The Royal Mail Part 5

SHIPWRECKED MAILS.

Outside the Post-office department it is probably not apprehended to what extent care is actually bestowed upon letters and packets--when, in course of transit through the post, their covers are damaged or addresses mutilated--in order to secure their further safe transmission; many envelopes and wrappers being of such flimsy material that, coming into contact with hard bundles of letters in the mail-bags, they run great risk of being thus injured. But the occasions on which exceptional pains are taken, and on a large scale, to carry out this work, are when mails from abroad have been saved in the case of shipwreck, and the contents are soaked with water. Then it is that patient work has to be done to get the letters, newspapers, &c., into a state for delivery, to preserve the addresses, and to get the articles dried. In certain instances the roof of the chief office in St Martin's-le-Grand has been used as a drying-green for shipwrecked newspapers, there being no sufficient s.p.a.ce indoors to admit of their being spread out. The amount of patching, separating, and deciphering in such circ.u.mstances cannot well be conceived.

But perhaps the most curious difficulty arising out of a shipwrecked mail was that which took place in connection with the loss of the Union Steamship Company's packet 'European' off Ushant, in December 1877.

After this ship went down the mails were recovered, but not without serious damage, through saturation with sea-water. One of the registered letter-bags from Cape Town, on being opened in the chief office in London, was found to contain several large packets of diamonds, the addresses on which had been destroyed by the action of the water, and some 7 lbs. weight of loose diamonds, which had evidently formed the contents of a lot of covers lying as pulp at the bottom of the bag, and from which no accurate addresses could be obtained. Every possible endeavour was made to trace the persons to whom the unbroken packets were consigned, and with such success, that after some little delay they reached the hands of the rightful owners. To discover who were the persons having claims upon the loose diamonds, which could not be individually identified, was a more serious matter, involving much trouble and correspondence. At length this was ascertained; and as the only means of satisfying, or attempting to satisfy, the several claims, the diamonds were valued by an experienced broker, and sold for the general behoof, realising 19,000. This means of meeting the several claimants proved so satisfactory, that not a single complaint was forthcoming.

CHAPTER VII.

AMOUNT OF WORK.

_Correspondence._

The amount of work performed by the Post-office in the transmission of letters and other articles of correspondence within the s.p.a.ce of a year, may be gathered from the following figures, taken from the Postmaster-General's annual report issued in 1883:--

The Letters numbered, 1,280,636,200 Post-cards, 144,016,200 Books and circulars, 288,206,400 Newspapers, 140,682,600 ------------- Total, 1,853,541,400 =============

These figures are, however, of little service in conveying to our minds any due conception of the amount of work which they represent. Nor, when the scene of the work is spread and distributed over the whole country, and the labour involved is shared in by a host of public servants, would any arrangement of figures put the matter intelligibly within our grasp.

The quant.i.ty of paper used in this annual interchange of thought through the intermediary of the British Post-office, may perhaps be measured by the following facts:--Supposing each letter to contain a single sheet of ordinary-sized note-paper; the post-cards taken at the size of inland post-cards; book-packets as containing on an average fifty leaves of novel-paper; and newspapers as being composed of three single leaves 18 inches by 24 inches,--the total area of paper used would be nearly 630 millions of square yards. This would be sufficient to pave a way hence to the moon, of a yard and a half in breadth; or it would give to that orb a girdle round its body 53 yards in width; or again, it would encircle our own globe by a band 14 yards in width. Another way to look at the magnitude of the Post-office work is as follows:--Suppose that letters, book-packets, newspapers, and post-cards are taken at their several ascertained averages as to weight, the total amount of the mails for a year pa.s.sing through the British Post-office, exclusive of the weight of canvas bags and small stores of various kinds, would exceed 42,000 tons, which would be sufficient to provide full freight for a fleet of twenty-one ships carrying 2000 tons of cargo each. What a burthen of sorrows, joys, scandals, midnight studies, patient labours, business energy, and everything good or bad which proceeds from the human heart and brain, does not this represent! Yet, after all, what are the figures above given, when put in the balance with the facts of nature? The whole paper, according to the foregoing calculations, although it would gird our earth with a band 14 yards wide, could only be made to extend hence to the sun by being attenuated to the dimensions of a tape of slightly over one-eighth of an inch in width!

