On Allen’s death the cross-posts were brought under the control of the postmaster-general, and the success of the amalgamation was so complete that at the end of the first year profits to the amount of £20,000 were handed over to the crown. In subsequent years the proceeds continued to increase still more rapidly, so that when the by-letter office was abolished in 1799 they had reached the sum of £200,000 per annum.
In the time of George I. the whole London post-office establishment, which at present numbers several thousand officers of different grades, was worked, without counting letter-carriers, by a staff of thirty-two persons only.
The treasury warrants—warrants directed to the masters of packet service, towards 1701—franked, as Mr. Lewins observes, the strangest commodities. Among others, fifteen couple of hounds going to the King of the Romans, two maid-servants going as laundresses to my lord ambassador Methuen, Doctor Chrichton, carrying with him a case and divers necessaries, two bales of stockings for the use of the ambassador to the court of Portugal, and four flitches of bacon for Mr. Pennington, of Rotterdam. Nor were these the only abuses. So little precaution was used in the reigns of George I. and George II. that thousands of letters passed through the post-office with the forged signatures of members. Even in the early part of the reign of George III. it was related, in the investigation of 1763, that one man had in the course of five months counterfeited one thousand two hundred dozens of franks of different members of Parliament. In the year 1763 the worth of franked correspondence passing through the post-office was estimated at £170,000. In 1764, when George III. had been four years on the throne, it was enacted that no letter should pass franked through the post-office unless the whole address was in the M. P.’s handwriting with his signature attached. In 1784, frauds still continuing, it was ordered that franks should be dated, the month should be given in full, such letters to be put into the post on the day they were dated. From 1784 to the date of the penny postage, no further regulations were made as to the franked correspondence, the estimated value of which during these years was £80,000 annually.
It was fifteen years after the death of the kindly and benevolent Allen, the postmaster of Bath, that John Palmer, also of Bath, and one of the greatest of post-office reformers, rose into notice. Originally a brewer, Mr. Palmer was in 1784 the manager of the Bath and Bristol theatres. Having frequently to correspond with and travel to London, Mr. Palmer found that letters which left Bath on the Monday night were not delivered in London until the Wednesday afternoon or night, but that the stage-coach which left through the day on Monday arrived in London on the following morning. He pointed out to the authorities that commercial men and tradesmen, for safety and speed, sent their correspondence as parcels, robberies from carelessness and incompetence of post-office servants being then frequent. Mr. Palmer was ready with remedies for these countless defects. In 1783 he submitted his scheme to Mr. Pitt, who lent a ready ear. The officials, however, were first to be consulted; and they, as is their wont, made many and sweeping objections to changes which they represented not only to be impracticable and impossible, but dangerous to commerce and the revenue. Mr. Pitt, however, as Mr. M. D. Hill says in an article on the post-office, inherited his great father’s contempt for impossibilities. He saw that Mr. Palmer’s scheme would be as profitable as it was practicable, and he resolved that it should be adopted.
Mr. Palmer was installed at the post-office on the day of the change, under the title of Controller-General. It was arranged that his salary should be £1500 a year, together with a commission of two and a half per cent. upon any excess of revenue over £240,000. The rates of postage were now slightly raised; but, notwithstanding, the number of letters began most perceptibly to increase. Several of the principal towns, and notably Liverpool and York, petitioned the treasury for the new mail-coaches. But, though manifest success attended the introduction of the Palmer scheme, yet the authorities were determinedly opposed to the reformer, and he had to contend with them single-handed. In 1792, when his plans had been about eight years in operation and were beginning to exhibit elements of success, it was deemed desirable that Palmer should surrender his appointment. In consideration, however, of his valuable services, a pension of £3000 per annum was granted to him; but this sum fell far short of the emoluments which had been promised to him, and he memorialized the government, but without success. He protested against this treatment, and his son, General Palmer, member for Bath, frequently urged his father’s claims before Parliament; but it was not until 1813, after a struggle of twenty years, that the House of Commons voted him a grant of £50,000. This great benefactor of his country died in 1818. In the first year of the introduction of his plans, the net revenue of the post-office was about £250,000. Twenty years afterwards, the proceeds had increased sixfold, to no less a sum than a million and a half,—an increase doubtless partly attributable to the increase of population, but mainly to the punctuality and security of the new arrangements. Mails not only travelled quicker, but Mr. Palmer augmented their number between the largest towns: three hundred and eighty towns, which had in the olden time but three deliveries a week, had in 1797 a daily delivery. The Edinburgh coach required less time by sixty hours to travel from London; and there was a corresponding reduction between towns at shorter distances. For many years after their introduction, not a single attempt was made to rob Palmer’s mail-coaches, which were efficiently guarded.
In 1836 there were fifty four-horse mails in England, whereas forty years before there was not a third of the number. We remember the annual procession of the mail-coaches on the king’s birthday,—a gay spectacle, which Mr. Lewins is not old enough to remember. Coachmen and guards on that occasion donned a new red livery, and all the coachmen and most of the guards wore bouquets in their button-holes. In the year 1814 the business of the post-office had increased so greatly that better accommodation was sought than was afforded by the office then in Lombard Street. The first general post-office, opened in Cloak Lane, was removed from thence to the Black Swan, in Bishopsgate Street. After the fire of 1666 a general post-office was opened in Covent Garden; but it was soon removed to Lombard Street. In 1825 the government acquiesced in the views of the great majority of London residents, and St. Martin’s-le-Grand was chosen for the site of a new building, to be erected from the designs of Sir R. Smirke.
