The Royal Mail Part 6

The apprehender of private letter-carriers, as the name implies, was an officer whose duty it was to take up persons who infringed the Post-office work of carrying letters for money.

The work continued steadily to grow, for in 1781 we find there were 23 persons employed, of whom 6 were letter-carriers; and in 1791 the numbers had increased to 31. In 1828 there were 82; in 1840, when the penny post was set on foot, there were 136; and in 1860, 244.

In 1884 the total number of persons employed in all branches of the Post-office service in Edinburgh was 939.

The Post-office of Glasgow, which claims to be the second city of the kingdom, shows a similar rapidity of growth, if not a greater; and this growth may be taken as an index of the expansion of the city itself, though the former has to be referred to three several causes--namely, increase of population, spread of education, and development of trade.

In 1799 the staff of the Glasgow Post-office was as follows, viz.:--

Salary.

Postmaster, 200 0 0 First Clerk, 30 0 0 Second Clerk, 25 0 0 Four Letter-carriers, at 10s. 6d. a-week each, 109 4 0 A Stamper or Sorter, at 10s. 6d. a-week, 27 6 0

So that the whole expense for staff was no more than 391, 10s. per annum, and this had been the recognised establishment for several years.

But it appears from official records, that though the postmaster was nominally receiving 200 a-year, he had in 1796 given 10 each to the clerks out of his salary, and expended besides, on office-rent, coal, and candles, 30, 2s. 8d. Somewhat similar deductions were made in 1797 and 1798, and thus the postmaster's salary was then less than 150 a-year in reality. It is worthy of note here that letters were at that time delivered in Glasgow only twice a-day.

Some ten years earlier--that is, in 1789--the indoor staff consisted of the postmaster and one clerk, the former receiving 140 a-year, and the latter 30.

A penny post, for local letters in Glasgow, was started in the year 1800, when, as part and parcel of the scheme, three receiving-offices were opened in the city. The revenue derived from the letters so carried for the first year was under 100, showing that there cannot have been so many as eighty letters posted per day for local delivery. After a time the experiment was considered not to have been quite a success, for one of the receiving-offices was closed, and a clerk's pay reduced 10 a-year, in order to bring the expense down to the level of the revenue earned. In 1803 matters improved, however, as in the first quarter of that year the revenue from penny letters was greater than the expense incurred.

At the present time, the staff of the Glasgow Post-office numbers 1267 persons, and the postmaster's salary is over a thousand pounds a-year.

To those who know Liverpool, with its expansive area, its vast shipping, its stir of commerce, and, in the present relation, its army of postmen, the following facts will exhibit a striking contrast between the past and the present. In 1792, when the population of that town stood at something like 60,000, the number of postmen employed was but three, whose wages were 7s. a-week each; but, to be quite correct, it should be added that one of the postmen, having heavier work than the others, was aided by his wife, and for this a.s.sistance the office allowed from 10 to 12 a-year. One of the postmen delivered the letters for the southern district, including Everton, St Ann's, Richmond, &c.; another served the northern portion, taking in part of the old dock, the dry dock, George's Dock, &c.; while the third disposed of the letters for the remaining portions of the town. The duties of these men seem to have been carried out with a good deal of deliberation. The postmen arranged the correspondence for distribution in the early morning, then they partook of breakfast, and set out upon their rounds about 9 A.M., completing their work of delivery about the middle of the afternoon. And thus it would appear that Liverpool at that time had only one delivery per day.

Upon all letters delivered by two of the postmen--the two first mentioned--a halfpenny per letter over and above the postage was charged for delivery; in the other case the ordinary postage only was levied.

