Various improvements noticeable under this head (some of them of considerable importance) are omitted here as being more conveniently mentioned under other categories, as Money Orders, Conveyance of Mails, Packet Service, &c.
The following, though of economic tendency, was, as will be perceived, more beneficial in another respect:—
“October 29th, 1851.—A clerkship at Hong Kong having become vacant by death, the Postmaster-General has, on my recommendation . . . determined not to fill it up, and to employ part of the saving thus effected in giving to the postmaster and each of the remaining clerks in turn leave of absence for a year and a half, with full salary and an allowance of £100 towards the expense of the voyage. By these means, while ample force will still be left, the poor fellows will have the opportunity of recruiting their health, and a saving will be effected of £183 a year.”
By merely entering into negotiations for substituting coach for railway train we obtained from the Belfast and Ballymena Railway Company a voluntary reduction in charge of more than £2000 a year, and this with some gain in time; again, by substituting car for coach between Limerick and Galway, we obtained another reduction of £1,200 a year.
Another measure provided for some immediate and a large prospective saving in the cost of guards, the duties of many amongst whom I found, on examination, to be so light as not to occupy, on the average, more than three or four hours per day. It is a curious fact that I was led to the examination resulting in this discovery by an application for increased force.
In the year 1851 prepayment in money of postage on inland letters was abolished at all those provincial offices where it had been thus far allowed. Early in the following year the abolition was extended to Dublin, next to Edinburgh, and last of all to London—thus completing the establishment of prepayment by stamps alone throughout the United Kingdom, and greatly simplifying our proceedings. To save trouble, however, to the senders of large numbers of circulars, a limited exception was still allowed at the chief office in St. Martin’s-le-Grand, the rule eventually taking this form, viz., to receive prepayment in money from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in sums of not less than £2 at a time. And thus, with this trifling exception, was carried into full effect, and I believe without a dissentient voice, a mode of payment which it was at one time maintained that the public would regard with such disfavour that its unpopularity would be found a serious obstacle, if not an insuperable bar, to the whole scheme of penny postage.
MINOR IMPROVEMENTS.
Early Delivery.
“December 31st, 1851.—Frederic has succeeded in satisfying Smith (President of the London District Office) of the practicability of a considerable improvement in the delivery of the general post letters in those parts of the suburbs of London which are about four or five miles from the Post Office. For the last three or four weeks the delivery at Brixton and in the neighbourhood has been about two hours earlier than theretofore, and the improvement will shortly be extended to Hampstead, Highgate, Stoke Newington, and many other places about equally distant from the Post Office, if the Treasury sanction the small increase of expense necessary. The measure will be a step towards the more perfect plan which I attempted to carry out more than four years ago, but which I was obliged to abandon for the time in consequence of Smith’s objections.