It was opened for business in September, 1829. From the date of the opening, improvements ceased to be pertinaciously resisted. It was not, however, till the late Duke of Richmond became the postmaster-general, in the ministry of the late Earl Grey, in 1830, that improvements were earnestly forwarded by the head of the department. The duke, a highly public-spirited and patriotic man, was indefatigable in the service of the department over which he was placed from 1830 to 1834. At first his grace refused to accept any remuneration for his services; but at length, in compliance with the strong representations of the treasury lords as to the objectionable nature of gratuitous services, “which must involve in many cases the sacrifice of private fortune to official station,” he consented to draw his salary from the date of the treasury minute already referred to. In 1834, Lord Grey’s postmaster-general submitted a list of improvements to the treasury lords, in which at least thirty substantial measures of reform were proposed. It was under this functionary that amalgamation of the Irish and Scotch offices with the English took place.
The railway for the first few years of its existence exerted but little influence on post-office arrangements. On the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester line, however, in 1830, the mails of the district were consigned to the new company for transmission. After railways had been in existence seven or eight years, their influence became paramount, and in 1838 and 1839 acts were passed to provide for the conveyance of mails by them.
It was in 1836 that Sir Francis Freeling, who had been secretary to the post-office since 1797, a period of forty years, died. He was an industrious public servant of the old school, strictly performing his duty according to ancient precedent and routine. He was succeeded in his office by Colonel Maberly, the son of a gentleman who, having amassed a considerable fortune by trade, entered Parliament, and ultimately succeeded Perry as the proprietor of the “Morning Chronicle.” Colonel Maberly had been himself in Parliament, and was generally considered a good man of business; but he was an entire stranger to the business of the post-office, and, according to his own evidence before the Select Committee on Postage, was introduced into the office by the treasury for the purpose of carrying into effect the reforms which a commission of inquiry had recommended.
On the fall of Sir R. Peel’s administration, in 1835, the Earl of Lichfield succeeded to the office of postmaster-general under Lord Melbourne. It must be admitted that the new postmaster and secretary introduced many important reforms. The money-order office was transferred from private hands to the general establishment. At this juncture also commenced the system of registering valuable letters, and, at the suggestion of Mr. Rowland Hill, a number of day mails were started for the provinces.
At the close of 1836 the stamp-duty on newspapers was reduced from 3-1/4d. to 1d.,—a reduction which led to an enormous increase in the newspapers passing through the post-office.
But, though these improvements were in themselves commendable, the authorities still tenaciously clung to the old rates of postage, and refused to listen to any plan for the reduction of postage-rates. Colonel Maberly, the secretary, had no sooner learned the business of his office than he made a proposition to the treasury that the letters should be charged in all cases according to the exact distance between the places where a letter was posted and delivered, and not according to the full distance. The lords of the treasury promptly refused, to use the language of Mr. Lewins, “this concession.”
In 1837 the average general postage was estimated at 9-1/2d. per letter; exclusive of foreign letters, it was still as high as 8-3/4d. It is a curious but significant fact that in the reign of Queen Anne the postage of a letter between London and Edinburgh was less than half as much as the amount charged at the accession of Queen Victoria. The fact that the revenue derived from so well-protected a monopoly remained stationary for nearly twenty years may be fairly attributable to these high postage-rates.17
Mr. Lewins states that the revenue derived in 1815 from the post-office amounted to a million and a half; while twenty-one years afterwards,—in 1836,—notwithstanding the increase of trade and the diffusion of knowledge, the increase of this sum had only been between three and four thousand pounds. The evil of high rates led not merely to small returns, but to the evasion of postage by illicit means of conveyance, so that some carriers of letters were doing as large a business as the post-office itself.
This will appear evident from the statement that a post-office official seized a parcel containing eleven hundred letters in a single bag in the warehouse of a London carrier. The head of this firm proffered instant payment of £500 if the penalties were not sued for. The postmaster-general accepted the offer, and the letters passed through the post-office on the same night.
So early as 1833, the late Mr. Wallace, M. P. for Greenock, drew the attention of the House of Commons to the numerous abuses in the post-office. There can be no question that his frequent motions and speeches directed public attention specifically to the subject and incalculably advanced the cause of reform. Mr. Wallace was not aided by the government or by the aristocracy or higher professional classes; but he derived much active support from the mercantile and manufacturing community, and from the shopkeepers in all the great towns of the empire.
