:£ Ou^^at^^^^cr^^i^^^^:^ ACCOUNT OF THE CELEBRATION OF TlIK M WWAIE OF Uliiifoiin Jiilanb PENNY lM)STA(iE \T THK VENETIAN CHAMBER. HOLBORN RESTAURANT AT THE HUlLDHALL AT THE MUSEUM OF S(IEN( E AND ART, SOUTH KENSINGTON Darioue Cown^ an5 liillatics tbrcii{]bcut tbc Unite? Ixinci^om 1840— 1890 ILLUSTRATED WITH POJITRAITS ASD SKETCHES LONDON : PRINTED FOR THE JUBILEE CELEBRATION COMMITTEE GENERAL POST-OFFICE ISUl Richard Clav and Sons, Lihitkd. london and bcngay. IbdO. lpo»tma6tcr-(3cneral. The Right Hun. HEXRY CECIL RAJKES, M.P. Secretary of tbe poet-Office. SIR AUTHUR BLACKWOOD, K.C.B. ^Financial Secretary. ALGERNON' TURXOR, E.sy., C.B. ZlbirJ) Secretary. HENRY JOYCE, Esq., C.B. H36i6tant Secretaries. F. E. I'.AINES, Esq., C.B. | E. H. REA, Esq., C.M.G. .T. C. LAMB, Esq., C.M.G. Committee of /iRaiiacjement. F. E. BAINES, E.vi., C.B., Chainaaii. CoLONEi, .T. J. CARDIX. I Colonel S, RAFFLES THOMPSON W. H. PREECE, E.=^, E. I'AMPHILON, A. W. G. GATES, Secretary. MUSIC BECKLEY, SYDNEY HALL, C. S. SEALY, A. WINTER, E. SYDNEY BECKLEY Secretary. REFRESHMENTS BADCOCK, H. LANG, C. D. WIGHT, J. F. YELD, E. S. WILSON, Sfrvtarii. LADIES' COMMITTEES- BROWN, MISS SAUL, MISS SMITH, MISS MISS GUNSTON. Secretary. C()x\TENTS. INTRODrf'TION. The Jrnii.EE Yeak 1 A Bkief Ai cot'NT OF the Post-Offick . 1" Some Reminiscences 33 The JriJii.EE of the Pennv Post, from "Punch" . i~ To THE Honoured Memoky of Sir Rowland Hill (Poem) ... 44 THE PENNY POSTAOE JUBILEE DINNER 47 THE CONVERSAZIONE AT THE GUILDHALL. Cataloove of Articles Exhibited at Guildhall . ^3 Instructions for Postal Duty at Guildhall 115 Rei'okt of the Controller of the London Postal Ski;vke . . 122 Report of the Electrician 130 Extracts from Rei-ort of Penny Post Jubilee Committee appointed by the Corporation 135 Account of Guildhall Conversazione, from "City Prf>s " . . 146 Collection of Historical Exhibits at the Conversazione . . 165 The (iuiLDHALL Conversazione, from "Punch" 1S8 THE CONVERSAZIONE AT THE SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM. Pro<;ramme of the Conversazione at Sovih Kensington U*1 Instructions for Postal Duty at Suuth KESsiNirroN li'"^ Kei'of.t of the Controller of the London Postal Service . . 209 Report of the Entertain.ments Co.mmittee 219 Account of South Kensington Conversazione, from the "Times" and the "Daily Telegraph" . . .' 221 Teleura.ms from Foreign Countries and Colonies Received at South Kensington 230 viii CONTENTS. CELEBKATIONS OF THE JUBILEE IN THE PROVINCES. PAGE Abstract of Reports from Provinoial and Loxdon Offices . . 235 Extracts from Typical Reports from London Offices .... 244 ,, ,, , ,, Provincial Offices . . . 247 ,, ,, ,, ,. Scotland 274 ,, ,, ,, ,, Ireland 279 THE POSTMASTERS' BREAKFAST 285 ROWLAND HILL MEMORIAL AND BENEVOLENT FUND. Meeting at the Mansion House 291 List of Subscriptions to the Fund 308 APPENDIX. Chrlstmas, 1890 319 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Sir RowLANii Hill. K.C. H Frontispiece. Sir Rowland Hill's BiuTHi'LArE, Kiddekminstek 12 A Travelling Post-Office 17 The Brighton Parcel Coach 25 Loading the Brighton Parcel Coach 37 Frederic Hill, Esy . .41 F'08TMEN'.S UNIFfJRM.S DURING THE LA.^T FlFlY YeAKS 87 The Mulready Envelope, 1840 . . '.04 The Guildhall Jubilee Post-Cari' 124 TELEGUArHS AT CiflLDHALI 131 The "City I'ress " Wire at Giildhall , . 160 A P0.ST-OFFICE IN 1790 168 The South Kensington Jubilee Envelope 211 The South Ken.sington Jubilee Correspondence CaiwD . 213 Facsimile ok Manuscript by Sir Rowland Hill (o/ucc 14 The Rkjht Hon. Henry ('ecil Kaikes, M.P. (Post master- General) ., i' Ex-Postmaster.s-General : His Grace The Duke of Argyll, K.G., K.T. lo/ao. 50 The Right Hon. The MARycis of Haktington, M.P. „ 52 The Right Hon. Sir Lyon Playfair, K.C.B., M.P. . . ,, 56 His Grace The Duke of Rutland, K.G ,, 60 The L.