The reason for the additional charge was no doubt this that the postmaster was allowed by the Department only one postman, and that consequently the wages of the other men who were necessarily employed had to be met by the special tax referred to. The following minute of the Postmaster-General, dated 28th October 1792, while in some sense affording an explanation of the matter, shows that somewhat peculiar notions prevailed with regard to providing force where such was required. It runs as follows:--

"There are only two instances in the kingdom where more than one letter-carrier is allowed, viz., Portsmouth and Bath. I understand it has been held as a general rule not to allow more than one to any other place, however extensive and populous it may be; in the two exceptions to this rule the inhabitants had been accustomed to pay the deputies a gratuity for delivering the letters, but having refused to continue the payment, these postmasters felt their income considerably reduced, and I believe it was not till after much discussion the rule was broke through."

The minute continues as follows:--"Mr Palmer had some ideas respecting such a modification of the rates of postage as might induce the inhabitants of every place in the kingdom to pay _with cheerfulness_ an extra halfpenny or penny over and above the rates; this extra payment to be sanctioned by an Act of Parliament; and then the whole amount of the sums now paid for letter-carriers, being 1927, 8s. per year, would be saved to the Revenue." If this accurately represents Mr Palmer's ideas, Mr Palmer did not quite understand the British public.

At the same period to which we refer, there were only three letter-carriers in Manchester, four at Bristol, and three or four at Birmingham; but in each case only one was allowed by the Department, the others being employed as extras, and provided for, no doubt, by a special tax upon the letters delivered. This system of charging extra for delivery would seem to have been open to abuse, for we find that in 1791 the Postmaster-General called for explanation of an exceptional charge at Eton, in a Minute as follows:--"Let the Comptroller-General inquire who serves, and by whose authority, the parts of the country circ.u.mjacent to the Eton delivery, as they charge no less a sum than 3d.

for each letter, in addition to the postage, for all letters delivered at Upton, which is not above a mile from the College." And the Postmaster-General makes this very wise observation on the practice--"This enormous expense for letters must check and ruin all correspondence, and essentially hurt the revenue."

At the end of last century and beginning of this--and indeed it may be said throughout the whole term of the existence of the Post-office--humble pet.i.tions were always coming up from postmasters for increase of pay, and from these we know the position in which postmasters then were.

The postmaster of Aberdeen showed that in 1763, when the revenue of his office was 717, 19s. 4d., with something for cross post-letters, probably about 400, his salary had been 93, 15s.; while in 1793, with a revenue of over 2500, his whole salary was only 89, 15s., and out of this he had to pay office-rent and to provide a.s.sistance, fire, wax, candles, books, and cord.

At Arbroath, now an important town, the revenue was, in 1763, 76, 12s.

8d., and the postmaster's salary, 20. At this figure the salary remained till 1794, though the revenue had increased to 367, 13s. 5d.; but now the postmaster appealed for higher pay, and brought up his supports of office-rent, coal, candles, wax, &c., to strengthen his case.

In Dundee, in the year 1800, the postmaster's salary was 50, and the revenue 3165, 9s. 5d.

At Paisley, the postmaster's salary was fixed at 33 in 1790 and remained at that figure till 1800 when a pet.i.tion was sent forward for what was called in official language an augmentation. In the memorial it is stated that the revenue for 1799 was 1997, 1s. 11d., and that the deductions for rent, coal, candles, wax, paper, pens, and ink, reduced the postmaster's salary to from 15 to 20 a-year!

To show how these towns have grown up into importance within a period of little more than the allotted span of man, and as exhibiting perhaps the yet more bounding expansion of the Post-office system, the following particulars are added, and may prove of interest:--

At Aberdeen, at the present time, the annual value of postage-stamps sold, which may be taken as a rough measure of the revenue from the carriage of correspondence alone, is little short of 30,000; the staff of all sorts employed numbers 191; and the postmaster's salary exceeds 600 a-year. Arbroath is less pretentious, being a smaller town; but the letter revenue is over 4000 a-year; the persons employed, 14; and the postmaster's salary nearly 200. Dundee shows a postage revenue of over 35,000; 193 persons are employed there; and the postmaster's salary is little short of 600. While at Paisley the revenue from stamps is nearly 10,000; the persons employed, 43; and the postmaster's salary, 300.