It was the ventilation of the subject of the post-office by the member for Greenock that first drew the attention of Mr.—now Sir—Rowland Hill, to the subject. The son of a country schoolmaster, Mr. Hill had for a long time acted as usher at his father’s establishment at Birmingham. Being of an active and energetic disposition, he left the paternal roof for the metropolis, and was in 1833, when he was about thirty-eight years of age, secretary to the commissioners for the colonization of South Australia. Here he exhibited powers of organization, and we have from his own pen a statement that he read very carefully all the reports on post-office subjects. He put himself into communication with Mr. Wallace, M. P., who afforded him much assistance. He also corresponded with Lord Lichfield, then postmaster-general, who imparted to him the official information he sought. In January, 1837, Mr. Hill published the results of his investigations and embodied his schemes in a pamphlet entitled “Post-Office Reform: its Importance and Practicability.” The pamphlet created a sensation in the mercantile world. It was well noticed in the “Spectator” and “Morning Chronicle,” to both of which journals Mr. Hill’s elder brother Matthew, now a commissioner of bankruptcy at Bristol, contributed. Mr. Rowland Hill contended that the post-office was not making progress like other great national interests,—that its revenue had diminished instead of increased, though the population had augmented six millions and trade and commerce had proportionally increased. From data in his possession Mr. Hill pretty accurately proved that the primary distribution, as he called the cost of receiving and delivering the letters, and also the cost of transit, took two-thirds of the total cost of the management of the post-office. Out of the total postal expenditure of £700,000, Mr. Hill calculated that the amount which had to do with the distance letters travelled amounted to £144,000. From calculations which he then made, he arrived at the conclusion that the average cost of conveying each letter was less than the one-tenth of a penny. By this process he deduced the conclusion that postage ought to be uniform. The propriety of a uniform rate was further demonstrated by the fact that under the old system the cost of transmission was not always dependent on distance. The case was made still plainer by these facts. An Edinburgh letter, costing the post-office an infinitesimal fraction of a farthing, was charged 1s. 1-1/2d., while a letter for Louth, in Lincolnshire, costing the post-office fifty times as much, was charged 10d.
Mr. Hill’s four proposals were:—1st, a large diminution in the rates of postage, even to 1d. in a half-ounce letter; 2d, increased speed in the delivery of letters; 3d, more frequent opportunity for the despatch of letters; 4th, simplification and economy in the management of the post-office, the rate of postage being uniform.
In February, 1838, Mr. Wallace moved for a select committee of the Commons to investigate Mr. Hill’s proposals; but the government resisted the measure. Lord Lichfield, the postmaster-general, described it as a wild, visionary, and extravagant scheme. The public at large were greatly dissatisfied. Some of the most influential men in the city of London established a committee for the purpose of distributing information on the subject by means of pamphlets and papers and for the general purposes of the agitation. A month or two after Mr. Wallace’s motion, Mr. Baring, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, proposed a committee to inquire into the present rates of charging postage, with a view to such reduction as may be made without injury to the revenue, and for them to examine into the mode of collecting and charging postage recommended by Mr. Rowland Hill. The committee sat sixty-three days, concluding their deliberations in August, 1838. They examined the principal officers of the post-office, and eighty-three independent witnesses.
In opposition to the views of official men, Mr. Hill held that a fivefold increase in the number of letters would suffice to preserve the existing revenue, and he predicted that the increase would soon be reached. He showed that the stage-coaches then in existence could carry twenty-seven times the number of letters they had ever yet done. The post-office authorities traversed every statement of Mr. Hill and his supporters, and Colonel Maberly expressed an opinion that if the postage were reduced to one penny the revenue would not recover itself for forty or fifty years. But, notwithstanding the opposition of the post-office authorities, the committee reported for a reduction of the rates, for the more frequent despatch of letters, and for additional deliveries, adding that the extension of railways made these changes urgently necessary. They further urged that the principle of a low uniform rate was just, and that when combined with prepayment it would be convenient and satisfactory.
The commissioners, consisting of Lord Seymour, Lord Duncannon, and Mr. Labouchere, proposed that any letter not exceeding half an ounce should be conveyed free within the metropolis, and the district to which the town and country deliveries extend, if enclosed in an envelope bearing a penny stamp.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer had the plan of a uniform rate of postage embodied in a bill, which passed in the session of 1839. This act, approved by a majority of one hundred and two members, conferred temporarily the necessary power on the lords of the treasury. On the 12th of November, 1839, their lordships issued a minute reducing the postage of all inland letters to the uniform rate of 4d. The country was greatly dissatisfied. It required Mr. Hill’s plan; and the fourpenny rate was in no respect his. The treasury lords were at length convinced they had made a mistake, and on the 10th of January, 1840, another minute was issued, ordering the adoption of a uniform penny rate. On the 10th of August the treasury had its minute confirmed by the statute 3 & 4 Vict. c. 96. A treasury appointment was given to Mr. Hill, to enable him to assist in carrying out the penny postage. He only, however, held the appointment for about two years; for when the conservative party came into power the originator of the penny postage lost his situation. Mr. Hill entreated to be allowed to remain at any sacrifice to himself, but Sir R. Peel was obdurate.
Mr. Hill’s popularity increased with his dismissal. A public subscription was opened for him throughout the country, as an expression of national gratitude, which amounted to over £13,000. On the restoration of the whigs to power, in 1846, he was placed in St. Martin’s-le-Grand as secretary to the postmaster-general. In 1854, on Colonel Maberly’s removal to the audit-office, he was named secretary to the post-office under the late Lord Canning,—the highest appointment in the department. In 1860 the secretary of the post-office was made a Knight Commander of the Bath. During the autumn of 1863 his health began to fail him, and in March of the present year (1865) he resigned his situation. The executive government showed a just and liberal sense of Sir Rowland Hill’s merits. By a treasury minute of the 11th of March, 1864, advantage was taken by the government of the special clause in the Superannuation Act relating to extraordinary services, to grant him a pension of three times the usual retiring allowance. This was not merely a just but a generous act; and the language in which the resolution was couched was not official, nor solemnly and decorously dull, as is usual on such occasions, but encomiastic in the highest degree. Sir Rowland Hill was pronounced not merely a meritorious public servant, but a “benefactor of his race.” We do not say this eulogistic epithet was not deserved, for we think it was well merited; but we may be permitted to remark that Sir Rowland Hill has lived in a felicitous time, thus promptly to find his merits officially recognized on retiring from his labors.
