The History of the Post Office Part 12

It may seem of little moment that, as the result of legislation, six persons more or less should find themselves in reduced circ.u.mstances.

Such an event, unhappily, is not so rare as to call for special remark.

But there was a good deal more than this in the present case. The profits which the clerks of the roads derived from the sale of newspapers had never been devoted to the exclusive use of the recipients. On the contrary, they were to a large extent common property. Out of these profits pensions were provided for Post Office servants who were past work; and from the same source inadequate salaries were raised to something like a decent maintenance. In additional salaries to brother officers and in pensions to officers who had retired, the clerks of the roads had in 1764 contributed as much as 6600; and even now, reduced as their profits were, they were contributing a little over 2000. They were, in effect, the mainstay of the establishment, and the falling off of their emoluments was being watched by the postmasters-general, hardly less than by those who were more immediately interested, with the gravest concern.

Nor was it calculated to reconcile the Post Office servants to the deprivations which they were already beginning to suffer that the members of other public offices, who had lost from the same cause as the clerks of the roads, but to a much less extent, had received compensation in full. The clerks in the offices of the Princ.i.p.al Secretaries of State, like the clerks of the roads, had been privileged to frank both letters and newspapers. By the Act of 1764 the privilege had, as regards letters, been taken away in both cases; and in both cases, as regards newspapers, it remained. Yet to the clerks in the offices of the Princ.i.p.al Secretaries of State was secured, by special Act of Parliament, compensation to the amount of 1500 a year, while the clerks of the roads received nothing; and, as though to add to the aggravation, this sum of 1500 a year was to be paid by the Post Office.

In Dublin the same difficulties were being experienced as in London and from the same cause. Emoluments were falling off and obligations could not be met. Among these obligations, however, there was one which was peculiar to Dublin. Before 1764 the clerks at the castle, like the clerks of the roads, had enjoyed the privilege of franking newspapers, and the exercise of this privilege by the two bodies simultaneously had been attended with so much friction that advantage had been taken of the pa.s.sing of the Franking Act to effect a compromise. In consideration of the sum of 350 a year to be paid by the clerks of the roads the clerks at the castle undertook to abandon their privilege absolutely. A deed to this effect was prepared, and, in order that nothing might be wanting to give it formality, it was signed by the Earl of Northumberland, the Lord Lieutenant, on behalf of the castle, and by Lord Clermont, the Deputy Postmaster-General of Ireland, on behalf of the Post Office. Whence was the sum of 350 to come when the emoluments should be gone? Was a price to continue to be paid for the surrender of a privilege which had ceased to be of value? The Attorney-General for Ireland advised that the clerks of the roads were still liable to the last farthing of their salaries; and the clerks at the castle refused to abate one jot of their claim.

But we are antic.i.p.ating. In 1767 the statute-book received an addition which, though differing widely both in intention and effect from the Franking Act and the Postage Act, cannot be allowed to pa.s.s unnoticed.

This was an Act for the better paving, lighting, and regulating the streets of London, a first step in fact towards converting the London of Hogarth into the London of to-day. The mere preamble[58] of the Act brings home to us, hardly less vividly than Hogarth's pencil, the intolerable inconveniences under which our forefathers were content to live; but what concerns us at the present moment is that one section provided not only that the names of the streets should be put up but that the houses should be numbered. This numbering of houses quickly spread, and, although unnoticed by the Post Office at the time, was destined very materially to a.s.sist its future operations. As a consequence, too, and at no long interval, arose a new industry, namely the compilation of Directories--a thing that was impossible before--and hence the Post Office derived still further a.s.sistance.

[58] "Whereas the several streets, lanes, squares, yards, courts, alleys, pa.s.sages and places within the city of London and the liberties thereof are in general ill-paved and cleansed and not duly enlightened, and are also greatly obstructed by posts and annoyed by signs, spouts, and gutters projecting into and over the same, whereby and by sundry other encroachments and annoyances they are rendered incommodious and in some parts dangerous not only to the inhabitants but to all others pa.s.sing through the same or resorting thereto...."