\te Right Hon. Henry Fawcetp, M.P ,, 70 The Right Hon. (!. J. Shaw Lefevre, M.P 74 The Late Lord Wolverton ., 80 X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Sir James "Whitehead, Baet to face 83 Sir Arthur Blackwood, K. C.B. (Seeretar}' of the Post Office) . ,, 147 The Post-Office Committee ,, 191 F. E. Baines, Esq., C.B. (Chairman). S. Raffles Thompson, Esq. James J. Cardin, Esq. R. C. Tombs, Esq. "\V. H. Preece. Esq., F.R.S. Hon. Secretaries to Committee to face 192 Walter G. Gates, Esq. Sydney Beckley, Esq. G. A. AiTKEN, Esq. S. Wilson, Esq. Frederic Hill, Esq to face 288 Date Stamps Used at Guildhall and at South Kensington ., 218 TNTRODUCTrON CELEBRATION OF THE JUBILEE OP INLAND UNIFORM PENNY POSTAGE, THE JUBILEE YEAR, 1890. In 1880 a general feeling was expressed that the fiftieth anniversary of the introduction of Uniform Penny Postage in this country ought not to be allowed to pass without some indication of the feelings which must actuate all who look back to the great reform introduced in 1840, and consider what has since been done. A committee was accordingly formed to make the necessary arrangements, and it was resolved that, in the first place, officers of the Post-Office should meet together at dinner at the Holborn Restaurant. The Penny Postage Jubilee Dinner on January 15 was most successful. Nearly 300 gentlemen were present, including Mr. Raikes, the Postmaster-General, and all the higher officials of the Department, as well as Sir Lyon Plavfair and Mr. Shaw- Lefevre, who have held the office of Postmaster-General, Sir John Tilley, late Secretary of the Post-Office, Mr. Pearson Hill, son of Sir Rowland Hill, and others no longer in the service. A full report of the interesting speeches will be found below. But still greater things were to come. The Corporation of the City of London, anxious to celebrate in a fitting manner the Jubilee of Penny Postage, askeil the Post-Office to co- operate in arranging for an important conversazione at the B 2 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. Guildhall. The invitation met with a ready response, and by the 16th of May, the date of the conversazione, the Guildhall and its approaches had undergone the strangest of metamorphoses. The great hall contained a fully-equipped post-office of to-day, and the representation of a post-office of 1790, while in an enclosure visitors were able to see how letters, papers, and parcels are sorted and made up into despatches in the Post- Office. At the other end of the room telegraphic apparatus of all descriptions was exhibited, and communication was established with cities as distant as Paris and Berlin. The Art Galleries were used for the exhibition of models of travel- ling post-offices, mail steamers, &c., and of a large and valuable exhibition of jDictures, books, stamps, letters, State papers, and every description of curiosity illustrating the history of the Post-Office. Excellent musical arrangements were made, and Mr. Sydney Beckley, who conducted, has found in the choir gathered together for this temporary purpose the nucleus of what promises to be a successful Post-Office Musical Society. The Lord Mayor and the members of the Corporation were, it is needless to say, excellent hosts, and all the visitors, including the Prince of Wales, who honoured the occasion with his presence, were much interested in the numerous attractions provided. The Exhibition was kept open on the 17th and 19th of May, and musical entertainments were given on each day. Full accounts of the jDroceedings, from various points of view, are given below. If it had been practicable to keep the collections together for a month, the rooms would no doubt have been crowded to the end. Some of the objects of interest were sent on to the Exhibition of the London Philatelic Society, held in the Portman Rooms later in the month, while many of the valuable stamps shown there had been forwarded from the International Postage Stani}) Exhibition, held in Vienna in April. The proceedings connected with the celebration promoted by the Corporation Avere brought to a pleasant conclusion by a dinner at the Albion Tavern, under the presidency of Alderman Sir James Whitehead, Bart., at which the Postmaster- THE JUBILEE YEAR, 1800. 