Notwithstanding the vast decrease in the rates of postage, these figures show, in three of the cases mentioned, that the revenue from letters is now about twelve times what it was less than a century ago.

It will probably be found that one of the most mushroom-like towns of the country is Barrow-in-Furness, now a place of considerable commerce, and an extensive shipping port. The following measurements, according to the Post-office standard, may repay consideration. Prior to 1847 there was nothing but a foot-postman, who served the town by walking thither from Ulverston one day, and back to Ulverston the next. Later on, he made the double journey daily, and delivered the letters on his arrival at Barrow. In 1869 the town had grown to such dimensions that the office was raised to the rank of a head-office, and three postmen were required for delivery. Now, in 1884, thirteen postmen are the necessary delivering force for the town.

About the year 1800 the Post-office had not as yet carried its civilising influence into the districts of Balquhidder, Lochearnhead, Killin, and Tyndrum, there being no regular post-offices within twenty, thirty, or forty miles of certain places in these districts. The people being desirous of having the Post-office in their borders, the following scheme was proposed to be carried out about the time mentioned:--

A runner to travel from Callander to Lochearnhead--fourteen miles--at 2s. a journey, three times a-week, 15 12 0 Salary to postmaster of Lochearnhead, 5 0 0 A runner from Lochearnhead to Killin--eight miles--at 1s. a journey, three times a-week, 7 16 0 Salary to postmaster of Killin, 5 0 0 Receiving-house at Wester Lix, 2 0 0 Runner thence to Luib--four or five miles--1s. 6d. per week, 3 18 0 Office at Luib, 4 0 0 -------- Total, 43 6 0 ========

So that here a whole district of country was to be opened up to the beneficent operations of the Post at an annual cost of what would now be no more than sufficient to pay the wages of a single post-runner. It may be proper, however, to remark in this connection, that money then was of greater value than now; and since it has been shown that a messenger had formerly to travel as much as fourteen double miles for 2s., it is not surprising that Scotchmen, brought up in such a school, should like to cling to a sixpence when they can get it.

It were remiss to pa.s.s over London without remark, whose growth is a marvel, and whose Post-office has at least kept up in the running, if it has not outstripped, London itself. In 1796 the delivery of London extended from about Grosvenor Square and Mayfair in the west, to Shadwell, Mile End, and Blackwall in the east; and from Finsbury Square in the north, to the Borough and Rotherhithe in the south; and the number of postmen then employed for the general post-delivery was 126.

London has since taken into its maternal embrace many places which were formerly quite separate from the metropolis, and nowadays the agglomeration is known, postally, as the Metropolitan district. In this district the number of men required to effect the delivery of letters in 1884 is no less than 4030. It may be mentioned that the general post-delivery above mentioned had reference to the delivery of ordinary letters coming from the country. Letters of the penny post--or local letters--and letters from foreign parts, were delivered by different sets of men, who all went over the same ground. In 1782 the number of men employed in these different branches of delivery work was as follows, viz.:-- Men.

For Foreign letters, 12 " Inland letters, 99 " Penny-post letters, 44 Total, 155

It was not till many years later that all kinds of letters came to be delivered by one set of postmen, and that thus needless repet.i.tion of work was got rid of.

At the same period--namely, in 1782--the other officers of all kinds employed in the London Post-office numbered 157. At the present time the officers of all kinds (exclusive of postmen, who have been referred to separately) employed in the Metropolitan district are nearly 16,000 in number.

CHAPTER IX.

CLAIMS FOR POST-OFFICE SERVICE.

In his Autobiography, Mr Anthony Trollope, many years a Post-office surveyor, records how he was employed in England, for a considerable period about the year 1851, revising and extending the rural-post service; and he there mentions the frequency with which he found post-runners to be employed upon routes where there were but few letters to deliver--while in other directions, where postal communication would have been of the utmost benefit, there were no post-runners at all. This state of things had no doubt had its origin in the efforts of influential persons, at some previous time, to have the services established for their own personal benefit; while persons in other districts, having less interest at headquarters, or being less imperious in their demands, were left out in the cold, and so remained beyond the range of the civilising influence. The posts in such cases, once established, went on from year to year; and though the arrangements were out of harmony with the surroundings, very often nothing was done--for in all likelihood no one complained loud enough, or, at any rate, in a way to prove effective.