About this time considerable improvements took place both in the Scotch and Irish posts. Between London and Edinburgh communication had been only thrice a week. In 1765 it was increased in frequency to five days a week, and posts on six days a week were at the same time established between Edinburgh and the chief towns of Scotland. The result was an immediate increase of revenue which much more than covered the increase of expense. Two or three years later the course of post between London and Dublin came under review. By virtue of an arrangement, which the fact of the communication being only thrice a week goes but a short way to explain, letters from England to Ireland were kept lying two whole days in the London Office and, similarly, letters from Ireland to England were kept lying two whole days in the Dublin Office. The packet which was due in Dublin on Sat.u.r.day night rarely arrived before Sunday, and, unless it did so, the letters from England for the interior of Ireland did not leave Dublin until Wednesday morning. Nor was this all.

The number of packets was extremely limited, and, owing to their constant employment by Government as express boats, it frequently happened that two and sometimes three and even four mails were sent by the same packet. In 1767 this was altered. Additional packet boats were placed on the station, and the post between London and Dublin and between Dublin and Belfast in one direction and Cork in another was increased in frequency from three to six days a week.

Between London and the chief provincial towns in England Allen had, as we have seen, established posts six days a week instead of three; but it was not until 1769, or nearly five years after Allen's death, that within the metropolis arrangements were made to correspond. Meanwhile the offices for the receipt of general post letters were kept open and the bellmen went about ringing their bells on only three nights of the week, namely Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sat.u.r.days, and on the other three nights, except at the General Post Office, letters could not be posted gratuitously. On the nights of Monday, Wednesday, and Friday a receiver if called upon to take in letters was ent.i.tled to charge a fee of 1d.

apiece, and this fee he retained as his own perquisite. Beginning with 1769 the receiving offices were kept open and the bellmen rang their bells on every night of the week, Sundays excepted.

An event or rather a series of events now took place, the result of which was largely to alter the character of the Post Office and to extend its usefulness. Recent legislation had done little for the public convenience. It had indeed provided that Penny Post Offices might be established out of London, and advantage had been taken of the provision in one single instance. In Dublin a Penny Post Office had been opened on the 10th of October 1773, or seventy years after the Countess of Thanet desired to open one and was refused permission at the last moment. But in other respects legislation had accomplished little beyond promoting the very abuses it was designed to prevent, and impairing the utility of Dockwra's post. Litigation was now to have its turn; and it is interesting to note the result.

The machinery for the dispersion of letters remained much as it had been since the first establishment of the Post Office. In London, in Edinburgh, and in Dublin there was, as there is now, a body of men whose duty it was to deliver from house to house; but with these three exceptions there was not, 120 years ago, a single town in the kingdom which could boast of its own letter-carrier. The postmaster was the sole Post Office agent in the place; it was he who delivered the letters if they were delivered at all; and for this service he was left to charge pretty much as he pleased. The public had grown tired of this state of things and strenuous efforts were now made to alter it.

The crusade began in the little town of Sandwich in Kent. It had been the practice of the postmaster there, at some former time, to deliver free the letters arriving by the bye and cross posts, and on the delivery of the London letters to charge a fee as his own perquisite. In 1772 a fee was being charged on the delivery of all letters. This charge the inhabitants now determined to contest. The case came on for trial in the Court of King's Bench and was decided against the postmaster, the Court being of opinion that wherever the usage had been to deliver free, there the usage should be adhered to. The postmasters-general were very uneasy. Out of the 440 post towns of the kingdom there were known to be not less than seventy-six which were in the same case as Sandwich and to which the decision of the Court must apply, towns where letters had at one time been delivered free and where they were so no longer; and not a day pa.s.sed without bringing fresh and unexpected additions to the list.

At Birmingham and at Ipswich, for instance, where a charge was now being made for delivery, old inhabitants could remember how forty or fifty years before letters had been delivered free. Was the Crown to be at the expense of letter-carriers at all of these towns, or were the postmasters, who were already complaining of the inadequacy of their remuneration, to forego their perquisites and make a house-to-house delivery as part of their duty?

