Notwithstanding the extraordinary length of some of the journeys of the different mail packets, the Postmaster-General informs us that, except in case of accident, the packets, even when late, arrive within a few hours of their time, sometimes within a few minutes. As examples of remarkable punctuality, which is now the rule, and not the exception, he gives several instances, from which we select the following:—"The mails for the West Indies and Central America, despatched from Southampton on the 17th of September, were delivered at the Danish island of St. Thomas, distant more than 4,000 miles, at the precise moment at which they were due. On the same voyage, the mails for Jamaica and Demerara, conveyed in each case by a separate branch-packet, were delivered within a few minutes of the time at which they were due; the mails for parts of Central America and for the Pacific were delivered at Colon, on the eastern coast of the Isthmus of Panama, distant 5,400 miles, thirty minutes after time, the packet having been detained at sea that precise period by H.M.S. Orlando; while the mails for Chili, after having been conveyed with others across the Isthmus of Panama, were delivered at Valparaiso, distant nearly 9,000 miles from Southampton, two hours before the appointed time."
The mail packets employ a force, including officers, of more than 8,000 men. In addition to these, there is a staff of thirty-three naval officers—all officers of the royal navy, though maintained by the Post-Office—employed upon such packets as those for the Cape and the west coast of Africa, and charged with the care and correct delivery of the mails. They are further required to do all they can to guard against delay on the voyage, and to report on nautical questions affecting in any way the proper efficiency of the service. Other officers, besides, are fixed at different foreign stations to direct the transfers of mails from packet to packet, or from packets to other modes of conveyance. Then, again, in growing numbers, another class of officers travel in charge of mails, such as the Indian and Australian, and on all the North American packets, who, with a number of sorters, are employed in sorting the mails during the voyage, in order to save time and labour in the despatch and receipt of mails at London and Liverpool respectively. There are now twenty-eight of this new class of working mail officers, who, of course, are substituted for the old class of naval agents. On the less important mail packets no naval officer is specially appointed, but the mails are taken in charge by the commander.
In past years few casualties, comparatively, have occurred in this service. The loss of the mail packet Violet, on her journey between Ostend and Dover, in 1856, will be remembered by many. One incident in that melancholy shipwreck deserves mention here, affording a gleam of rich sunshine amid a page of dry though not unimportant matter. Mr. Mortleman, the mail officer in charge of the bags, on seeing that there was no chance for the packet, must have gone down into the hold and have removed all the cases containing the mail bags from that part of the vessel; and further, placed them so that when the ship and all in it went down, they might float—a proceeding which ultimately led to the recovery of all the bags, except one, containing a case of despatches. On another occasion, the mail master of a Canadian packet sacrificed his life, when he might have escaped, by going below to secure the mails intrusted to him. Other cases of a similar devotion to duty have, on several occasions of exposure to imminent danger, distinguished the conduct of these public officers, proving that some of them regard the onerous duties of their position in a somewhat higher light than we find obtains in the ordinary business of life.
During the last year, however, an "unprecedentedly large number of shipwrecks"[169] are on record, no less than five valuable packets having been totally lost. In the early part of the year, the Karnak, belonging to Messrs. Cunard and Co., was wrecked in entering Nassau harbour. Shortly after, the Lima struck on a reef off Lagarto Island, in the South Pacific Ocean, and went down. The only loss of life occurred in the case of the Cleopatra, the third packet which was lost. This last-named vessel, belonging to the African Steam-ship Company, the contractors for the Cape service, was wrecked on Shebar reef, near Sierra Leone, when an officer and four Kroomen were washed from a raft and drowned in endeavouring to reach the shore. Towards the close of 1862, the Avon, belonging to the contractors for the West Indian service, was wrecked at her moorings in the harbour of Colon, New Granada; and, lastly, the Colombo (conveying the Australian mails from Sydney) shared the same fate on Minicoy Island, 400 miles from Ceylon. The greatest loss of correspondence was caused by the failure of the last-mentioned packet, though, from the care of the Post-Office authorities, and the prompt arrangements of the contractors, the loss was not nearly so great as it might otherwise have been if the proper appliances had not been ready to hand. The mails were rescued from their ocean bed and brought to London, where every effort that skill could devise was made to restore them to their original condition. They were carefully dried, in order that the addresses of the letters and newspapers might be deciphered. When dried it was requisite that they should be handled most carefully to prevent them crumbling to pieces—so much so, in fact, that many were unfit to travel out of London without being tied up carefully, gummed, and placed in new envelopes, and re-addressed, providing that the old address could by any means be read or obtained. Notwithstanding all the care and attention bestowed, a great number of letters remained, in the words of the Post-Office people, "in a hopeless state of pulp." An Australian carte de visite, which arrived with the rescued mails from the Colombo, and now before us, may have been a gem of art from one of the antipodean "temples of the sun," but we have not now the means of judging, as a yellow bit of paper, with an indistinct outline upon it, is all that remains.
FOOTNOTES:
[166] At this period the packets were worked at a considerable loss; though this large item was occasioned by the war, yet the sea-postage never amounted to half the cost of the maintenance of the mail-packets.
[167] In the American Colonies, Benjamin Franklin was the last and by far the best colonial Postmaster-General. He had forty years experience of postal work, having been appointed postmaster of Philadelphia in 1737. Mr. Pliny Miles, in his history of the Post-Office in America, New York Bankers' Magazine, vol. vii. p. 360, has furnished many interesting particulars of this period. It appears that Franklin notified his appointment in his own newspaper as follows: "Notice is hereby given, that the Post-Office at Philadelphia is now kept at B. Franklin's in Market Street, and that Henry Pratt is appointed riding-postmaster for all stages between Philadelphia and Newport, Virginia, who sets out about the beginning (!) of each month, and returns in twenty-four days, by whom gentlemen, merchants, and others may have their letters carefully conveyed." What follows is also interesting. It would seem that Franklin was somewhat unceremoniously dismissed from his post, upon which he wrote, by way of protest, that up to the date of his appointment "the American Post-Office never had paid anything to Britain. We (himself and assistant) were to have 600l. a-year between us, if we could make that sum out of the profits of the office. To do this, a variety of improvements were necessary; some of these were, inevitably, at the beginning expensive; so that in the first four years the office became above 900l. in debt to us. But it soon after began to repay us; and before I was displaced by a freak of the Minister's we had brought it to yield three times as much clear revenue to the Crown as the whole Post-Office of Ireland. Since that imprudent transaction," adds Franklin, with a bit of pardonable irony, "they have received from it—not one farthing!"
[168] The amount of sea-postage collected has never reached within late years to more than half the entire cost of the mail-packet service. In 1860, this cost was 863,000l. and the postage collected amounted to 409,000l.
[169] Postmaster-General's Ninth Report, p. 84.