Yet, painstaking and conscientious as these annual reports on the health of the staff continued to be for the first few years of their appearance, they were by virtue of their very quality calculated to mislead the public as to the inner conditions of Post-Office life. For one thing they referred principally, if not wholly, to the staffs of London; occasionally Edinburgh and Dublin and other large centres came in for observation, but generally speaking too little attention was paid to the conditions of the provincial offices and other places. Extensively quoted and commented on as all such reports were likely to be, they helped, despite the good intentions of their authors, to convey a lasting impression that the Post-Office was the best-managed and best-regulated department of the State, second only to the army in point of immunity from liability to disease in sanitation and general healthful surroundings. They conveyed the idea that the authorities were on the whole so solicitous about the health and comfort of their lesser subordinates that they would temper the wind to the shorn lamb, and were only too eager to stand between a postman and a draught even while they resolutely refused him proper boots and a winter overcoat. They conveyed the notion that while it was good for his moral welfare to underpay him and put temptation in his way, they none the less themselves endured sympathy pains each time an epidemic of diarrhœa swept through the office. They might be found guilty of many things, but it could never be urged against them that they neglected to regulate the number of microbes in the drinking-water. Altogether such regard apparently was paid to the health of the postal staff in these earlier reports that they gave a suggestion of an abiding humanitarianism in postal administration which should cause postal officials generally to regard themselves as fortunate indeed. Only the timidly-uttered discontent among the letter-carriers gave indication of that newly-imported spirit of profit-mongering commercialism which in a few years was to debauch that leavening principle almost beyond recognition. Not that there was any conscious hypocrisy as yet in officialdom. Through all the changes that ensued, the authorities acted according to their conception of their moral duty. For, up to the present, no responsible minister had risen to accuse the Government of being the model employer.
Rowland Hill, the Permanent Secretary, who by this time had become petted and praised and honoured as the greatest reformer of his or any other age, was nevertheless beginning to be found out by his humbler subordinates. Among them at least the “Monarch of the Penny Post” was anything but a living embodiment of all human virtues. These, the little army of obscure minions about the footstool of his gilded throne, had found out that the idol had feet of clay. While the crowd worshipped without, the menial servants within the temple dedicated to his fame could not seal their eyes to his imperfections. They were the menials on whose humble shoulders was borne the weight of that throne and footstool on which he rested; and they most of all knew that their worshipful master’s clay foot was one that could crush most mercilessly. Such was the feeling under the surface, while the great postal reformer himself never dreamed that those so low down would dare to question either his wisdom or his benevolence in finding employment for such a class of men as they. If he ever dreamed that menials could prove so ungrateful for his inventing the penny post, which gave them their livelihood whatever the conditions, it is probable he did not care. Had he been curious to find out, like another Al Raschid, how his servants regarded him, he would have found it somewhat difficult. But suddenly one day, in the summer of 1858, there was circulated broadcast among the members of the London postal service a stinging piece of satire in verse, which purported to represent the esteem in which he was held by the rank and file of the working staff. There is not the slightest doubt that means were taken to ensure his getting a copy, even if his own cherished penny post were used as the medium. If Rowland Hill ever saw it, history is silent as to how he took it. Possibly he only smiled contemptuously; certainly he was not the man to wince, because the sting of an insect had found a loose joint in his armour. Needless to say the author never came forward to claim his laurels, nor was his anonymity discovered. The verse, which was printed on a small handbill, convenient for secret distribution, is almost a literary curiosity now after nearly fifty years. It read as follows:—
THE WHITE SLAVES
To the Magnate of St. Martin’s-le-Grand
The author presents his compliments to Mr. Rowland Hill, and begs his acceptance of the accompanying lines as a mark of the respect in which he is held by a numerous and hard-working class of which the writer is one, as
A Post-Office Fag, Versus White Nigger.
O Rowland Hill! O Rowland Hill!
Thou man of proud imperious will!
Forbear to crush, with iron hand,
The drudges under thy command;