The question was still under consideration when the town of Ipswich commenced an action. The point raised in this case was whether on the delivery of letters addressed to the inhabitants of the town the postmaster could legally demand any sum over and above the postage, and, if so, whether in the event of the demand being refused he could oblige the inhabitants to fetch their letters. Again the decision, this time by the Court of Common Pleas, was in favour of the public and against the Post Office. The postmasters-general were more than uneasy now. No sooner had the decision in the Ipswich case become known than town after town where letters had never yet been delivered free demanded a free delivery and threatened the postmasters-general with actions in the event of their demand being refused. Bath and Gloucester did more than threaten. They, like Ipswich, proceeded to trial; and again, for the third and fourth time, the decision was against the Post Office.

Thurlow was at this time Attorney-General. He held a strong opinion that in order to comply with the statute it was enough to deliver letters at the Post Office of the town to which they were addressed, and that there was no obligation to deliver them at the houses of the inhabitants.

Still clinging to the belief that the decisions of the Courts must have proceeded more or less on the usage of delivery, he now determined to try the question in the case of a town where the usage had been for no delivery to be made without payment. The town of Hungerford in Berkshire was selected for the purpose. There, it could be proved, ever since the beginning of the century, letters had not been delivered except on payment of a fee of 1d. apiece.

The case came on before the Court of King's Bench in Michaelmas term 1774. Lord Mansfield, the Lord Chief Justice, was the first to deliver judgment. He was surprised, he said, the several Acts being so ambiguous and the usage so contradictory, that the Post Office had not applied to Parliament to explain the matter. That was the view of the Court when, in the other cases, it avoided the general question. He never liked to avoid general questions, for to decide them tended to prevent further litigation; but an important question of this kind, arising out of Acts that had "not yet spoke," and, whichever way it might be decided, involving more or less inconvenience, was essentially one for Parliament. And in the Bath case there were grounds on which the general question could, without impropriety, be avoided. There the postmaster when delivering a letter had demanded a certain sum as a duty. Now, a duty it certainly was not. If on the delivery of a letter Parliament had intended to impose a duty, it would have fixed the amount and made it part of the Post Office revenue; and not have left every postmaster free to fix what amount he pleased or might prevail upon people to give. And what a monstrous inconvenience it would be if every one had to go to the Post Office to fetch his own letters! How could the Court have laid down such a proposition as that? The thing was impossible. And it must be remembered that there could be no middlemen--men between the inhabitants and the postmaster--who for gain could set up an office to distribute the letters, because by law the postmaster could not deliver them except to the persons to whom they were addressed. These were the considerations which in the Bath ease induced him to avoid the general question, and he had been glad to feel able to do so, never doubting that the postmasters-general would apply to Parliament for a determination; but this, unfortunately, they had not done. Then there was the Gloucester case. He remembered it well. There the question was not whether there should be a free delivery, for at Gloucester letters had always been delivered free, but whether certain houses should fall within the limits of that delivery. All that the Court then decided was that in the case of these houses, forming as they unquestionably did a part of what was known as the town of Gloucester, the Post Office could not depart from its own practice. But the present case was different.

Here the contention was that in the town of Hungerford there was not a single house at which the Post Office was required to deliver letters without being paid for it. Practically, no doubt, it was the Bath case over again; but the Court could not well avoid the general question a second time. The Post Office, in effect, sought to impose a duty; and this, he said it emphatically, the Post Office had not the power to do without the authority of Parliament, which authority had not been given.

His mind was perfectly clear that within the limits of a post-town the Post Office was bound to deliver free; but how far these limits should extend was a question upon which he did not feel called upon to express an opinion.

The other judges were equally emphatic. The Post Office had urged in support of its contention that it sometimes happened--as, for instance, at Hartford Bridge---that the stage or post-house was a single house with no other houses near. There, at all events, as soon as it had deposited the letters at the post house, the Post Office had discharged its duty. And if there, it was asked, why not elsewhere? If, said Mr.