Harvey, Jenner, Palmer of Bath, of whom we have antecedently spoken, and scores of other discoverers and philanthropists, were less fortunate than the late post-office secretary. Sir Rowland Hill was not only allowed to retire on his full salary of £2000 per annum, but Lord Palmerston gave notice that the pension should be continued to Lady Hill in the event of her ladyship surviving her husband.18 Since this notice was given by the premier, an influential deputation of the house waited on the first minister of the crown, strongly urging that, in place of the deferred pension to Lady Hill, a Parliamentary grant, sufficient, though reasonable, should be made at once to the late secretary.
We do not say that the social, moral, and commercial results of the famous penny postage have not been singularly wondrous and beneficial, and that Mr. Hill does not deserve all that has been done for him by ministers, by his private friends and admirers, by the commercial and manufacturing community, and by the public at large. We think the late post-office secretary fully deserves every farthing that has been paid or that may be hereafter paid to him, whether as an annuity or a gratuity; we think he deserves the order of K.C.B., which he obtained, and, further, that he deserves to have his merits and his name commemorated by a statue intended to be erected at Birmingham in his honor. But how few are there in this world of ours who obtain a tithe of their deserts! Neither Harvey, Jenner, Newton, nor Locke was properly rewarded by his country. Newton, indeed, passed many years of his life in straitened circumstances, and never had any employment which produced him more than from £1200 to £1500 per annum, while Locke’s commissionership of appeals gave him only the miserable pittance of £200 a year. It is the good fortune of Sir Rowland Hill to have flourished in more liberal times, when merit is fittingly acknowledged and rewarded.
The discovery of Sir Rowland Hill was not a brilliant and wonderful so much as a useful discovery, and there can be no doubt that he worked out all the details with a patience, a perseverance, and a judgment sure and unerring. When the system of penny postage had been in operation two years, it was found that the success of the scheme had surpassed the most sanguine expectations. It almost entirely prevented breaches of the law and that illicit correspondence by which the revenue had long been defrauded. Commercial transactions as to very small amounts were chiefly managed through the post: small money-orders were constantly transmitted from town to town and from village to village, the business of the money-order office having increased twentyfold. No men are more indebted to the system of the penny post than literary men, publishers, and printers,—manuscripts and proof-sheets now passing to and fro from one end of the kingdom to the other with care, cheapness, and celerity. Common carriers, too, are greatly benefited by the penny postage. Pickford & Co. now despatch by post more than ten times the number of letters they despatched in 1839. Mr. Charles Knight, the London publisher, stated that the penny postage stimulated every branch of his trade, and brought the country booksellers into daily communication with the London houses. Mr. Bagster, the publisher of the Polyglot Bible in twenty-four languages, stated to Mr. Hill that the revision which he was just giving to his work would on the old system have cost him £1500 in postage alone, and that the Bible could not be printed but for the penny post. One of the principal advocates for the repeal of the Corn Laws stated that the objects of the league were achieved two years earlier than otherwise, owing to the introduction of cheap postage. Conductors of schools and educational establishments stated how people were learning everywhere to write for the first time, in order to enjoy the benefits of a free correspondence. In all the large towns, too, it was remarked that night-classes were springing up for teaching writing to adults. As the system made progress with the public, Mr. Hill’s recommendations and improvements extended and expanded. A cheap registration started into existence, simplification was introduced in the mode of sorting letters, slits were suggested in the doors of houses, restriction as to the weight of parcels was removed, and a book-rate was established. It was also suggested that railway stations should have post-offices connected with them, and that sorting should be done in the train and in the packets. The union of the two corps of general and district letter-carriers, the establishment of district offices, and an hourly delivery instead of every two hours, were also suggested by Mr. Hill, and, after being strenuously combated by the authorities, carried by the indefatigable secretary.
The amalgamation of the general post and what were called the London district carriers did not take place till 1855, when the Duke of Argyll was postmaster-general. For this amalgamation Mr. Hill had been striving from the commencement. It avoided the waste of time, trouble, and expense consequent on two bodies of men—the one being paid at a much higher rate of wages—going over the same ground.
A more important step than this was the division of London into ten districts. Under the new arrangement, instead of district letters being carried from the receiving houses to the chief office in St. Martin’s-le-Grand, to be there sorted and redistributed, they were sorted and distributed at the district office according to their address. An important part of the new scheme was that London should be considered in the principal post-offices as ten different towns, each with its own centre of operations, and that the letters should be assorted and despatched on this principle. A new and special service was brought into operation between England and Ireland on the 1st of October, 1860. Night and day mail-trains have from that date been run from Euston Square to Holyhead, and special steamers have been employed at an enormous expense to cross the channel. Letter-sorting is now carried on not only in the trains but on board the packets, nearly all the post-office work for immediate delivery being accomplished between London and Dublin and Dublin and London respectively.19
The first letter penny post was established in Edinburgh by one Peter Williamson, a native of Aberdeen. He kept a coffee-shop in the Parliament House, and as he was frequently employed, by gentlemen attending the courts, in sending letters to different parts of the city, and as he had doubtless heard something of the English penny post, he began a regular post with hourly deliveries, and established agents at different parts of the city to collect.
