COMING POST-OFFICE REFORMS.
is• the authorities of the Post-office were able to begin the ar- rangement of their system from the very beginning, we might at once have all the advantages that perfect reform could bring to us, and further improvements would be superseded by realizing all improvements at once. The experience since the institution of Penny Postage, however, has forcibly reminded us that the Post- office reformer could not begin from the beginning—he could not deal with a tabula rasa. He had to arrange a Post-office, not as an abstract institution, but in the midst of circumstances that sometimes obstructed as much as they facilitated his arrange- ments; and it has often happened that the very improvements which appear likely to present conveniences have presented hinderances. In the appendix to the Second Annual Report of the Postmaster-General is an explanation of the relations between the Post-office and the Railway Companies, from which we learn that many of the irregularities charged against the Office are to be traced to the Companies. It was proposed in 1854, that any delay should entail a penalty upon the :Railway Company or the Post-office, as either might have been the active cause of hinderanee ; but the only Company that has adopted the proposal is one in Scotland. The other Railways stand upon the right of unpunctuality ; but unpunctuality at one point causes un- punctuality at many, and a much greater loss of time than the first retardation. The Railway Companies persevere in another mistake ; while the average cost of conveying letters by coach is 214. per mile, by railway it is 10d. ; the railways not perceiving the indirect profit, even to themselves, from encouraging postal communication.
The Post-office has to work, more than any other department, through a very complicated agency, where the central influence becomes weaker as it is diffused. Its own servants are very nu- merous; the work is of a kind that cannot in most instances com- mand a high pay; and it is excessively difficult to bring a large number of men, who have not received a superior education and are surrounded by inferior circumstances, into habits of mechani- cal regularity, unless some arbitrary power compelled them. It would be impossible to subject the letter-carriers of the Post- office to military punishment ; and it is only wonderful that upon the whole their humbly-paid labours are performed with so near an approach to precision. But besides the letter-car- riers, there are the receiving-houses, opened in many cases by what may be called the amateur officers of the Post-office. And there is besides the most intractable, unpunctual, and an- conscientious customer with which any officer can deal, the public. The appendix to the Postmaster-General's report con- tains several examples of complaints which end in confessions. A person at Macclesfield complains that he has posted a ten-pound note which has not reached its destination : the note is presented at the Bank, is traced back, and it is discovered that the letter had been stolen after the delivery. Two five-pound Bank-of- England notes ought to have been posted at Leeds : a charge is brought against the central office ; and it is there found that the notes had been purloined by a clerk before they reached the Post- office. A gentleman at Archer's Town, in Westmeath, complains that a letter, containing halves of bank-notes and bills amounting to 4001., haa not come to hand : the letter is found in a drawer in the house of a person to whom it had been directed, who had entirely overlooked it. The public has been shown by Die Post-office, over and over again, how to divide bank-notes in order that one half may be acknowledged before the other half is sent ; but the public neglects even this easy precaution, and constitutes its own neglects charges against the Post-office. In the same appendix there is a story of a young lady who never received the letters addressed to her from home, but instead received brown paper parcels, conveyed to her by men on horseback, or other mysterious agents, telling her of her mo- ther's illness, death,. and funeral, and requiring her instant re- turn home : complaint is made to the Post-office, and it is dis- covered that the whole proceedings are fabricated by a school-
' 1 anxious to get home. If the establishment in St. Martin's-le.: ?ilrand is to be assumed guilty of all the irregularities that take place with regard to the posting and delivery of letters, we might have a heavy bill of indictment ; but the establishment has proved that the most culpable party in these irregularities is the public. It is amid difficulties occasioned by the proverbial unpunetual- ity of railway-trains, the uncertainties of receiving-houses, the incorrigible neglects of the public, that the reformers have to plan improvements for those accelerations which the public is con- stantly demanding. The most promising design at present con- templated is the division of the Metropolis into ten districts,—two central and eight surrounding districts, each to have its head office, with direct communication between all and each. The did- tricts will be the East Central district and the West Central district, with the North, North-east, Eastern, and so oil, boxing the compass all round. It is calculated that when the arrangement is complete there can be hourly deliveries of letters, and that all the letters received from the out stations of each district can be proportionately accelerated on their arrival in the metropolis. It strikes us that the Post- office officials may have to learn as well as the public. There is great difficulty in teaching the multitude to adapt itself to any entirely new system, particularly in topographical directions. We believe that the Post-office plan of directing letters to be sub- scribed for particular districts has not succeeded ; the public ad- hering to those directions which are most popular, or are thought most imposing. It will take some time before letter-writers can learn the geography of the metropolis divided into ten districts, not with mathematically-planned frontiers ; and it is a question whether the lesson might not have been more easily accomplished' if the existing Parliamentary districts of Westminster, Maryle- bone, Tower Hamlets &c., had been adopted. Of course the new arrangement will not be carried out before explicit di- rections are given to the public ; but it must be remem4 bored that a very numerous class of correspondents, imperfectly educated, will puzzle their heads long over the most distinct of maps before they can become thoroughly enlightened as to the proper letters which are to undertake the several districts. We see that a contemporary- speaks of one district as to be indicated by the letters "s. S. W., an inapplicable combination of initials ; and if an editor can so err, how may not a maid-servant go wrong ? These are trivialities, but it is amid the chaos of trivialities which have to be reduced to order that all Post-office reform has marched. The great proof of success is the absence of valid complaints against the Post-office for any offence, except some delays which are often caused by the public, and some directions which are perhaps too complicated for simple heads. It is most remarkable that as so vast a department there should be an almost entire ab- sence of fraud upon the Post-office.
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