But though the Department did wake up to the need for a better distribution of its favours in the country districts in 1851, there were earlier instances of surveyors attempting to lay down the posts for the general good, instead of for a select few, and in these cases the surveyors had sometimes a hard battle to fight. The following report from a surveyor in Scotland, written in the year 1800, will ill.u.s.trate what is here mentioned. It is given at length, and will possibly be found worthy of perusal; for it not only shows both spirit and independence on the part of the surveyor, who was evidently a man determined to do his duty irrespective of persons, but it sheds some light on the practices of the post-runners of that period, and their relations with their superiors on the one hand, and the public on the other. It affords us, too, a specimen of official writing remarkable for some rather quaint turns and expressions. The report proceeds:--

"I am much obliged by the perusal of my Lord ----'s card to you of the 29th ultimo, with the copy of a fresh memorial from his lordship and other gentlemen upon the long-argued subject of the alteration of the course of the post betwixt Perth and Coupar-Angus.

"It is certainly one of those cases which hath become of tenfold more importance by the multiplicity of writing, than from any solid reasoning or essential matter of information to be drawn from it.

"It having fallen to my official duty to execute the alteration of this post proposed by my late colleague Mr ----, to whose memory I must bear testimony, not only of his abilities, but his impartiality in the duties of his office, and under the authority of the late respectable and worthy Postmaster-General Mr ----, whose memory is far above any eulogium of mine, I considered the measure as proper and expedient, equally for the good of the country in general, and the revenue under the department of the Post-office; and I can with confidence deny that it was 'hastily, inconsiderately, or partially' gone into, as this memorial would wish to establish. In this capacity, and under these circ.u.mstances, it is no wonder I could have wished the epithets used against this official alteration, of _ignorance, arbitrary and oppressive proceedings_, to have dropped from a person less honourable, respectable, and conspicuous than I hold the Honble. ---- at the head of this memorial. Before this last memorial was presented, I understood from Mr ----, Secretary, in the presence of Lord ----, that any further opposition upon the part of the Blairgowrie gentlemen to a re-alteration was now given up; indeed this cannot be surprising if they had learned, as stated in the memorial, page 9, that they had protested, did now protest, and would never cease to complain loudly of it, until they obtain redress. Whether this argument is cool or arbitrary I have not time nor inclination to a.n.a.lyse, but having been removed from this ancient district of road, and given my uniform opinion upon the merits of the alteration itself, I have no desire to fight the memorialists to all eternity. Before, however, taking final leave of this contest, and of a memorial said to be unanswerable, I consider myself in duty and honour called upon to vindicate the late Mr ----, as well as myself, from the vindictive terms of '_ignorance, arbitrary, and oppressive_'