Justice Aston, the post house was a single house with no other houses near, the question did not arise; but, in the case, of towns, surely it would not be contended that each individual inhabitant was to resort to the post house every day in order to inquire whether there was a letter for him or not. To demand this penny within the limits of a post town, said Mr. Justice Willes, was contrary to the whole tenor and spirit of the Acts of Parliament; and where the post town was a small one like Hungerford, the demand was far more unreasonable than it would be in the case of London and Westminster. Yet in London and Westminster letters were delivered free. He should pay more regard to the usage of the city of London than to that of fifty such towns as Hungerford. Mr. Justice Ashurst was of opinion that even to usage too much importance might be attached. If it were really the case that at Hungerford, ever since the pa.s.sing of the Act of Anne, a man living next door to the Post Office had had to pay over and above the postage 1d. for every letter he received, this in his opinion was a bad usage, an usage for which the Act afforded no justification, and the sooner it was laid aside the better.

The decision of the Court burst upon the postmasters-general like a thunderbolt. They had been a.s.sured that it would certainly be in the opposite direction; and now, to their dismay, they found themselves face to face with the prospect of, what they called, an universal delivery.

What was to be done? The Post Office would be ruined. Of course the Attorney-General would advise an appeal to the House of Lords. As a matter of fact the Attorney-General advised nothing of the sort.

Thurlow's private opinion continued to be what it had always been, that the Post Office was not bound to deliver letters beyond the stage or post house. He even went so far as to admit that, if once the Act were construed to require more than that, he knew of no manner of construction that would ent.i.tle the postmasters-general to refuse to carry letters into every hole and corner of the kingdom. Still, as two Courts had decided against the Post Office, he regarded it as useless to appeal to the House of Lords, where, no doubt, the opinion of the same judges would be taken and acted on. Then, inquired the postmasters-general, might not a writ of error be brought with a view to hang up the judgment of the Court of King's Bench until the matter should be settled by Parliament. "No," replied Thurlow, "I do not approve a writ of error being brought by an office of revenue avowedly to suspend a question."

Thus ended a controversy which in one form or another had extended over a period of more than two years. The postmasters-general urged indeed that Parliament should be asked to avert what they regarded as little short of a catastrophe; but the recommendation was not adopted, and the decision of the Court was left to take effect.

We have dwelt upon this matter at some length, because it was, in effect, a turning-point in the history of the Post Office. The enterprising spirit of the small towns, the independence of the judges, and the conspicuous fairness of the Attorney-General, make up no doubt a combination which it is pleasing to contemplate; and yet, if this were all, a shorter notice would have sufficed. It is because the Post Office was now to a.s.sume a new character, the character in which it is known to us at the present time, that we have thought it best not to omit any important particular. And how great the change was to be a moment's consideration will shew. Cotton and Frankland had, early in the century, done what little they could to make the Post Office popular. They had lost no opportunity of advocating cheap postage; they had lived among the merchants, and, as far as duty would allow, had consulted their wishes; and within the limits a.s.signed to them had spared no efforts to promote the public convenience. But since then a different spirit had prevailed. By Cotton and Frankland's successors much had been done in restraint of correspondence and nothing, or next to nothing, in promotion of it. The Post Office had become, insensibly perhaps, but none the less surely, a mere tax-gatherer, and, like other tax-gatherers, its policy had been to exact as much and to give as little as possible. All this was now to be altered. An appeal had been made to the Courts; and the Courts in the most deliberate and solemn manner had affirmed this principle--a principle now so universally recognised and acted on as to excite our wonder that it should ever have been otherwise--that the Post Office was to wait upon the people, and not the people upon the Post Office.

It might be supposed that the decision of the Courts would have been immediately followed by the appointment of letter-carriers throughout the country, or else by additions to the salaries of the postmasters in consideration of their undertaking to make a house-to-house delivery gratuitously. Such, however, was not the case. At the towns which had taken a foremost part in the fray--at Hungerford and Sandwich, at Bath, Ipswich, and Birmingham--as well indeed as at other towns which were spirited enough to a.s.sert their rights, letter-carriers were no doubt appointed; but there was no sudden and general alteration of practice.

