POST-OFFICE NOTICE TOUCHING " YOUR ADDRESS." A TRIPLING inattention threatens
to defeat one of the continual improvements taking place in the administration of the Post-office. The object is, to accelerate the delivery of the letters around the Metropolis ; and for that purpose every householder is requested to notify to his correspondents that he lives within a certain district or " delivery," named in the notice forwarded to him. For example, he is requested to tell his friends to address their letters to him as residing in the district of " Paddington, near London " ; that being the name of the " delivery " to which he belongs. A nomen- clature of the kind is of course perfectly intelligible in St. Martins- le-Grand, where the list of the several " deliveries" must be fa- miliar to the officers of the establishment ; but there are two inci- dents in the notice which tend to defeat it. In the first place, as in the district just mentioned, the name is not the one colloquially used to designate the region in which the householder lives. A person living in the St. John's Wood dis- trict never describes himself as living in "Paddington," nor do his friends consider him as residing there. The Post-office authorities therefore call upon him to take a good deal of trouble in teaching his friends how to direct his letters to a place not associated with him in their minds ; and it is most likely that a great portion of that trouble, if he were to take it, would be lost.
A second objection to this mode of putting the improvement is that in some cases, as in the instance already cited, the district which the resident is required to give as his " address " is usually accounted inferior to the one in which he actually resides, and thus he is required to proclaim himself with " a worse address" than that which he deserves. Of course the immediate impulse will be to rebel against an order so " ungenteel." "I do not live in Pad- dington, and I won't say I do," is the exclamation of a St. John's Wood gentleman, mindful of his own dignity. As well tell a Russell Square nobleman to have his letters directed "Somers Town, near London."
It may be evident to a philosophical mind that the motives which rebel against the practical instruction are neither the wisest nor the most respectable ; and yet all who desire to carry forward an improvement with the cooperation of society will remember that they have to consult the actual feelings under which ordinary people are moved. Now, amongst the strongest feelings moving ordinary people, is a certain sacred respect for " a good address," People will not consent to be disrated on the face of their letters. The whole difficulty would be surmounted if the Post-office were to choose for their "delivery," whatever may be its accurate and esoteric designation, the popular and exoteric name most generally applied to the district in question, and belonging to the portion of the district which is most consecrated in social regard.
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