[26] A very valuable compendium of the history of English railways from 1820 to 1849. It was published in 1851.
[27] The first of these reports was issued in 1855. Of the eleven reports since issued, two, the tenth and eleventh, bear no date at all, whilst the twelfth bears the comprehensive one of “March 1866.” These three reports, as well as the three that precede them, are signed by Lord Stanley, of Alderley; of the others the Duke of Argyll signed two, the late Earl of Elgin one, the late Lord Canning one (the first), and Lord Colchester one. That for 1867 (the thirteenth) is signed by the Duke of Montrose. His Grace has dated it.
The last person, not a Peer of Parliament, who was Postmaster-General, was the Right Hon. Henry Frederick Carteret, who was appointed on the 29th January, 1771, joint Postmaster-General with Lord Despencer. He became Lord Carteret on the 29th January, 1784, and continued as joint Postmaster-General with Lord Walsingham until the 19th September, 1789. On the death of James, Marquis of Salisbury, on the 13th June, 1823, Thomas, Earl of Chichester, who had been one of the two Postmasters-General since the 5th of May, 1807, became sole Postmaster-General, and there has not been more than one Postmaster-General since that date. Lord Chichester finally retired from office on the 17th September, 1827.
[28] The first travelling Post Office was placed on the Grand Junction Railway (the connecting Railway between Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham) on the 6th of July, 1837. On the 1st of January, 1839, the travelling Post Offices commenced running through, between London and Liverpool. The first travelling Post Office in Ireland was established on the Great Southern and Western Railway, between Dublin and Cork, on the 1st of January, 1855. They are now on every important line of railway in the United Kingdom, but they are not available as the travelling post offices are over almost all Europe, for the receipt of letters as they arrive at and stop at stations. In France, Belgium, Holland, all Germany, Austria and the Austrian dominions, Switzerland and Italy, there are letter boxes and receiving apertures on each side of them, into which letters can be thrown until the very moment that the trains to which they are attached are leaving the stations; no late fee is necessary for such letters, in fact a late letter fee is not known on the Continent, with one exception—Paris. In that city, since the 9th of May, 1863, letters can be posted at the Bureaux d’Arrondissement until half an hour after the general closing of the boxes, and until an hour after their closing at the Grand Bureau.
The travelling Post Office staff of the United Kingdom consists of 53 clerks and 147 sorters. These are exclusive of mail officers at some railway stations, and of 89 mail guards and 40 mail porters. The average daily journey of each travelling Post Office employé is 170 miles, and the average time of his duty is between 5 and 6 hours.
The “Service Ambulant” of France is much more comprehensive, as by means of the travelling offices a large amount of sorting is performed, which is the work of the ordinary post offices in England. The staff of the French travelling post offices was, on the 1st of January, 1866, composed of 518 “Agents” and 654 “Sous Agents;” total of the staff, 1,172.
[29] “Newspapers and book packets liable to detention if posted in pillar boxes within three miles of St. Martin’s-le-Grand.”—Postal Guide. Passim. Why? Let us also ask, does “detention” mean forfeiture or delay? Such a penalty, whichever it may be, does not, we believe, exist in any other part of the Kingdom with regard to newspapers and book packets posted in pillar boxes.
[30] It is to Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer, Bart, (now Lord Lytton), that the public is indebted for the Newspaper Duty Reduction Act of 1836; and it is to Mr. Milner Gibson, M.P., that is mainly due the distinction of having effected, in 1855, the abolition of the “Tax upon Knowledge” as the Newspaper Duty was then designated.
In 1835 the number of newspaper stamps issued was 32,874,632, and the number of newspapers conveyed by the post was nearly the same. In 1854, the last complete year before the abolition of the compulsory stamp, it was 107,052,053, of which about 37,000,000 were for London newspapers. About 70,000,000 were transmitted through the post. It is now of course impossible to do more than estimate the circulation of newspapers, but the London morning papers alone may be taken at 400,000 a-day, or 125,000,000 per annum; the daily papers published in all other places at as many more, and weekly papers at 250,000,000: total 500,000,000. If these figures be approximatively correct, the issue of newspapers has increased five-fold since 1854, but not more than about a seventh of them circulate through the post. In fact there has been scarcely any increase in the number of newspapers through the post since 1854.
The effect of comparatively high newspaper, as contrasted with low letter postage may be thus illustrated:—the chargeable letters delivered in the United Kingdom have risen from 75,907,562 in 1839, the year before the penny postage, to 720,467,007 in 1865, whilst newspapers, 44,500,000 in 1839, have (including book post packets, of which there were none in 1839), advanced in 1865 only to 97,252,766.(A) In France, in 1847, the year before the reduction of inland letter postage (one penny in each town or commune, twopence throughout France and Algeria, which latter, for postal purposes, is considered as France), the chargeable letters were 126,480,000, newspapers, printed matter, and pattern post 90,275,466. In 1856 the newspaper postage rate was reduced to four centimes per copy, not exceeding an ounce and a third, with one centime for each additional third of an ounce, and these rates are diminished one-half when a newspaper is posted and delivered in the same department. In 1865 the number of chargeable letters was 314,817,000, newspapers, &c., 275,317,880. Thus the chargeable letters only exceeded newspapers, &c., by 39,499,120. In Great Britain the excess was 643,814,241.