3 General aud the principal officers of the Department were present. The official celebration of the Jubilee of Penny Postage took the form of a grand conversazione at the South Kensington Museum, when a gathering of nearly 4,000 persons filled the courts and galleries of the beautiful building. The Committee, in arranging for this gathering, had a double object in view, for they wished not only to mark in a fitting manner the Jubilee of a great reform, but to increase, so far as might be, the Rowland Hill Memorial and Benevolent Fund, which has for its object the giving of relief to Post-Office servants, before or after retirement, who, through no fault of their own, have fallen into necessitous circumstances, or to their widow^s and orphans. Her Majesty the Queen, having graciously consented to become the Patron of the Rowland Hill Benevolent Fund, extended her patronage to the conversazione, and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh consented to be President. The Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council kindly lent the Museum for the occasion, and the Postmaster-General having agreed that, as far as possible, the 2nd of July should be a general holiday in the Post-Office, application was made to the railway companies, who generously issued tickets to Post-Office servants and their families, available for a week, at charges for the double journev, which in no case exceeded the single fare. The result w^as that officers from the most distant parts of the kingdom attended the conversazione, and the number of persons present was consider- ably greater than had been generally expected. A special Jubilee Post Card had been issued for sale at the Guildhall conversazione for the benefit of the Rowland Hill Benevolent Fund, and it was so popular that the entire issue of 10,000 was bought up in less than three hours. In view of this success it was resolved to issue a limited number of a special Jubilee Envelope, impressed with a postage stamp of the value of one penny, anil containing an appropriate corresi»ondeiice card, for sale at South Kensington and at all Post-Offices throughout the United Kingdom, on the 2nd of July, at one shilling each. The result of this experiment was most satis- B 2 4 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. factory, and the proceeds, a-fter deducting the value of the paper and postage stamp, were devoted to the Benevolent Fund. The conversazione is fully described in another part of this volume ; it is enough here to say that it was in every way a great success. Postal and telegraph work was carried on as at the Guildhall, and the visitors had the benefit of seeing not only post-offices of 1790 and 1890, but also a forecast of what science would enable us to do in 1990. Models of travelling j)ost-offices and collections of stamps, including those lent by the Board of Inland Revenue and the Government of New South Wales, were on view ; and excellent concerts, at which Madame Valleria, Mr. Sims Reeves, Madame Frickenhaus, and other eminent artistes gave their aid, were arranged by Mr. Sydney Beckley. The Postmaster-General and the Secretary of the Post-Office received the guests until the arrival of the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, when addresses were presented to their Royal Highnesses, and loud cheers were given for the Queen. It had been arranged that at 10 P.M. a telegraphic signal should be sent from the Museum to the telegraph offices then open throughout the country, and the invitation to the officers of the Department who could not be present at the celebration in London to join in simultaneous cheering for the Queen met with an enthusiastic response. It will be seen from the extracts given from reports received from the provincial offices to how great an extent the occasion was marked by social gatherings or other celebrations in harmony with the proceedings in London. Many of the postmasters were, of course, in London at the time, and it was therefore arranged to have a Postmasters' Jubilee Bieakfast at Exeter Hall on July 3rd, the morning after the conversazione. The Postmaster-General and the Secretary of the Post-Office accepted invitations, and the gathering proved very interesting. Throughout the year the Post-Office has been in an especial degree in the minds of the iDublic, and many local events have shown the interest taken in the officers of this great Department. As an example it may be mentioned that on the 24th of August a sermon on the Postal System in its Beneficent and Religious THE JUBILEE YEAR, 1890. 