The 600 tola limit for parcels was continued except in special cases which were laid down by the Governor-General in Council, but in no circumstances was the weight of any parcel to exceed 2000 tolas (50 lbs.). Ship postage was levied on parcels, when conveyed by the East India Company's post by sea, at the rate of 8 annas for each 100 tolas. When any parcel had to be conveyed by bhangy as well as by sea, this postage was levied in addition to bhangy postage. Letters and newspapers for Ceylon or any place where no postal communication was established by the East India Company were dealt with as unclaimed, unless the full postage was prepaid by means of postage stamps.

With the introduction of postage stamps we now find the first regulations for encouraging the prepayment of postal articles. In Section 20 it is laid down that, where the East India Company have a postal communication, double postage shall be charged on unstamped letters at the time of delivery, and in the case of insufficiently stamped letters double the deficiency. This rule did not apply to newspapers or other printed matter, but in order to compel the public to use the new postage stamps, post offices were forbidden to accept money in prepayment of any postal articles except parcels. Redirected letters were charged with postage at prepaid rates, and a penalty of Rs.200 was imposed for sending "any explosive or other dangerous material or substance by post."

Rules were drawn up for the use and sale of postage stamps, vendors were appointed, and heavy penalties were exacted from vendors who failed to comply with the regulations. Registration of any article was allowed upon payment of a fee of 4 annas which entitled the sender to a receipt, but, strange to say, the registration fee had to be paid in cash, stamps not being recognized in payment.

The clauses of Act XVII of 1837 regarding the obligations of commanders of vessels were renewed, and also the clauses dealing with unclaimed and refused articles. The privilege of free postage was entirely abolished, but the letters and packets sent on the public service by certain officials were still carried under frank. The postage due on such articles was charged to the several public departments concerned. This measure led to wanton extravagance in the matter of official postage, no care was taken to economize either in the number or the size of "public service" articles and various abuses of franking occurred. The list of officers authorized to frank became so large that the Post Office could not exercise any proper check, and the difficulty of accounting in connection with the postage due was enormous. The first restriction was placed on franking in 1866 when the use of service stamps was made compulsory on all letters passing outside the Presidency towns or limits of the district in which they were posted, and in 1873 all franking privileges were abolished.

In Section 48 of the Act the duty of the Post Office to abide by the Customs regulations is insisted upon. Officers in charge of post offices were bound to detain articles suspected of containing anything contraband, and they could refuse to forward any parcel or packet addressed to a foreign post, unless it was accompanied by a Customs' House Pass. A long list of penalties, most of which exist at the present day, was drawn up for offences and misdemeanours committed by postal officials. Informers were encouraged by being allowed to receive half of every fine imposed, but no proceedings could be taken against any one under this Act without an order in writing from Government, the Director-General or a Postmaster-General.

In 1854 Mr. Riddell was appointed the first Director-General of the Post Office, and he compiled the first Manual of Rules to be observed by the whole Department. At this time there were 201 head-quarter offices and 451 minor offices in India, but every office kept its own accounts separately and submitted them direct to the Audit Office which was part of the Accountant General's Office. It was not until 1861 that postal accounts were removed from the Civil auditors and handed over to an officer known as the "Compiler of Post Office Accounts" and not until 1866-7 that the distinction between Head and Branch offices was made for account purposes.

The Manual of 1854 made no proper arrangement for sorting offices, it only provided for mails being received en masse and for their distribution afterwards to peons and into the "thana" and forwarding boxes. Every post office upon a line had to make up a separate mail packet for every office in advance, and it received one from every office in rear, a most cumbersome proceeding, which was put a stop to in 1860, when long detentions were made at certain large stations upon the main routes for the purpose of sorting the mails. Paid letters were impressed with a red date-stamp to distinguish them from unpaid, which bore a black date-stamp. Letters for foreign countries were sent with steamer postage invoices (chalans) to the different Presidency towns. Prepayment of articles sent to England via Marseilles, for which Brindisi was substituted in 1870, was not possible, nor could letters for countries like the United States be prepaid.

It seems hardly credible that in 1854 one of the longest chapters of the Manual was devoted to an elaborate system of fining, under which different offices claimed fines from one another for bad work brought to light by them. The official who detected the finable offence was allowed to keep the amount of the fine subject to a deduction of 10 per cent, which was remitted to the Postmaster-General's office to cover the cost of printing Fine Statements, Bills, etc. A regular schedule of offences with the fine allotted for each was drawn up; for instance, the missending of a mail bag was assessed at Rs.3, while the missending of a parcel or packet cost 8 annas. Naturally there was great energy expended in detecting offences for which fines were imposed, and the result was an enormous amount of correspondence and bitter recrimination between offices. This vicious practice continued for many years and was not finally put a stop to until 1880.

FOOTNOTE:

[5] The first issue of postage stamps in India was actually made in 1852 by Sir Bartle Frere, Commissioner of Scinde. They were local stamps for use in Scinde only, and bore the inscription "Scinde District Dak."