[CHAPTER VII.]
CONCERNING SOME OF THE POPULAR MISCONCEPTIONS AND MISREPRESENTATIONS TO WHICH THE POST-OFFICE IS LIABLE.
The Post-Office, from its peculiar organization and the nature of its business, is liable to many misconceptions from which the other great Government Departments are more or less free. In one of the reports of the Postmaster-General, many of these misunderstandings are recounted and answered with an evident endeavour to bring about a better feeling between the people and the people's Post-Office. We cannot do better than refer here to a few of the instances given, supplementing them by more which have been suggested to us from that consideration of the entire economy of the Post-Office, into which we have been led in dealing with our subject.
1. Unquestionably, the Post-Office is blamed for many errors and shortcomings which ought never to have been charged against it. On this important point, the evidence given by each Post-Office Report is remarkably clear, although, by the way, a writer in a recent number of a highly respectable quarterly review regards the instances given by successive Postmaster-Generals as so many "testimonials to character," reminding him—so he scurvily added—of nothing so much as "the testimonials given by dyspeptic noblemen in favour of the Revalenta Arabica or Holloway's Pills and Ointment."[196] Of course, much trouble and many losses must, from time to time and at all times, have been caused by the carelessness or dishonesty of some of many thousand officials of the Post-Office, though the cases are far from few, and the authorities, in which it has been shown, to the satisfaction even of the complainant, that the fault at first attributed to the Post-Office rested really in other quarters. Some examples are afforded. The publisher of one of the London papers complained of the repeated loss in the Post-Office of copies of his journal, addressed to persons abroad. An investigation showed that the abstraction was made by the publisher's clerk, his object apparently being to appropriate the stamps required to defray the foreign postage. In another case, a general complaint having arisen as to the loss of newspapers sent to the chief office in St. Martin's-le-Grand, the investigation led to the discovery of a regular mart held near the office, which was supplied with newspapers by the private messengers employed to convey them to the post. Again: A man was detected once in robbing a newsvendor's cart by volunteering, on its arrival at the entrance of the General Post-Office, to assist the driver in posting the newspapers. Instead of doing so, however, he walked through the hall with those intrusted to him, and, upon his being stopped, three quires of a weekly paper were found in his possession.
To these cases of newspapers let us add a few concerning letters, the substance of which are adduced in subsequent reports. Thus, a letter containing a cheque for 12l. and sent to a London firm, was said not to have reached its destination; the Post-Office was blamed for not delivering it; inspectors were set to work, and after a diligent search, it was traced from the premises of the person to whom it was addressed to those of a papier-maché manufacturer, where it doubtless had been pulped into tea-trays or writing-cases. Again: A bank agent sends his son to the post with a letter, which on his journey he opens. Spying a figured cheque, he abstracts it, and posts the letter without it, and it is afterwards found ornamenting his copy-book! Another bank agent sends his youthful son to the post-office to receive for him his letters, one of which, containing some very valuable inclosures, he leaves in his pocket, and immediately afterwards leaves town for school, carrying with him the precious missive—worth some 1,500l.—where it consorts with his marbles, Everton toffy, and cold Bologna sausage, till the vacation, the lad all the time being in blissful unconsciousness of the stir paterfamilias was making about it. Another person complained that several of his letters were not forthcoming. This case was a mystery. At length it struck one of the shrewd officials—who grow shrewd through dint of unravelling the most curious cases—that the letter-box at the person's door ought to be carefully examined. This was done, and the box was found exceedingly defective. Fifteen letters were jammed between the box and the door, where some of them had quietly reposed for the space of nine years.[197] The secretary of a charitable institution in London gave directions for posting a large number of "election papers," and supposed that his directions had been duly acted upon. Shortly, however, he received complaints of the non-receipt of many of the papers, and in other cases of delay. He at once lodged a strong complaint at the Post-Office; but, on examination, circumstances soon came to light which cast suspicion on the person employed to post the notices, although this man had been many years in the service of the society, and was supposed to be of strict integrity. Ultimately, the man confessed that he embezzled the postage (3l. 15s. 6d.), and had endeavoured to deliver the election papers himself. Once more: A short time since a registered letter was said to have been posted at Newcastle, addressed to a banker in Edinburgh, who, not receiving it according to his expectation, sent a telegraphic message to learn why it had not been forwarded. The banker supposed that the letter had been lost or purloined in the Post-Office; but it was at last found to have been duly delivered to the bank porter in order to post it, but he had locked it up in his desk and forgotten it.
2. The knowledge of the following misconception may also help to save the public and the Post-Office a great amount of trouble. "It is often assumed," says the Postmaster-General, "that a mail-conveyance passing by, or through a place, ought, as a matter of course, to deposit," there and then, "the letters directed thereto; the practice being, on the contrary, that until the mail arrives at the head post-office of the district, the letters in question are not separated from the other letters of the district. A slight consideration of the nature and objects of the postal service will show that such separation cannot be effected in any other way, unless, indeed, the mail-conveyance, even supposing it to be but a mail-cart, were converted into a travelling post-office, and furnished with clerks of unlimited local knowledge (which is plainly impossible), or unless every town and village in the kingdom, having any correspondence with the place in question, were to make up a bag for that place; in which case its mail would contain nearly as many bags as letters."
3. "It happens from time to time that, owing to the stream of postal communications having been diverted from the old mail-road to a line of railway, or from other causes of like nature, it becomes desirable to reduce the post-office of a town from the condition of a principal office to that of a sub-office. This step not unfrequently gives rise to complaints, the inhabitants being under the impression that they will not in future be so well served. This is a misconception. The change is not made when it will subject the correspondence to delay; nor does it cause any withdrawal of accommodation in respect to money-orders. It is, in fact, only a departmental arrangement, which consists in carrying on the sorting of the letters for the new sub-office at some intermediate office, instead of sending the letters in direct bags."
4. "Another misconception, which occasionally causes trouble and disappointment, consists in assuming that a discretionary power can be intrusted to subordinate officers to remit penalties or overcharges under special circumstances. Cases will occur in which strict observance of a general rule may inflict more or less injustice upon individuals, and where a dispensing power immediately at hand might furnish a remedy. In an establishment as large and as widely spread as the Post-Office, however, there will always be many subordinate officers, some of them carrying on their duties beyond the easy reach of any supervising authority, who are not fit depositaries of such a power, affecting, as it would to a great degree, the public revenue. It therefore becomes necessary to lay down definite and precise rules, from which no departure can be allowed, except under sanction of the Postmaster-General; and in the few instances in which these rules press hardly, appeal must be made to the General Post-Office. It must be added, that in many instances even such appeal is necessarily fruitless, the Postmaster-General being bound to a particular course by positive law."
5. "In regard to the expense of railway conveyance, the public naturally supposes, that as such conveyance is cheapest for ordinary purposes, and as the charges made for the carriage of mails are subject to arbitration, that it must be cheapest for postal purposes also; and, indeed, so cheap, as to warrant the free use of the railways, either as substitutes for other conveyance, or for the multiplication of mails. The fact, however, is very different. Except in certain instances, where companies have entered into arrangements, securing to the Post-Office the use of their trains on moderate, though still highly remunerative terms, railway conveyance, with all its acknowledged advantages, has proved much more expensive than that which it has superseded." We have already spoken at length of railways in relation to the Post-Office, and will not here add any further remark.
6. The English Postmaster-General is frequently supposed to have some control over colonial post-offices, and even those of foreign countries. Except at Gibraltar and Malta, however, he is quite powerless out of the United Kingdom.