SUMMARY.
Posts for letters, mode of carrying, invented in Paris, 1470; post-horses by stages, 1483. Louis XI. first established them in France. In England, 1581; Germany, 1641; in the Turkish dominions, 1740. Offices erected, 1643, and in 1657; made general in England, 1656; in Scotland, 1695; as at present formed, 12 Charles II., December 27, 1660. Penny posts began in London, 1681; taken in hand by the government, 1711; the penny post made twopence, 1801. Mails first conveyed by coaches, August 2, 1784; the first mail by railway, November 11, 1830, between Manchester and Liverpool.
The mail first began to be conveyed by coaches, on Palmer’s plan, August 2, 1785.
Posting and post-chaises invented in France.
Post-chaise tax imposed, 1779; altered, 1780.
LONDON DISTRICTS.
The postal districts of London are so arranged as to render favorable not only the facilities for delivering letters, but equally so to the carriers. The employees of the London post-office are not overtasked, nor are the carriers compelled as it were to become “beasts of burden.” A want of consideration on the part of officials here for those in their employ is a sad reflection on our republican institutions. Men who exercise a little brief authority imagine themselves for the time-being taskmasters, and those in their employ slaves. Nothing in the world tends more to change a man’s politics than the abuses arising out of the system pursued by men in power towards those in their employ. Thus comparisons are drawn between the two parties, and the course of each is canvassed; and not unfrequently, we regret to say, the Democracy has the advantage. It has always been a principle of the Democratic party to take care of “their men.” It is a fact that under Democratic administration the salaries of the employees in the post-office were thirty-three and one-third per cent more than they receive at present, and that, too, when gold was at par and the rate of living fifty per cent cheaper than it is now. The fact is, there are not ten men in the post-office department whose salaries are adequate to their wants; and to their just demand for an increase of salary they are coolly answered that “if they are not satisfied they can resign, as there are plenty outside willing to take their place.” Is it to be expected that men so treated can consistently admire a system or maintain a principle that strikes at the root of their interest and patriotism? In another part of this work we have alluded to this subject, and referring to it here is simply to contrast a portion of our postal system with that of the English. Let it be distinctly understood that these remarks apply as much to the heads of the postal department at Washington as they do to their officials: the latter simply imitate the actions and carry out the plans of their superiors, and not unfrequently in a manner as insulting as their action and conduct are repulsive. Men in power should be gentlemen; and in selecting their assistants, this natural attribute of the man, refined by education, would exercise its influence in such a manner as to render such selection a very easy matter. But, unfortunately, in many instances such is not the case. The great error committed by the fortunate candidates for office is that of assuming consequence, or, to use a more familiar phrase, “putting on airs:” it is an error that in part arises out of our system of government, and is one that can only be corrected by placing gentlemen in high positions, instead of ignorant, brawling politicians. It is true, our government is not established upon a state religious basis; or, if it were so intended, that corner-stone has been misplaced. Our rulers are generally politicians. To obtain office, corruption not unfrequently takes precedence of religion: hence injustice, wrong, and oppression are the means used to insure success. Examples thus set in high places have been followed through all the departments; peculation in office, fraud in agents, government itself cheated, are all indications of corruption, and are the strongest evidences to be adduced for the increase of crime, the disregard of truth, and the absence of morality among us. Even our clergy display more of the
“animum pictura pascit inani”20
than they do of the principle conveyed in this line from Virgil,—
“Animus lucis contemtor.”21
The English post-office, to a certain extent, is a political one; but there is one feature in it which differs materially from our own, and it is one that reflects the highest credit on the English government; and that is, a man is not discharged from office simply on political grounds, but is retained as long as he attends to his business and conducts himself properly. The reward of merit and long service is, when incapable of attending to his duties, a pension from his government. With these remarks, elicited by contrasting the two systems, we annex the following synopsis of the London postal arrangements:—
(From the London “Postal Guide” for 1864.)
The London district comprises all places within a circle of twelve miles from the general post-office, including Cheshunt, Hampton, Hampton Court, and Sunbury, and the post towns of Barnet, Waltham Cross, Romford, Bromley, Croydon, Kingston, and Hounslow. It is divided into ten postal districts, each of which is treated, in many respects, as a separate post town. The following are the names of the districts, with their abbreviations, viz.:—
| Northern | N. | Southwestern | S.W. |
| Northeastern | N.E. | Eastern | E. |
| Northwestern | N.W. | Eastern Central | E.C. |
| Southern | S. | Western | W. |
| Southeastern | S.E. | Western Central | W.C. |
By adding the initials of the postal districts to the addresses of letters for London and its neighborhood, the public will much facilitate the arrangements of the post-office.
The district initials for every important street or place are given in the street list.
TOWN DELIVERIES.
