a regular system of postal balloons, fifty-one being employed for letter service and six for telegraphic service. These were very successful, in spite of the building by Krupp of twenty guns, supplied with telescopic apparatus, for the destruction of the balloons. The bravery of the French balloon postmen was only equalled by that of many of the ordinary letter carriers, who conveyed letters through the catacombs and quarries of Paris and its suburbs, and, under various disguises, often through the midst of the Prussian army. Several lost their lives in the discharge of their duties. The eagerness of the Germans to defeat the schemes of the brave Frenchmen is illustrated by the fact that they employed hawks to catch the postal pigeons.
France has lagged behind Great Britain in other directions. The French Postal Savings Banks only date from 1881, although from 1875, the post offices had been used as agencies for existing banks. But we must remember that the French Government has for years offered special facilities to the small investor in “Rentes,” the equivalent of Consols in this country, and the special need of a State Savings Bank was not so marked as in this country. The French Postal Telegraph system was established nearly ten years after the British system, but on the other hand there have been postal telephones in France since 1879.
The Parcel Post is managed differently in France from this country. The service is carried on under the control of the Post Office by railway and steamship companies. Parcels are not accepted at post offices except in places distant from railway stations, and in Paris and important towns they are taken in at special parcel booking offices. Neither are parcels delivered by the Post Office but by the railway companies.
Then in France there is a postal service called “Valeurs à recouvrer.” Everybody is allowed to deposit bills at a post office for collection. This is a great convenience and very practical. You enclose the bill, or the invoice or draft which you want to be paid, in a special envelope called “Enveloppe de valuer à recouvrer,” and you hand it to an officer of the Post Office. A certificate of the posting must be obtained. When the bill or invoice has been paid by the addressee, the Department sends you a money order which can be cashed at any post office.
The French Post Office also supplies card money orders payable not at a post office, but at the payee's address.
The Spanish Post Office is trying. Spain is a thinly populated country, with comparatively few large towns, and if you travel off the beaten track you will meet all kinds of inconveniences. A Spanish post office is usually superior to so petty a trade as the sale of stamps: you obtain these at the shops. Moreover, though other postal business is transacted at the Post Office, there are certain hours set apart for different kinds of business. A Spanish post office may be open from nine until ten for the registration of letters, from ten until eleven for the sale of postal orders, from eleven until noon for the payment of postal orders, and so on. This is the Spaniard's idea of simplifying business, not only for the public, but the official. The Spanish postal official is often a poorly paid and rather badly used individual. The postmaster of a large town in the Canary Islands confessed to a friend of mine, who was postmaster of a big city in the United Kingdom, that his salary was less than a third of the Englishman's. And he added, “I don't even get that as a rule unless I go to Madrid for it.”
A visitor to Grand Canary on asking for a postcard was informed that there had been none in the island for three months. The postmaster had applied to Madrid for a supply but in vain. He was probably expected to fetch his stores as well as his salary. The Spaniard, at any rate, is modest about his Post Office: he does not increase your annoyance by claiming perfection. He is one of the oldest members of the Old World, and he has not learnt the art of self-advertisement.