The Royal Mail Part 9

But there was another kind of fraud carried on under the privilege granted to soldiers. A surveyor in Scotland thus referred to the irregularity as observed in Scotland in 1797:--

"As there is so much smuggling of letters already in Scotland, and reason to suspect it will increase from the additional rates, it is matter of serious concern to the Revenue to obtain a clear legal restriction; and I wish you to represent it to the Board at London, in case it may not be too late to offer any hints from the distant situation we are in.

"I have had occasion formerly to observe to you that a very great evasion of the Post Revenue has taken place--particularly in the north of Scotland--from the privilege granted to soldiers, under cover of which not only a very general opportunity is taken by the common people there to have their letters carried by soldiers to be freed by their officers, and having them again in return under soldiers' addresses; but even in several instances which I observed and detected, persons in higher ranks have availed themselves of this circ.u.mstance."

Nor were people of quality above the habit of committing similar frauds upon the Post-office revenue, as will be observed from the following remarks penned by an official on the 9th April 1812. The statement runs thus:--"On the 31st ultimo, having gone into the mail-coach office at Glasgow, soon after the arrival of the coach from Ayr, and observing several parcels which had arrived by it, one in particular took our attention by its appearing to contain a loaf of bread of the supposed value of 6d. or 8d., addressed to the Honble. Mrs ----, of Glasgow; and as this parcel was charged 10d., it created the idea of some mistake having happened in sending it in that way, by which the carriage exceeded the value, besides the original cost of it.

"In a few minutes after this, however, two ladies called for the parcel, one of them believed to be Mrs ----herself, and the other her sister, and inquired for the parcel; and my curiosity leading me to notice the issue of this supposed hoax, I was not a little surprised to find, after the lady had cut up the cover, that two or three letters were enclosed with the loaf, one of which she gave to the other lady, and sent the loaf home by the porter."

The Post-office has also been exposed to frauds in other ways. Thus it was a common device to take a newspaper bearing the newspaper frank, p.r.i.c.k out with a pin certain words in the print making up a message to be sent, and the newspaper so prepared served all the purposes of a letter as between the sender and receiver. Or a message would be written on the cover of a newspaper with the first of all fluids known to us--milk--which, when dry, was not observed, but developed a legible communication subsequently when held to the fire.

The following anecdotes of the evasions of postage are told by the late Sir Rowland Hill:--

"Some years ago, when it was the practice to write the name of a member of Parliament for the purpose of franking a newspaper, a friend of mine, previous to starting on a tour into Scotland, arranged with his family a plan of informing them of his progress and state of health, without putting them to the expense of postage. It was managed thus: He carried with him a number of old newspapers, one of which he put into the post daily. The postmark, with the date, showed his progress; and the state of his health was evinced by the selection of the names from a list previously agreed upon, with which the newspaper was franked. Sir Francis Burdett, I recollect, denoted vigorous health."

"Once on the poet's [Coleridge's] visit to the Lake district, he halted at the door of a wayside inn at the moment when the rural postman was delivering a letter to the barmaid of the place. Upon receiving it she turned it over and over in her hand, and then asked the postage of it.

The postman demanded a shilling. Sighing deeply, however, the girl handed the letter back, saying she was too poor to pay the required sum.

The poet at once offered to pay the postage; and in spite of some resistance on the part of the girl, which he deemed quite natural, did so. The messenger had scarcely left the place when the young barmaid confessed that she had learnt all she was likely to learn from the letter; that she had only been practising a preconceived trick--she and her brother having agreed that a few hieroglyphics on the back of the letter should tell her all she wanted to know, whilst the letter would contain no writing. 'We are so poor,' she added, 'that we have invented this manner of corresponding and franking our letters.'"

In a.s.serting its monopoly in the carriage of letters in towns, or wherever the Post-office had established posts, there was always trouble; and so much attention did the matter require, that special officers for the duty were employed, called "Apprehenders of Private Letter-carriers." The penalties were somewhat severe when infringements were discovered, and the action taken straight and prompt, as will be seen by the following, which is a copy of a letter written in 1817 to a person charging him with breaking the law:--

"SIR,--His Majesty's Postmasters-General have received an information laid against you, that on the 18th ultimo your clerk, Mr ----, for whom you are answerable, illegally sent three letters in a parcel by a stage-coach to you at Broadstairs, Kent, contrary to the statute made to prevent the sending of letters otherwise than by the post.

"I am commanded by their lordships to inform you that you have thereby incurred three penalties of 5 each, and that they feel it their duty to proceed against you to recover the same.

"Should you have any explanation to give, you will please to address the Postmaster-General.--I am," &c.