implied in the memorial, and which, if admitted _sub silentio_, might not be confined to the mismanagement of the Post-office, but to every other department of civil government. In order to this, I shall as briefly as I can follow the general track of the memorial, as of a long beaten road in which, if there is not safety, there is no new difficulty to encounter. It is needless to go over the different distances,--I am ready to admit them--they have not formed any material part of the question,--and the supposed ignorance of the surveyor here is not to the point. The alteration neither did nor should proceed upon such mathematical nicety. The idea of posts is to embrace the most extensive and most needful accommodation. In establishing a post to Blairgowrie it was neither _ignorant nor arbitrary_ to take the line by Isla Bridge, which was the centre of the country meant to be served by it--that is, the Coupar and the Stormont and Highland district. It is of some consequence to observe here, that with all the great and rapid improvements mentioned in the memorial, of the lower or Coupar district, the upper or Stormont district was, upon the first year's trial, above one-half of its revenue to the Post-office, the second nearly or about three-fourths, and continuing to increase in proportion. Coupar-Angus revenue for the year ending 10th October last was 159, 3s. 7d., and Blairgowrie 123, 4s. 10d. Now, if the Coupar district of country, which contains in it a populous market-town, can produce no more than this proportion for the whole district, it is evident that the district of Stormont, with only as yet a little village for its head town, has more correspondence in regard to its state of agriculture and improvement as an infant district, than the parent district with its antiquity can lay claim to, and equally well ent.i.tled at least to be protected and nourished. Much is said of the memorialists' line of road, and of its being one from time immemorial. I have said in a former paper that this may be the case; many of the roads in Scotland, G.o.d knows, are old enough. But unless the feudal system should still exist upon any of them, I know of no law, no regulation, no compulsion, that can oblige the post, more than any other traveller, to take these old beaten tracks where they can find any other patent or better road. Nay, more,--as a traveller, I am ent.i.tled to take any patent road I choose, good or bad; and the moment this privilege is doubted in regard to the post, you resign at once the power of all future improvements so far as it belongs to your official situation to judge it, and let or dispose of in lease the use of your posts to particular and local proprietors of lands, who will be right to take every advantage of it in their power, and include it specifically in the rental of their estates, as I have known to be the case with inns in which post-offices had formerly been kept.

"There are three great roads to the north of Scotland from Perth (besides one by Dunkeld)--viz., one by Dundee, &c., one by Coupar, &c., and one by Blairgowrie, which run not at a very great distance in general from each other in a parallel line. The great post-line or mail-coach road is by Dundee; and there is little chance, I believe, of this being departed from, as there is no other that can ever be equally certain. The next great road to the westward is by Coupar and Forfar, &c., and is supplied by branch-posts from the east or coast line. And the third or upper line is by Blairgowrie and Spittal of Glenshee, which have no post for 50, 60, or 70 miles; and if ever that part of the country is to have the blessing of a regular post, it surely ought not to be by branching from the coast-line through all the different centres, but by the more immediate and direct line through Blairgowrie.

Every one will call his own line the great line; but surely, if I am to travel either, I should be allowed to judge for myself; and I believe it would be thought very _arbitrary_ indeed, if, before I set out, a proprietor or advocate for any of these great lines should arrest my carriage or my horse, and say, You shall not proceed but upon my line. I confess myself so stupid that I can see no difference betwixt this and taking it out of the power of the Post-office to judge what line they shall journey mails. If this is not the case, then all the present lines of the post, however absurd and ridiculous they now are or may become, must, as they were at the beginning and now are, remain so for ever. And I would expect next to see legal charters and infeftments taken upon them as post-roads merely, and travellers thirled to them as corn to a mill. But in regard to the voluminous writings already had upon this subject, and now renewed in this last memorial, it may be necessary to be a little more particular.

"Setting the distances aside, which no persons should have a right to complain of except the inhabitants of Coupar and beyond it, by any delay occasioned on that account, what is the whole argument founded upon?

That, by the alteration, the memorialists, some of them in the near neighbourhood of Coupar-Angus, but betwixt Perth and it, have had the privilege from time immemorial, as it is said, of receiving their letters by the post from Perth, and sending them back by the same conveyance to Perth, without benefiting the Revenue a single sixpence, which would accrue to it by such letters being either received from or put in at the office at Coupar-Angus, as they ought to be. For, so far as I understand the regulations of the office, they are to this purpose, that if any letters shall be directed for intermediate places, at least three-fourths from any post-office, they shall be put into the bag and conveyed (if conveyed at all by post) to the post-office nearest them, or at which they shall be written, one-fourth of the distance of the whole stage, and rated and charged accordingly. The Post-office could not be ignorant of this rule not being observed, for it was evident that very few letters for this populous and thriving district were put into the bag, except such as behoved to go beyond Coupar or Perth, and bearing the name of 'short letters.' It was impossible to convict the posts of fraud in carrying them without opening the letters, a privilege which cannot be exercised without much indelicacy as well as danger. But it required no penetration to discover that this was a very commodious and cheap way of corresponding, though it did not augment the revenue.

