LETTER-CARRIERS IN PARIS.
In Paris, where there are six deliveries of the “Petite Poste” per day, the carriers of the General and “Petite Poste” letters are the same. In a report made by Rowland Hill on the French post-office, in October, 1839, speaking of this plan, he says, “The plan of employing one set of letter-carriers for the delivery of all letters appears to work exceedingly well in Paris. All that I heard and saw in Paris tends to confirm the opinion I have already expressed, that great convenience and economy would result from the union of the two bodies in London.”
INDECENT POSTAL MATTER.
“Sec. 16. And be it further enacted, That no obscene book, pamphlet, picture, print, or other publication of a vulgar and indecent character shall be admitted into the mails of the United States; and any person or persons who shall deposit or cause to be deposited in any post-office or branch post-office of the United States, for mailing or for delivery, an obscene book, pamphlet, picture, print, or other publication, knowing the same to be of a vulgar and indecent character, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, being duly convicted thereof, shall for every such offence be fined not more than five hundred dollars, or imprisoned not more than one year, or both, according to the circumstances and aggravations of the offence.”
Apart from this act, there is an understanding between the postmaster-general and postmasters generally relative to obscene and vulgar postal matter. So far as the secrets of the office are concerned, that understanding is “contraband.” But this is not sufficient. If the post-office is to be used as the medium through which the vilest works of art pass so readily, and calculated to corrupt the innocent and excite the passions of youth by high-colored pictures, the public, at least, should know how and why so many reach the persons to whom they are directed, and to what extent this espionage extends. It would require no breach of the observance of postal rules to ascertain almost at a glance the nature of the book or picture which comes under the head of “indecent postal matter.” These publications, varying in accordance to the artistic taste of the originators, pass through the office in the shape of splendid photograph albums, handsomely-bound books, embossed prints, transparent cards, and “yellow-cover pamphlets,” à la Dr. Young, and photograph cards of a most indecent character. At other times they are posted as letters, addressed chiefly to young ladies, containing a card and making the most dishonorable proposals. In several instances the parents have shown the author these letters, and upon a close examination he feels satisfied that the only motive the writer had was to corrupt and demoralize, without the most distant idea of ever reaping the fruits of his villany. The imagination cannot conceive or pencil paint a more hideous picture of a fiend than one who would thus attempt to corrupt the young and innocent by such means. The idea could only have been suggested by the devil, and as readily carried out by his agent. Artists of well-known reputation lend themselves to this work of destruction; and specimens denote the highest order of talent, as well as the most exquisite workmanship of art,—art devoted to the production of the most vulgar and disgusting subjects the human mind ever conceived or a diseased imagination conjured. That very intellect which should have shed a halo over the pure things of earth is here devoted to the production of things evil.
A tendency to sap the foundation upon which rest the pillars of morality, and to poison the minds of youth, seems to be a prevailing vice. High literary attainments, great mental powers, have been brought into the arena to battle for crime, lasciviousness, and vice. In all ages the vile corruption of man’s nature, aided by genius and talent, has been manifested in the production of things evil. The rapid and, we may say, alarming increase of crime, the callousness manifested at the recital of human suffering, the want, or, rather, the absence, of a correct moral standard in every thing appertaining to social life, the sneering at the tenets of our holy religion, the assumption as it were of omniscient powers on the part of sinful men, have led to a state of things which will require stronger measures than that of mere reasoning to remedy.
Our streets of a night are flooded with the daughters of vice; temples are dedicated to licentiousness, sanctioned by the authorities, who grant them “license” as it were to corrupt youth and demoralize the masses. Intemperance and pauperism are the results of the “law’s license” to common crime. Thus the dark shadow of vice extends its fatal power over that portion of the human family from whose domestic circle the voice of prayer never ascends. There instead is heard the sound of rattling glasses: loud oaths, the bacchanalian song, there throw around the circle of which they form the nucleus an atmosphere to poison and destroy. Much of all this can be traced to the estimate men place upon the modern mode of education. If genius invents something that places vice in a brilliant light, in and through which all that is startling in picture-view or description presents new features to the novice in licentiousness, it becomes at once an institution from whence flows a stream that poisons a city. In an instant these productions take miniature shapes: art combines with the genius of the originators, and, lo! they go forth through the post, spreading ruin and desolation everywhere. It is that very facility which the post affords that gives power and influence to these fiends; and, alas! how many, dazzled by the “refinement of vice,”—refined by the touch of art,—fall into the snare by the very excitement they produce! Many of these photographs of the more vile character reach “young ladies’ seminaries.” Many books of a similar character find their way hither, and thus corruption works its way to the ruin of their inmates.
We would have—what under no other circumstance would we suggest to the department—an espionage over all suspicious postal matter.
ESPIONAGE OVER THE POST-OFFICE IN FRANCE.
That country must be in a bad way where the heads of the several departments find it necessary to resort to the most infamous means of tracing out suspected traitors. Thus, in the postal department, every letter is subject to the system of espionage, and the innocent as well as the guilty alike suspected and their private correspondence betrayed. In time of rebellion, insurrection, or an attempt to assassinate a king or an emperor, there might be some excuse for the exercise of such precaution; but in the absence of such startling causes the system is both mean and cowardly. In France, at the present time (1865), private letters, newspapers, and pamphlets are subjected to the most anxious scrutiny. A large portion of every day is devoted to such examinations by a skilful and energetic body of men. Between the time when letters are received at the chief office from the district-offices and the time they are sent out again, two hours elapse. During this period they are in the hands of the police. The police have a list of certain addresses, and are furnished with examples of the handwriting of every one in whose correspondence the government is interested. With these and practised eyes the officials set to work, carrying all suspected letters into the Cabinet Noir, where they are read, copied, delayed, stopped at discretion; and the police are very discreet about seizing letters: it is done as seldom as possible. The system is so perfect, it works so well, that the only chance of evading it is to correspond under assumed names, changed with every letter; and this is actually done by people who are not more treasonable than the majority of Frenchmen, but who, being eminent and powerful, are condemned to the degradation of shifts like these, or every letter they write would be read by the police. Governments maintained thus are never safe in power.