The portion of each district within about three miles of the general post-office is designated the town delivery, and the remainder the suburban delivery.
Within the town limits there are twelve deliveries of letters daily. The first, or general post delivery, including all inland, colonial, and foreign letters arriving in sufficient time, commences about 7.30 A.M., and is generally completed throughout London by nine o’clock, except on Mondays, or on other days when there are large arrivals of letters from abroad.
The second delivery, which commences about nine A.M., includes the correspondence received by the night mails from Ireland and France, and letters from the provinces and abroad which may arrive too late for the first delivery, as well as those posted in the nearer suburbs by 6.30 A.M., as specified in the tables for each district.
The next nine deliveries are made hourly, and include all letters reaching the general post-office or the district offices in time for each despatch.
The last delivery commences about 7.45 P.M.
Each delivery within the town limits occupies about an hour from the time of its commencement, which may be averaged at from forty-five minutes to an hour from the time of despatch from the general post-office, according to the distance from St. Martin’s-le-Grand and the number of letters to be arranged by the letter-carriers for distribution.
The provincial day mails are due at various times, and the letters are included in the next delivery after their arrival in London. The day mails from Ireland, France, and the continent generally, and the letters received from Brighton and other towns which have a late afternoon communication with London, are delivered the same evening in London and the suburbs within the six-mile circle.
The suburban deliveries are regulated in a similar manner, with this difference, however, that in some of the less-thickly inhabited portions the deliveries are necessarily fewer.
THE POSTE RESTANTE.
There is more attention paid in England to this letter or paper inscription than there is with us. The “Poste Restante” being intended solely for the accommodation of strangers and travellers who have no permanent abode in London, letters for residence in London must not be addressed “Post-Office till called for.” Letters addressed to “initials” or “fictitious names” cannot be received at the “Poste Restante.” If so addressed, they are returned to the writers.
With us, little or no attention is paid to this important postal matter: hence, a letter addressed simply to “John Smith, Philadelphia,” without the word “Transient,” “or Poste Restante,” must necessarily take its winding way through all the phases of postal travel until it reaches the dead-letter office. We make another extract from the English “Postal Guide:”—
“Letters for strangers are delivered from the Poste Restante for a period of two months; after which period they must have them addressed to their place of residence, in order that they may be sent by the letter-carriers. Letters for known residents in London, addressed to the ‘Poste Restante,’ are retained for one week only.
“Letters addressed ‘Post-Office, London,’ or ‘Poste Restante, London,’ are delivered only at the Poste Restante office, on the south side of the hall of the general post-office, St. Martin’s-le-Grand; and at this office also, and there only, are delivered letters addressed to the district or branch offices in London. The hours of delivery are between nine and five.
“All persons applying for letters at the Poste Restante must be prepared to give the necessary particulars to the clerk on duty, in order to prevent mistakes, and to insure the delivery of the letters to the persons to whom they properly belong.”
The establishment of a “Poste Restante” on this principle would be an important feature in our post-office, and would save both trouble and expense.
VI.
The Kaffir Letter-Carrier—African Post.
The African post, as we term it, is of course simply connected with the European settlements. A system of carrying letters is established, and the principal messengers or carriers are the Kaffirs. In the several settlements, more particularly those of the British at Sierra Leone, Cape Coast Castle, and the Cape of Good Hope, and at several unimportant establishments on the Gold and Silver Coasts, these messengers of the African race were not only very useful in conveying letters, packages, &c., but honest, trustworthy, and remarkably swift of foot. In Sierra Leone more particularly they were considered very important personages. In 1845 there was a well-known character, called the “Kaffir letter-carrier.” He was employed to convey letters to the South African settlement. He carried his document in a split at the end of a long stick. He took great interest in his employment; and if a vessel arrived at a late hour of the night, and the letter came into his possession before morning, he would start off with it: no matter how dark the night or how great the distance, away he would speed. When he reached the house of the person to whom the letter was directed,—one of his customers,—he would commence shouting and knocking; and as soon as the house was alarmed, he would exclaim, “Ah, massa, here de right book come at last!” This expression was caused by the anxiety manifested by the Europeans generally to receive letters and packages by every vessel. Another reason that might be assigned for the activity displayed by the Kaffir letter-carrier was the fact that he usually displayed some extra trinket immediately after the delivery of his letter or package. The free-delivery system had not been adopted in Africa at that period, nor do we believe it can boast of that liberal governmental privilege yet.
The name of Kaffir, or unbeliever, was originally given to the inhabitants of the southern coast of Africa by the Moors; and, being adopted by the Portuguese, it became the common appellation of all the tribes occupying the southeastern coast. The Kaffirs living beyond the Fish River, on the eastern boundary of the colony, are a bold, warlike, and independent people, and are supposed to be of Arabian origin.
VII.
Post-Offices—The Colonies.
If fanaticism had not been mixed up with the materials embarked on the Mayflower, July 22, 1620, those scenes which disgraced humanity and civilization and enacted under the belief of witchcraft would never have occurred here; but, unfortunately, that evil came over with the “Pilgrim Fathers,” and its consequences gave a dark page to the history of the “Land of Promise.”
They were, it is true, the pioneers of liberty to a certain extent,—freedom to the body, but not to the mind.