It was an ancient privilege, and in that view it might be considered _arbitrary_ and _oppressive_ to meddle with or interrupt it. It is a little curious that the memorialists are princ.i.p.ally gentlemen of property upon the road short of Coupar, and who require to be supplied daily with their small necessary articles from Perth. I have seen no remonstrance or complaint from the town of Coupar itself as to this alteration, nor of the consequent lateness of arrival and danger it is said to have occasioned, nor from a number of gentlemen beyond, whose letters come in the bag for the delivery of Coupar. The noise has chiefly been made by gentlemen who pay nothing for this post to Coupar-Angus, and it puts me in mind of an anecdote I met with of a gentleman who had influence enough with a postmaster in the country to get the post by his house, and deliver and receive his letters, proceeding by a line of road in which he avoided an intermediate office, and thereby saved an additional postage both ways.

"This line was also a very ancient one, and from time immemorial a line too upon which our forefathers had fought hard and bled; but their children somehow or other had discovered and adopted what they thought a much better line. I said the delivery of short letters was not all the advantages privately had by the old plan of the post to Coupar-Angus.

This post was in the known and constant habit of carrying a great deal more than letters for the inhabitants short of, as well as for Coupar itself; and in the delivery of various articles upon the road, and receiving reimburs.e.m.e.nts for his trouble one way or other, he lost one-fourth of his time; and if, as the memorialists a.s.sert, there are fewer places to be served on the Isla road, it is a demonstration that the longest way is often all the nearest, and upon this head I have already ventured to a.s.sert, and still do, that by a regular management which may be easily accomplished, the post may come sooner by Isla to Coupar than ever it did formerly by the ancient road; and if it was possible to watch and hunt after the irregularity of the post as established upon the old system, the memorialists would find themselves in no better situation than they now are. I beg to mention here a specimen I met of this old system of private accommodation, with the consequence that followed, which may ill.u.s.trate a little upon which side the imputation of _ignorance_, _arbitrary_, and _oppression_ may lie.

Having met this post with a light cart full of parcels, and a woman upon it along with the mail, I charged him with the impropriety of his conduct as a post, and threatened that he should not be longer in the service. 'Oh,' says he, 'sir, you may do as you please; I have served the country so long in this way, that if you dismiss me, the princ.i.p.al gentlemen on the road have determined to support me, and I can make more without your mail than I do by it.' He was dismissed. He was supported by a number of names which it is not now in my power to recollect, but which are well known in Coupar-Angus, and he issued in consequence hand-bills that, being now dismissed as a post, he would continue to carry on as before; and it was not till the _arbitrary_ hand of the Solicitor of the Post-office fell upon him, that he would either have been convicted or discouraged from his employ.

"In this view, therefore, and not from ignorance, I know it is better for the Revenue in some instances to pay for 19 miles of a post, than 14 or 15, and to pay for three short runners than one long one. We have no greater faith in Blairgowrie than Coupar posts, and they were both put upon the same footing; and notwithstanding all the arguments stated against the measure, or upon the _absurdity_, _arbitrary_, and _oppression_, so much insisted on, I am still humbly of the opinion, which was maturely weighed and decided, that the system now in practice was best for the Revenue, whatever it might be to particular individuals; and in this decision I only followed the coincident opinion of judgments much superior to my own.

"A great deal is said upon the danger of committing care of bags or letters to two separate runners instead of one. With regard to carrying letters privately, or executing commissions, it may be so. This is the great inconvenience felt from the change. But is there any instance where posts have opened any of the bags containing letters, and thereby committed felony? Is there any instance where a wilful and felonious delay has happened here more than may be natural to any change of bags anywhere else in the kingdom? I have heard of their not meeting sometimes so regularly in very bad or stormy weather. This will happen to the most regular mail-coaches and horse-posts in Britain; and before such general objections are to be founded upon, wilful and corrupt misconduct should be proved, such as I am able to do upon the old system of one post only.