Bearing in mind the great quant.i.ty of correspondence conveyed by the post, as well as the hurry and bustle in which letters are often written, it is not astonishing that writers should sometimes make mistakes in addressing their letters; but it will perhaps create surprise that one year's letters which could neither be delivered as addressed, nor returned to the senders through the Dead-letter Office, were over half a million in number! It is curious to note some remarks written by the Post-office solicitor in Edinburgh eighty years ago with respect to misdirected letters. He speaks of "the very gross inattention in putting _the proper_ addresses upon letters--a cause which is more productive of trouble and expense to the Post-office than any other whatever. In fact, three out of four complaints respecting money and other letters may generally be traced to that source, and of which, from the proceedings of a few weeks past, I have ample evidence in my possession at this moment." Letters posted in covers altogether innocent of addresses, number 28,000 in the year; and the value in cash, bank-notes, cheques, &c., found in these derelict missives is usually about 8000. Letters sent off by post without covers, or from which flimsy covers become detached in transit, number about 15,000; while the loose stamps found in post-offices attain the annual total of 68,000.

The loose stamps are an evidence of the scrambling way in which letters are often got ready for the post, and probably more so of the earnest intentions of inexperienced persons, who, in preparing stamps for their letters, roll them on the tongue until every trace of adhesive matter is removed, with the result that so soon as the stamps become dry again they fall from the covers. Letters which cannot be delivered in consequence of errors in the addresses, or owing to persons removing without giving notice of the fact to the Post-office, are no less than 5,650,000, such being the number that reach the Dead-letter Office. But of these it is found possible to return to the writers about five millions, while the remainder fail to be returned owing to the absence of the writers' addresses from the letters. The other articles sent to the Dead-letter Office in a year are as follows, viz.:--

Post-cards, nearly 600,000 Book-packets, " 5,000,000 Newspapers, " 478,000

As regards the book-packets, it is well to know that a large part of the five millions is represented by circulars, which are cla.s.sed as book-packets, and the addresses on which are not infrequently taken by advertisers from old directories or other unreliable sources.

There is one trifling item which it may be well to give, showing how the smallest things contribute to build up the great, as drops of water const.i.tute the sea, and grains of sand the earth. Those tiny things called postage-stamps, which are light as feathers, and might be blown about by the slightest breeze, make up in the aggregate very considerable bulk and weight, as will be appreciated when it is mentioned that one year's issue for the United Kingdom amounts in weight to no less than one hundred and fourteen tons.

ST VALENTINE'S DAY.

"The day's at hand, the young, the gay, The lover's and the postman's day, The day when, for that only day, February turns to May, And pens delight in secret play, And few may hear what many say."

--LEIGH HUNT.

The customs of St Valentine's day have no direct connection with the saint whose name has been borrowed to designate the festival of the 14th of February. It is only by a side-light that any connection between the saint and the custom can be traced.

In ancient Rome certain pagan feasts were held every year, commencing about the middle of February, in honour of Pan and Juno, on which occasions, amid other ceremonies, it was the custom for the names of young women to be placed in boxes, and to be drawn for by the men as chance might decide. Long after Christianity had been introduced into Rome, these feasts continued to be observed, the priests of the early Christian Church failing in their attempts to suppress or eradicate them. Adopting a policy which has served missionaries in other quarters of the globe, the priests, while unable at once to destroy the pagan superst.i.tions with the obscene observances by which they were accompanied, endeavoured to lessen their vicious character, and to bring them more into harmony with their religion; and one step in this policy was the subst.i.tution of the names of the saints for those of young women previously used in the lotteries. Now it happened that the fourteenth day of February was the day set apart for the commemoration of the saint named Valentine; and as the feasts referred to commenced, as has been seen, in the middle of February, a connection would seem to have been set up between the lotteries of the pagan customs (carried down to the time when Valentines were drawn for) and the saint's festival, merely through a coincidence of days. That St Valentine should have been selected as the patron of the custom known to us nowadays, is too unlikely, knowing as we do from history something of his life and death.

He was a priest who a.s.sisted the early Christians during the persecutions under Claudius II., and who suffered a cruel martyrdom about the year 270, being first beaten with clubs, and then beheaded.

The customs of St Valentine's Day have pa.s.sed through many phases, each age having its own variation, but all having a bearing to one idea. The following is an account of the ceremony in our own country as observed by "Misson," a learned traveller of the early part of last century:--"On the eve of St Valentine's Day the young folks of England and Scotland, by a very ancient custom, celebrate a little festival. An equal number of maids and bachelors get together, each writes their true or some feigned name upon separate billets, which they roll up and draw by way of lots, the maids taking the men's billets, and the men's the maids'; so that each of the young men lights upon a girl that he calls his Valentine, and each of the girls upon a young man whom she calls hers.

