This year (1850) my only son was nominated by the Postmaster-General to a junior clerkship in the Secretary’s Department.
“Household Words” and “Quarterly Review.”
There appeared in the course of the next year (1851), two interesting articles on postal proceedings. The first a lively description from the pen of Mr. Charles Dickens, published in the first number of “Household Words”; the second a much longer and more elaborate treatise, though scarcely less amusing, from the pen of Sir Francis Head, published in the “Quarterly Review”; an ample amends for the attack in the same publication ten years before. With both gentlemen I had pleasing intercourse on the occasion, particularly so with the latter, who, requiring more extensive information, and taking great pains to get a correct notion of the leading principles of the whole system, necessarily passed more time in my company. His conversation I found as amusing as his writings.
I may add that his article deals ably with the question of Sunday labour, and very clearly sets forth the mechanism of the office. It will be found in No. 177 of the “Review,” or in Sir Francis Head’s “Descriptive Essays,” Vol. II., p. 286.
[CHAPTER XX.]
EFFORTS FOR FURTHER IMPROVEMENT IN
POSITION. (1851-1852.)
The extent to which railway affairs had come into my hands, combined with the necessity, under existing arrangements, for my acting through the medium of others not subordinate to me, and prone to interfere with my proceedings, led me to urge upon the Postmaster-General the importance of formally transferring the secretarial management of the railway department to myself. This was the more necessary, because the circular of December, 1847—never yet recalled or superseded—made it the duty of the surveyors and others to disregard any instructions I might give in railway matters; so that I had been reluctantly compelled to ask Mr. Tilley [the assistant-secretary] to sign letters for me. My Journal (June 26th, 1851) thus continues:—
“The Postmaster-General still hesitates—says he will consult the Chancellor of the Exchequer to-morrow, &c., and meanwhile advises me to sign instructions in disregard of the circular.”