[146] The closing of the Birmingham old Savings' Bank, for example, must have greatly increased the work of the central office, and this will follow as a consequence if in other large towns the example of Birmingham be followed.
[147] Large as this staff undoubtedly is, it would have been larger but for timely changes in the system of keeping accounts. In 1855 the Civil Service Commission suggested various improvements in the organization, which resulted in a decrease of officers attached to some of the branches.
[148] Postmaster General's Second Report.
[149] See [Appendix (A)].
[150] Head-office is the official term given to the independent post-towns, and such as are only subordinate to one of the three metropolitan offices. Sub-offices are, of course, under the head-offices. Receiving-offices, at which letters are received, but not delivered, are also under the authority of the head-office of the neighbourhood. Those post-offices at which money-orders are issued and paid are designated Money-order Offices, and include all the head-offices and a large number of sub-offices, and a few receiving-offices. Packet-Offices are those at which the regular mail-packets (ship-letters may be received or despatched. at any port) are received and from which they are despatched. London and Southampton are packet-offices for the Continental Mails, the East and West Indies, and South America. Liverpool, and Queenstown take the United States and Canada. The mail-packets for the Cape of Good Hope and the West Coast of Africa sail to and from Devonport.
[151] For further information respecting these offices, see [Appendix (D)], Revenue Estimates; also, for a statement of the amount of postage collected in our largest towns, see [Appendix (E)].
[152] The staff of the largest provincial offices usually consists of clerks, sorters, stampers, messengers, letter-carriers, and rural post-messengers. The clerks are now principally engaged on clerical duties, attending to the public on money-order business, &c. or in connexion with registered letters or unpaid-letter accounts. In offices where the staff is smaller, the clerks also engage in sorting and despatching letters. In many small country towns females are employed as clerks. The sorters are principally engaged in sorting duties. Stampers and messengers do duties such as their designations denote. Letter-carriers—the familiar "postmen" of every household—are almost exclusively engaged in delivering letters, &c. from door to door. Auxiliary letter-carriers are those only partially so employed, principally on the largest, or early morning delivery. Rural post-messengers is the official name for "country postmen," who make daily journeys among the villages and hamlets surrounding each town, delivering and taking up letters on their way.
[153] For fuller information on this head, see Appendix, to the Postmaster-General's First Report, pp. 71-4. The following forms part of a later Document (Ninth Report, 1862-3), and is interesting enough to be quoted entire: "Owing to the successful measures which the Department has adopted by means of bonds, frequent supervision, and care in the selection of persons admitted into the service, and afterwards promoted therein, very few losses have occurred, of late years at least, through defalcation. More than twenty years ago, however, a postmaster who owed the office 2,000l. but who had given security for only a part of that sum, absconded, leaving an unpaid debt of upwards of 1,000l. The recovery of the debt had long been considered hopeless, but a short time ago a letter was unexpectedly received from the postmaster's son enclosing a remittance in payment of part of his father's debt, and expressing a hope that after a time he should be able to pay the remainder—a hope which was soon realized, every farthing of the debt having now been discharged, in a manner most creditable to the gentleman concerned."