By this means each has two Valentines, but the man sticks faster to the Valentine that has fallen to him than to the Valentine to whom he has fallen. Fortune having thus divided the company into so many couples, the Valentines give b.a.l.l.s and treats to their mistresses, wear their billets several days upon their bosoms or sleeves, and this little sport often ends in love." Pennant also, in writing of his tour in Scotland in 1769, refers to the observance of this custom in the north of Scotland in these words:--"The young people in February draw Valentines, and from them collect their future fortune in the nuptial state."

In later times the drawing of a lady's name for a Valentine was made the means of placing the drawer under the obligation to make a present to the lady. The celebrated Miss Stuart, who became the d.u.c.h.ess of Richmond, received from the Duke of York on one occasion a jewel worth 800, in discharge of this obligation; and Lord Mandeville, who was her Valentine at another time, presented her with a ring worth some 300.

The term Valentine is no longer used in its more general application to denote the lady to whom a present is sent on the 14th of February, but the thing sent, which is usually a more or less artistic print or painting, surmounted by an image of Cupid, and to which are annexed some lines of loving import. Thirty years ago Valentines were generally inexpensive articles, printed upon paper with embossed margins. Their style gradually improved until hand-painted scenes upon satin grounds became common; and Valentines might be bought at any price from a halfpenny to five pounds. It should not be omitted to be noted that for many years Valentines have had their burlesques, in those ridiculous pictures which are generally sent anonymously on Valentine's Day, and which were often observed to be decked out in extraordinary guises, and having affixed to them such things as spoons, dolls, toy monkeys, red herrings, rats, mice, and the like. On one occasion a Valentine was seen in the post having a human finger attached to it.

But as every dog has its day, and each succeeding period of life its own interests and allurements, so have customs their appointed seasons, and ideas their set times of holding sway over the popular mind. The wigs and buckled shoes of our forefathers, the ringlets of our grandmothers, which in their day were things of fashion, have lapsed into the category of the curious, and have to us none other than an antiquarian interest.

The Liberal in politics of to-day becomes the Conservative of to-morrow; and the custom of sending Valentines, at one time so common, that afforded so great pleasure not only to the young, but sometimes to those of riper years, has already had its death-knell sounded; and at the present rate of decline, it bids fair very soon to be relegated to the shades of the past.

The rage for sending Valentines probably had its culmination some ten years ago, since when it has steadily gone down; and now the festival is no longer observed by fashionable people, its lingering votaries being found only among the poorer cla.s.ses.

The following facts show how far the Post-office was called upon to do the _messenger's_ part in delivering the love-missives of St Valentine when the business was in full swing. At the chief office in London on Valentine's Eve 1874, some 306 extra mail-bags, each 3 feet long by 2 feet wide, were required for the additional work thrown on the Post-office in connection with Valentines, and at every Post-office in the kingdom the staff was wont to regard St Valentine's Eve as the occasion of the year when its utmost energies were laid under requisition for the service of the public.

But the decay of the ancient custom of sending Valentines has probably not come about from within itself; it may rather be attributed to the progress made in what may be called the rival custom of sending cards of greeting and good wishes at Christmas-time. It would almost seem that two such customs, having their times of observance only a few weeks apart, cannot exist together; and it will probably be found that the new has been growing precisely as the old has been dying, the former being much the stronger, choking the latter. Valentines were sent by the young only--or for the most part, at any rate--while Christmas-cards are in favour with almost every age and condition of life. It follows, then, that a custom such as this, having developed great energy, and being patronised by all cla.s.ses, must throw a larger ma.s.s of work upon the Post-office--the channel through which such things naturally flow--than Valentines did. And so it has been found. The pressure on the Post-office in the heyday of Valentines was small by comparison with that which is now experienced at Christmas. During the Christmas season of 1877, the number of letters, &c., which pa.s.sed through the Inland Branch of the General Post-office in London, in excess of the ordinary correspondence, was estimated at 4,500,000, a large portion of which reached the chief office on Christmas morning; while in the Christmas week of 1882 the extra correspondence similarly dealt with was estimated at 14,000,000, including registered letters (presumably containing presents of value), of which there was a weight of no less than three tons. Everywhere similar pressure has been felt in the post-offices, and it is by no means settled that we have yet reached the climax of this social but rampant custom.

In the London Metropolitan district there are employed 4030 postmen; and taking their daily amount of walking at 12 miles on the average--a very low estimate--this would represent an aggregate daily journeying on foot of 48,360 miles, or equal to twice the circ.u.mference of our globe.