On the contrary, the obedience which the Post Office yielded to the law as laid down by the Courts was a tardy and grudging obedience. As much as ten or eleven years later we find the postmasters-general acknowledging indeed the obligation under which they lay to appoint letter-carriers at any towns that might demand it, and yet taking credit to themselves that, as a matter of fact, no such appointments had been made except where the inhabitants had refused to continue the accustomed recompense for delivery.

The Courts of Law were at this time the best friends of the people. No sooner had they decided that every town which possessed a Post Office of its own was ent.i.tled to a gratuitous delivery at the door than a somewhat similar question came before them in connection with the penny post. For every letter delivered by the penny post the inhabitants of Old Street, St. Luke's, of St. Leonard's, Sh.o.r.editch, of Bethnal Green, and Spitalfields were required to pay an additional penny, that is a penny over and above the one which had been paid on posting; and this they had long regarded as an imposition. According to Dockwra's plan the second or delivery penny was to be confined to Islington, Hackney, Newington b.u.t.ts, and South Lambeth, which in his day formed separate towns; but in course of time, as buildings extended, the Post Office appears to have exacted the same charge at intermediate places. Jones, a wealthy distiller of Old Street, now determined to try the question.

Again the decision of the Courts was against the Post Office, and not only in Old Street, but in Sh.o.r.editch, Bethnal Green, and Spitalfields the additional penny had to be abandoned.

While these proceedings were taking place before the Courts, the Post Office had forced upon it a step which, even in those days of indifference, cannot have been taken without a pang. This was the dismissal of its most distinguished servant or rather of its only servant with any claim to distinction, and that of the highest. We refer to Benjamin Franklin. This eminent man had been appointed postmaster of Philadelphia in 1737, and after being employed in several positions of trust, had been promoted to be one of the joint postmasters-general of America in 1753. He had recently been sent to England with the object of averting war between the mother country and her transatlantic colonies, and, his mission having failed, he was now dismissed. The letter in which the decision was announced was as follows:--

To DOCTOR FRANKLIN.

GENERAL POST OFFICE, _Jan. 31, 1774_.

SIR--I have received the commands of His Majesty's postmasters-general to signify to you that they find it necessary to dismiss you from being any longer their deputy for America. You will therefore cause your accounts to be made up as soon as you can conveniently.--I am, sir, your most humble servant,

ANTHONY TODD, _Secretary_.

Curt as this communication was, it was perhaps the best of which the circ.u.mstances admitted. Indeed, we are by no means sure that the terms of it were not arranged with Franklin himself. He was in London at the time. His relations with the Post Office had always been of the most cordial character. He did not, after receiving the letter, cease to visit Lombard Street; and before his return to America he wrote to the Post Office intimating that he would cheerfully become security for his colleague, who, as a consequence of his own dismissal, had to enter into fresh bond. At all events, whether Franklin had any hand in the preparation of the letter or not, the less said the better would seem to have been the opinion of the writer; just as a desire to let bygones be bygones is plainly shewn in the first letter which pa.s.sed after correspondence was resumed. This letter is a curiosity in its way. It is dated the 25th of June 1783, and, ignoring all that had happened during the preceding seven years, begins as follows:--

To DOCTOR FRANKLIN at PARIS.

GENERAL POST OFFICE, _June 25, 1783_.

DEAR SIR--I must confess I have taken a long time to acknowledge the last letter you were pleased to write me the 24th of March 1776 from New York. I am happy, however, to learn from my nephew, Mr.

George Maddison, that you enjoy good health, and that as the French were about to establish five packet boats at L'Orient, Port Louis, for the purpose of a monthly correspondence between that port and New York, you were desirous of knowing the intentions of England on that subject....--I am, dear sir, with the greatest truth and respect, your most obedient and most humble servant,

ANTHONY TODD.

In 1780, as part of a Licensing Act, the monopoly of letting post-horses which the Post Office had enjoyed uninterruptedly since 1603 was taken away. It is curious to note that a measure which 177 years before had been deemed essential to the maintenance of the posts was now withdrawn without, so far as we are aware, exciting a murmur; and, by a strange coincidence, at the very time the measure was being withdrawn in the United Kingdom, the deputy postmaster-general of Canada, who had recently arrived in London, was urging upon the Government a similar expedient as an indispensable condition without which the "maitres de poste" between Quebec and Montreal would be constrained to throw up their appointments. Such is the difference between a new inst.i.tution and an inst.i.tution that is well established.