The chains, riveted by the old Gothic laws at that period existing in England, and by which millions of human creatures were held in a state of mental and physical bondage, were left behind, it is true; but the link which bound them to superstition remained unbroken.
Apart from this, however, their landing on Plymouth Rock was the dawn of a new era, and it gave an additional spring to human enterprise, “opened new trains of thought, new paths of gain and of information.”
Passing over the dark days of witchcraft and the persecution of the Quakers, the colonial history brightens up under a more tolerant rule. That the belief in witchcraft was a delusion arising from ignorance, under the influence of which many persons became frantic, there can be no doubt. And yet there was a method in their madness so cunningly carried out that it deceived many far more enlightened. A writer speaking upon the subject says, “It is but justice to the inhabitants of New England to observe that, though the present age may censure the past for its superstition, neither England nor any other nation is entitled to cast the first stone at them. More persons were put to death in England in a single county, in a few months, than suffered in all the colonies during the whole period of their existence.”
The scenes that were enacted in New England during this epidemical reign of insanity gradually yielded to the influence of reason, which under proper religious discipline once more assumed its rule. One of the chief causes which tended to arouse the mind from its mental darkness was the fact of a dog being taken up on suspicion, and actually hanged, as an accomplice of his master, who was accused of witchcraft!22 This act capped the climax of folly. People began to wonder if such things could be; and they actually took the case of the dog into serious consideration, and then came to this very wise conclusion,—that he fell a martyr to the folly and ignorance of a few fanatics. They then began to ridicule those who assumed the power to terrify the people and who had exercised it to a bitter end over men and animals. This did more to bring men to their senses than all the preaching and reasoning of the elders previously.23
Naturally, while these idiotic scenes were enacting, the arts and sciences, commerce and manufactures, were materially neglected; but when the gloom which fanaticism had cast over this portion of the colonies had passed away, the dawn of reason and civilization awoke her benighted children to a new state of existence.
To trace up the postal history of the colonies to the glorious epoch of our independence would be to give a history of trade and commerce, science and art. To these do every thing useful and ornamental in the New World owe its existence. It is true the postal department was at the early age of colonial history but a minor consideration. The system was a limited one, and consisted in having post-roads and post-riders. Even here the latter were to be seen “like angels’ visits, few and far between.” We can draw one of these from a picture seen in our boyhood days. It was in the good old State of Pennsylvania, not many miles from the city of Philadelphia, and while trudging on our way to the village school, this living picture presented itself. A tall, gaunt man sat on a tall, gaunt horse; he came riding slowly up the road,—this was not, as now, a fast age: his hair was partly gray, and fell in tow-looking ringlets down and around his long, sinewy neck. Over the horse’s back was swung a large, well-filled pair of saddle-bags. He was the post-rider. He had started from the main post of the county, established in Norristown, to others in directions diverging from the main road. He stopped his horse, and, raising his tall form, resting his feet on a pair of old rusty stirrups, he shouted out, in a voice of mimic thunder, “Look here, Jim: take this letter to your mother, ’mediate; for that is written on the back; and as you pass Mrs. Stroud’s, hand her this newspaper. Do this, Jim, and I’ll give you sixpence next pay-day.” Such was the post.
Connected with this little incident there is a somewhat curious coincidence. Little did the writer think then, while acting as “an incipient post,” he should in after years find himself in a position in the Philadelphia post-office, acting first as a carrier, and then as clerk, and whose early vocations in life were in no manner identified with public men and public institutions. But what will not revulsions in trade, politics, and governments effect! Equally strange, too, that forty years after the little incident of the “old post” he should meet in the same office the son of that same Mrs. Stroud mentioned above, acting in a similar capacity. Truly may it be said that “coming events cast their shadows before us on our boyhood’s wayward path.” But this is a digression.
Expresses and regular messengers were employed by the colonists, and horses were kept in constant readiness to start on a moment’s notice with letters or packets, for the government as well as individuals. There was no established postal system but that which the exigencies of the times created. The post-riders, or rather government messengers, ran frequent risks. Captain Hutchinson started July 4, 1665, sent by the Governor of Massachusetts with letters constituting him a commissioner to treat with the Narragansetts. The “letter system” failed to conciliate the tribe, as they had openly declared for Philip; and here we have another illustration of the fact that in cases of war and rebellion the “sword is mightier than the pen.” The colonial forces marched into their country and compelled them to sign a treaty, which, however, was only considered binding as long as the forces sent against them were present.
In 1676, however, the colonial court established a post-office in Boston, appointing John Heyward postmaster. Heyward followed the system as established in England, and placed posts and made routes to the extent of the commercial interest of the State. This gave general satisfaction to those who were interested in this mode of communicating with men connected with them in trade, as also to others who had friends and relations scattered throughout what was then a thinly-populated State.
In the year 1700, Col. J. Hamilton, of New Jersey, and son of Governor Andrew Hamilton, first devised the post-office scheme for British America, for which he obtained a patent and the profits accruing. Afterwards he sold it to the crown, and a member of Parliament was appointed for the whole, with a right to have his substitute reside in New York. The statute of Anne, in 1716, placed the postal department under the immediate control of the crown.