Articles of many curious kinds have been observed pa.s.sing through the post from time to time, some of them dangerous or prohibited articles, which, according to rule, are sent to the Returned-letter Office--the fact showing that the Post-office is not only called upon to perform its first duty of expeditiously conveying the correspondence intrusted to it, but is made the vehicle for the carriage of small articles of almost endless variety. Some of these are the following, many of them having been in a live state when posted--viz., beetles, blind-worms, bees, caterpillars, crayfish, crabs, dormice, goldfinches, frogs, horned frogs, gentles, kingfishers, leeches, moles, owls, rabbits, rats, squirrels, stoats, snails, snakes, silk-worms, sparrows, stag-beetles, tortoises, white mice; artificial teeth, artificial eyes, cartridges, china ornaments, Devonshire cream, eggs, geranium-cuttings, glazier's diamonds, gun-cotton, horseshoe nails, mince-pies, musical instruments, ointments, perfumery, pork-pies, revolvers, sausages, tobacco and cigars, &c., &c.

Occasionally the sending of live reptiles through the Post-office gives rise to interruption to the work, as has occurred when snakes have escaped from the packets in which they had been enclosed. The sorters, not knowing whether the creatures are venomous or not, are naturally chary in the matter of laying hold of them; and it may readily be conceived how the work would be interfered with in the limited s.p.a.ce of a Travelling Post-office carriage containing half-a-dozen sorters, upon a considerable snake showing his activity among the correspondence, as has in reality happened.

On another occasion a packet containing a small snake and a lizard found its way to the Returned-letter Office. Upon examining it next day the lizard had disappeared, and from the appearance of the snake it was feared that it had made a meal of its companion. Another live snake which had escaped from a postal packet was discovered in the Holyhead and Kingstown Marine Post-office, and at the expiration of a fortnight, being still unclaimed, it was sent to the Dublin Zoological Gardens. In the Returned-letter Office in Liverpool, a small box upon being opened was found to contain eight living snakes; but we are not informed as to the manner in which they were got rid of.

The strike of the stokers employed by the Gas Companies of the metropolis in 1872 is remembered in the Post-office as an event which gave rise to a considerable amount of inconvenience and anxiety at the time. That the Post-office should be left in darkness was not a thing to be thought possible for a moment; for such a circ.u.mstance would almost have looked like the extinction of civilisation. On the afternoon of the 3d December in the year mentioned, intimation reached the chief office that the Gas Company could not guarantee a supply of gas for more than a few hours, in consequence of their workmen having struck work. The occasion was one demanding instant action in the way of providing other means of lighting, and accordingly an order was issued for a ton of candles. These were used at St Martin's-le-Grand and at the branch offices in the East Central district; while arrangements were made to provide lanterns and torches for the mail-cart drivers, and oil-lamps for lighting the Post-office yard. In the evening the sorting-offices presented the novel spectacle of being lighted up by 2000 candles; and this reign of tallow continued during the next three days. The total cost of this special lighting during the four days' strike was 58; but there was a saving of about 160,000 feet of gas, reducing the loss to something like 27.

CHAPTER VIII.

GROWTH OF CERTAIN POST-OFFICES.

When the past history of the Post-office is looked into, at a period which cannot yet be said to be very remote, it is both curious and instructive to observe the contrast which presents itself, as between the unpretending inst.i.tution of those other days, and the great and ubiquitous machine which is now the indispensable medium for the conveyance of news to every corner of the empire. To imagine what our country would be without the Post-office as it now is, would be attempting something quite beyond our powers; and if such an inst.i.tution did not exist, and an endeavour were made to construct one at once by the conceits and imaginings of men's minds, failure would be the inevitable result, for the British Post-office is the child of long experience and never-ending improvement, having a complexity and yet simplicity in its fabric, which nothing but many years of growth and studied application to its aims could have produced.

But it is not the purpose here to go into the history of its improvements, or of its changes. It is merely proposed to show how rapidly it has grown, and from what small beginnings.

The staff of the Edinburgh Post-office in 1708 was composed of no more than seven persons, described as follows:--

Salary.

Manager for Scotland, 200 0 0 Accountant, 50 0 0 Clerk, 50 0 0 Clerk's a.s.sistant, 25 0 0 Three Letter-carriers, at 5_s._ a-week each.

In 1736 the number of persons employed had increased to eleven, whose several official positions were as follows:--

Postmaster-General for Scotland.

Accountant.

Secretary to the Postmaster.

Princ.i.p.al Clerk.

Second Clerk.

Clerk's a.s.sistant.

Apprehender of Private Letter-carriers.

Clerk to the Irish Correspondents.

Three Letter-carriers.