[Ill.u.s.tration (facsimile): General Post-Office, Aug. 10th, 1792

A CAUTION.

To all Coach-Masters, Carriers, Higlers, Ship Masters employed Coastwise, Newsmen, Watermen and Others.

Having received repeated Information that Letters are illegally collected, carried and delivered, to the great Injury of the Public Revenue, and it being the wish of this Office rather to prevent than punish, and that the unwary may be made acquainted with the Penalties they are subject to; I am directed to give this Public Notice, that from the Date hereof, every Effort will be used to detect and punish all Persons so offending.--The Penalties for which are FIVE POUNDS FOR EVERY LETTER SO COLLECTED, CARRIED, OR DELIVERED, WHETHER FOR HIRE OR NOT, AND ONE HUNDRED POUNDS, FOR EVERY WEEK SUCH PRACTICE IS CONTINUED.

By Command of the Postmaster General,

Johnson Wilkinson, _Surveyor_.]

In August 1794, at the Warwick a.s.sizes, a carrier between Warwick and Birmingham was convicted of illegally collecting and carrying letters, when penalties amounting to 1500 were incurred; but the prosecution consented to a verdict being taken for two penalties of 5 each, with costs of the suit. A report of the period observed that "this verdict should be a warning to carriers, coachmen, and other persons, against taking up letters tied round with a string or covered with brown paper, under pretence of being parcels, which, the learned judge observed, was a flimsy evasion of the law."

The very cheap postage which we now enjoy has removed the inducement in a large measure to commit petty frauds of this kind on the Post-office Revenue, and the commission of such things may now be said to belong to an age that is past.

_Frauds on the Public._

The Post-office, while it is the willing handmaid to commerce, the vehicle of social intercourse, and the necessary helper in almost every enterprise and occupation, becomes at the same time a ready means for the unscrupulous to carry on a wonderful variety of frauds on the public, and enables a whole army of needy and designing persons to live upon the generous impulses of society. While these things go on,--and Post-office officials know they go on,--the Department is helpless to prevent them; for the work of the Post-office is carried on as a secret business, in so far as the communications intrusted to it are concerned, and the contents of the letters conveyed are not its property or interest. There are men and women who go about from town to town writing begging letters to well-to-do persons, appealing for help under all sorts of pretences; and these persons are as well known, in the sense of being customers to the Department, as a housekeeper is known at her grocer's shop. There are other persons, again, who carry on long-firm swindles through the post, obtaining goods which are never to be paid for; and as soon as the goods are received at one place, the swindlers move on to another place, a.s.sume new names, and repeat the operation.

The schemes adopted are often very deeply laid; and the police, when once set upon the track, have hard work to unravel the wily plans. But tradespeople are not infrequently themselves very much to blame, as they show themselves too confiding, and too ready to do business with unknown persons.

The following is an instance of a fraud upon well-to-do persons in this country, attempted by an American in the year 1869:--

The Rev. Mr Champneys, of St Pancras, London, received a letter posted at Florence, Burlington County, New Jersey, U.S., which upon being opened seemed to be not intended for him, but was a communication purporting to be written from one sister to another. The letter made it appear that the writer was highly connected, had fallen into the greatest distress owing to the death of her husband, that her feelings of self-respect had restrained her from telling her griefs till she could no longer withhold them, and making free use of the deepest pathos and high-sounding sentiments, and finally appealing for an immediate remittance. Mr Champneys, not suspecting a fraud, and desiring to help forward the letter to the person who, as he supposed, should have received it, inserted the following advertis.e.m.e.nt in the 'Times'

newspaper:--

"A letter, dated Florence, Burlington County, New Jersey, U.S., intended for Mrs Lucy Campbell, Scotland, has been misdirected to Rev. W.

Champneys, 31 Gordon Square. Will Mrs Campbell kindly communicate her address immediately?"

In response to this inquiry, what was Mr Champney's surprise but to find that a large number of persons had received letters in identical terms and in precisely the same circ.u.mstances! This of course caused him to reflect, and then the facts became clear to him--which were, that under the guise of a trifling mistake, that of placing a letter in the wrong envelope, a set of dire circ.u.mstances were placed before persons who were likely to be kind-hearted and generous, in the hope that, though the writer was unknown to them, they might send some money to cheer a poor but respectable family steeped in calamity!

How far the attempt succeeded does not appear, but Mr Champneys very properly at once wrote a letter to the 'Times' exposing the fraud, and it is to be hoped that some generous souls were in consequence saved from folly.