The first regular post-office established in the colonies by Parliament was in 1710. By its provisions a general post-office was established in North America and the West Indies, or any other of her majesty’s dominions, or in any country or kingdom beyond the seas, and “at which office all returns and answers may be likewise received. For the better managing, ordering, collecting, and improving the revenue, and also for the better computing and setting the rates of letters according to distance, a chief office is established in Edinburgh, one in Dublin, one at New York, and other chief offices in convenient places in her majesty’s colonies of America, and one in the islands of the West Indies, called the ‘Leeward Islands.’”
That our readers may form some idea of the limited use of a post-office at that period, it is only necessary to state the fact that in 1708 New York contained but one thousand houses, most of them substantially built. The great Trinity Church, so called then, was erected in 1695.24 A library was established there in 1700, and the post-office, as stated above, in 1710. The post-horse system, such as was pursued in England, continued, nor was it until 1732 that the first stage-route to Philadelphia was established: stages also departed for Boston monthly, taking a fortnight on the route.
The following announcement is taken from the “Philadelphia Weekly Mercury,” dated November 30, 1752:—
“On Monday next the Northern post sets out from New York, in order to perform his stage but once a fortnight during the winter quarter; the Southern post changes also, which will cause this paper to come out on Tuesdays during that time. The colds which have infested the Northern colonies have been also troublesome here; few families have escaped the same; several have been carried off by the cold, among whom was David Brintnall, in the seventy-seventh year of his age. He was the first man that had a brick house in the city of Philadelphia, and was much esteemed for his just and upright dealing. There goes a report here that the Lord Baltimore and his lady are arrived in Maryland, but, the Southern post being not yet come in, the said report wants confirmation.”
The David Brintnall mentioned here built the first house made of brick in the city of Philadelphia: it was situated in Chestnut Street below Fourth, and stood back from the street-line, with a small garden in front. The first house erected in Philadelphia was a wooden one, on the east side of Front Street, a little north of the place now called “Little Dock Street,” and is said not to have been finished when William Penn first arrived. The owner, John Guest, kept a public house there for many years. His sign was a “Blue Anchor.” The town and boroughs of Philadelphia were located in 1682.
Letters between New York and Boston were, previous to the introduction of stages, conveyed on horseback. Madam Knight, in her journal, dated 1704, says that “she was two weeks in riding with the postman, as her guide, from Boston to New York. In most of the towns she saw Indians.” In 1702, Mrs. Shippen, soon after her marriage, came from Boston to Philadelphia on horseback, bringing a baby on her lap.
Even at a much later period the mode of travelling was still in a slow way, as may be seen by the following advertisement, which appeared in 1776:—
“This is to give notice to the Publick that the stage waggons kept by John Burrowhill, in Elm Street, in Philadelphia, and John Mersereax, at the Blazing Star, near New York, intend to perform the journey from Philadelphia to New York in two days; also to continue seven months, viz.: from the 14th of April to the 14th of November, and the remaining five months of the year in three days. The waggons to be kept in good order, and good horses, with sober drivers. They purpose to set off from Philadelphia on Mondays and Thursdays punctually at sunrise, and to be in Prince-Town the same nights, and change passengers, and return to New York and Philadelphia the following days. The passengers are desired to cross Powlass Hook Ferry the evening before. The waggon is not to stay after sunrise. Price, each passenger, from Powlass Hook to Prince Town, ten shillings; from thence to Philadelphia, ten shillings also; Ferriage free. Threepence each mile any distance between. Any gentlemen or ladies that wants to go to Philadelphia, can go in the stage and be home in five days, and be two nights and one day in Philadelphia to do business or see the market-days. All gentlemen and ladies who are pleased to favour us with their custom may depend on due attendance and civil usage by those humble servants,
“John Mersereax,
“John Burrowhill.
“June, 1776.”
Market-days in Philadelphia at that period, and long afterwards, were great attractions to the country-people, even apart from business. It was also customary to ring the bells of Christ Church on the evenings previous to “market-days” for the edification of the country-people, who had learned to look upon them—or at least to hear their sound—as more or less identified with our independence. There is a peculiar history attached to these bells. They were purchased in England at a cost of £900. There were eight of them, and their aggregate weight was eight thousand pounds, the tenor bell weighing eighteen hundred pounds. In 1777, fearful of their falling back again into English hands, they were taken down and conveyed to Allentown, Pennsylvania, for “safe keeping.” After the evacuation of the city they were replaced, and have been ringing joyfully ever since. They pealed forth in gladsome sounds when the old State-House Bell sounded its note to liberty, and in harmony they proclaimed it to the world. But did the world respond? Did it shake off the bonds which bound man to man by an iron chain? Did it “proclaim” alike to the African that freedom was his birthright? Alas! no; for although the Declaration of our Independence pronounced “all men equal,” yet a distinction was made in color, and, under that very document and the Constitution, slavery came in, to become in time, what it was in reality before, a curse.
Years passed on; trade and traffic in human flesh continued, until the Almighty, in his wondrous mystery, brought about their emancipation in a manner that levelled the institution of slavery to the ground forever. But, alas! have we not as a people and a nation been severely punished? Established on a basis of crime and carried out in a spirit of fiendish ferocity, they dared call it a “divine institution.” For this fearful error on the part of those eminent men who framed that document, our country has suffered fearfully; but these bells and all other bells will peal once more under a new order of things, and truly as well as righteously “proclaim liberty throughout the land to all the people thereof.” Then will our land