It should here be remarked that with the extinction of this monopoly pa.s.sed away one of the original functions of the postmasters-general.

Hitherto, lightly as the responsibility had rested upon them for the last hundred years or more, they had been masters of the travelling-post as well as the letter-post. For the future they were to be masters of the letter-post alone.

Little remains to be told of the eighteen years of which this chapter treats. In 1782, in consequence of a hint dropped by the Lord Chief Justice in the course of a trial, the Post Office did an eminently useful thing. It issued an advertis.e.m.e.nt counselling the public when sending bank notes by post to cut them into two parts and to send one part by one post and another by another. The counsel was adopted, and in an incredibly short s.p.a.ce of time the practice became general. In the same year the Post Office servants were disfranchised. By an Act pa.s.sed in the reign of Queen Anne they were forbidden either to persuade or to dissuade others in the matter of voting; and now they were forbidden to vote themselves. The only point of interest connected with the two Acts is perhaps their termination. While the later Act was repealed in 1868, the earlier one was not repealed until 1874; and meanwhile the postmaster-general sat in the House of Commons and offered himself for election. Little, probably, did he think that for every vote he solicited he rendered himself not only liable to a penalty of 100 but "incapable of ever bearing or executing any office or place of trust whatsoever under Her Majesty, her heirs, or successors."

The internal condition of the Post Office during the last few years of Lord North's administration was simply deplorable. The profits from the sale of newspapers kept growing less and less. The clerks of the roads, after paying the salaries and pensions which formed the first charge on their receipts, had left for themselves the merest pittance. These men, to whom an appeal for help had never been made in vain, were now in sore need of help themselves. The prospect was alarming, for if the clerks of the roads should fail to meet their engagements they would drag down with them a not inconsiderable part of the establishment. It was in 1778, when apprehension was highest, that the Commissioners of Land Tax for the city of London made a new a.s.sessment, and suddenly, without a note of warning, every Post Office servant in the metropolis found himself a.s.sessed to the land tax to the amount of 4s. in the pound. Not even the letter-carriers or maid-servants were excepted. At this time and during the two or three following years a general bankruptcy was imminent. Eventually the abatements were remitted and the salaries and pensions which had been charged to the clerks of the roads were in part transferred to the State; but not before many of the Post Office servants had compounded with their creditors and all had endured the severest privations.

Meanwhile the postmasters from America, ejected from their offices, had been flocking to this country and pleading for pensions on the English establishment. The packets were meeting with a series of disasters so far beyond the experience of former wars as to excite the most hostile comment. During the seven years ending August 1782 no less than thirty-seven were captured by the enemy. Of these four belonged to the Post Office, and sums for that time prodigious were expended to replace them. The others were owned by the captains who commanded them, and the owners received as compensation for their loss the sum of 85,000. Even the fabric of the buildings partook of the general decay. In Edinburgh the Post Office had had to be abandoned at a moment's notice, the arch which supported the main part of the structure having given way. In Dublin the roof had fallen in. In both Dublin and Edinburgh new Post Offices were being erected at heavy expense; while in London search was being made for new premises on the plea that those in Lombard Street were insufficient for present requirements.

To crown all, ugly rumours were afloat, rumours imputing corruption in the highest quarters. The postmasters-general were indeed to be pitied.

The Post Office in more senses than one was falling about their ears.

CHAPTER XII

JOHN PALMER

1782-1792

The apathy of the Post Office about this time is incomprehensible. More than twenty years before, the General Convention of the Royal Boroughs of Scotland had called the attention of the postmasters-general to the intolerable slowness of the post on the Great North Road. "Every common traveller," they wrote, "pa.s.ses the King's mail on the first road in the kingdom." At the present time the clerks of the roads were giving as one of the reasons why they were undersold in the matter of newspapers that, whereas they sent their wares by post, the booksellers and printers availed themselves of the more expeditious conveyance by stage-coach.