One more instance--but one coming within the cla.s.s of the "confidence trick." In several country newspapers the following advertis.e.m.e.nt made its appearance:--

"An elderly bachelor of fortune, wishing to test the credulity of the public, and to benefit and a.s.sist others, will send a suitable present of genuine worth, according to the circ.u.mstances of the applicant, to all who will send him 17 stamps--demanded merely as a token of confidence. Stamps will be returned with the present." And then the address followed, which was not always the same in all the advertis.e.m.e.nts.

The advertiser alone would be able to say how far he profited by this little arrangement, but some idea of the simplicity of mankind may be derived from the fact that between 300 and 400 letters for this person, each containing 17 stamps, reached the Dead-letter Office--owing doubtless to his having "moved on" from the places where he had lived, in consequence of their becoming too warm to hold him. Specimens of the letters written by the dupes are as follows:--

1. "The Rev. ---- encloses 17 stamps. He is a clergyman with very limited means, and the most useful present to him would be five pounds.

If his application be not agreeable, he requests that the stamps be returned."

2. "I have enclosed the 17 stamps, and shall be very pleased to receive any present you will send me. As I am not very well off, what I would like very much would be a _nice black silk dress_, which I should consider a rich reward for my credulity."

3. "Mrs ---- presents her compliments to the 'elderly bachelor,' and in order to amuse him by her credulity encloses 17 stamps, and thus claims the promised present. Her position and circ.u.mstances are good, she mixes in gay society, and is quite an adept at dancing the polka mazourka.

These details may determine the suitability of the present."

4. "Having read your advertis.e.m.e.nt testing the 'credulity of the public,' I feel disposed on my part to test the upright and honourable intentions of a stranger, contrary to the opinion of some, who tell me it is only a hoax, or, worse, a mere take-in. I therefore, with the honesty of an Irishman, beg to say I am a clerygyman's wife, mother of nine children,--the six eldest fine enterprising sons; the three youngest, engaging, intelligent girls. We Irish generally have larger hearts than purses. I therefore lay these facts before you, an Englishman, knowing that a Briton's generosity and capabilities are proverbially equal.--Hoping I may be able to prove I have formed a correct opinion of advertiser's truthfulness, I am," &c.

After this we may afford to smile, and use the words of a very old author with every confidence of their freshness: "Oh, where shall wisdom be found? where is the place of understanding?"

CHAPTER XIV.

STRANGE ADDRESSES.

The addresses of letters pa.s.sing through the post have often very curious features, arising from various causes: sometimes the whole writing is so bad as to be all but illegible; sometimes the orthography is extremely at fault; sometimes the writer, having forgotten the precise address, makes use of a periphrase; sometimes the addresses are insufficient; and sometimes the addresses are conjoined with sketches on the envelopes showing both artistic taste and comic spirit. Post-office sorters, who constantly have pa.s.sing through their hands writing of every style and every degree of badness, acquire an apt.i.tude for deciphering ma.n.u.script; and writing must be bad indeed, if to be read at all, when it fails to be deciphered in the Post-office. A very large collection might be made of the vagaries of writers in the addresses placed by them on letters; but the following will give some idea, though not a complete idea, of one of the troubles met with in dealing with post-letters.

Some time ago the Danish and Norwegian Consul at Ipswich, being struck by the ever-varying way in which the word "Ipswich" was spelt in the addresses of letters reaching him from abroad, took the pains to make a record of each new style of spelling, and after a time he was able to collect together fifty-seven incorrect methods of spelling the word "Ipswich," which had been used upon letters addressed to him. They are given as follows, viz.:--

Elsfleth, Epshvics, Epshvidts, Epsids, Epsig, Epsvet, Epsvidts, Epwich, Evswig, Exwig, Hoispis, Hvisspys, Ibsvi, Ibsvig, Ibsvithse, Ibwich, Ibwigth, Ispsich, Ie yis wich, Igswield, Igswig, Igswjigh, Ipesviok, Ipiswug, Ipswitis, Ipsiwisch, Ipsovich, Ipsveten, Ipsvick, Ipsvics, Ipsvids, Ipsvidts, Ipsvig, Ipsvikh, Ipsvits, Ipsvitx, Ipsvoigh, Ipsweh, Ipsweich, Ipswgs, Ipswiche, Ipswick, Ipswict, Ipswiceh, Ipswig, Ipswigh, Ipswight, Ipswish, Ipswith, Ipswitz, Ispich, Ispovich, Ispwich, Ixvig, Iysuich, Uibsvich, Vittspits.

Letters so addressed generally reached the Consul in direct course of post, though some of them were occasionally delayed by being first sent to Wisbeach. In other cases a.s.sistance was given in reading the addresses by the northern version of the county "Suffolg" following the word intended for Ipswich.

The address,

23 Adne Edle Street, London,