5 Aspect, was preached in LlandafF Cathedral by the Very Rev. C, J. Vaughan, D.D., Dean of Llandaff and Master of the Temple, at a i^atliering of officers of the Cardiff Post-Office, and copies were privately printed as a gift to the Postmaster and his officers. An interesting indication of the constant growth of the Post- Office was afforded on the 20th of November, when the Post- master-General laid the memorial stone of the new General Post-Office (North) in Aldersgate Street. After the stone had been laid Mr. Raikes made a speech in which the changes of the past fifty years were admirably described. The Postmaster-Gexeral said that in the inscription on the stone reference was fitly made to the fact that the great work of erecting the new Post-Office was thus auspiciously com- menced in the year of the jubilee of the penny postage — the jubilee of that great discovery which had revolutionised the communications of the United Kingdom and the British Empire and of the whole civilised world, and which, during the hfty years it had gone upon its peaceful course of development, had wrought, peihaps, greater blessings for the human race than any other institution, at least of modern times. He was happy to have beside him a gentleman whose own cai'eer had been long and distinguished in the service of that Department, and who was even more interesting as a personage present as the son of the great Sir Rowland Hill. They hail no doubt seen and read much of the postal literature of the year, to which Mr. Pearson Hill had been a foremost and a most interesting contributor, and they had become more or less familiar with those authentic records, which read almost like fairy tales, of the enormous pro- gross that had been made in the inter-communications of man- kind since the penny postage was first established. He (Mr. Raikes) was not fjoincjto ask them again to look back over those fifty years, and he would only further refer to the jubilee in expressing his own great satisfaction, and he believed that of the Department generally, that Her Majesty the Queen had been graciously pleased to signalize the fiftieth anniversary of the penny jx)st by conferring distinguished honours up^n eminent officers of the department. [Mr. Joyce was made a Companion of the Bath, and Mr. Rea and Mr. Lamb Companions of St. Michael and St. George.] He would only say in connection with those honours that it was also a matter on which they 6 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. might, be thought, justly congratulate themselves, that the jubilee year of the penny postage in the United Kingdom had also been the first year of the establishment of what he trusted would very soon be a universal postage rate between the United Kingdom and our great Colonies and Dependencies across the sea. He would ask them that day to look back over the twenty years which had elapsed since the late Mr. Ayrton laid the memorial stone of the General Post-Office West, a work which at that time it was supposed might for a very long time to come suffice to meet the increasing exigencies of that great service. How shortsighted were even the best-informed politicians and officials ! Twenty years only had elapsed, and the building, which it was supposed would suffice to house their grovring services for, perhaps, a century, had become almost obsolete in its entire insufficiency to cope with the business which they had to transact. He would point out to them that in 1869 the number of postal packets, including letters and all other articles transmitted through the post, was 940,000,000 — thirty per head of the population. In 1889 those numbers had grown to 2,511,000,000, nearly treble in twenty years, and representing sixty-six per head of the population. That was considerably more than double the number proportionally delivered per head twenty years ago, after making allowances for the great increase of the population in the meanwhile. In 1871 the number of telegrams was nearly 10,000,000, and in 1889 it was 62,500,000. The telegrams in the United Kingdom in those eighteen years had increased by 500 to 600 per cent. In 1869 the amount of money sent by means of money-orders was £19,500,000, and in 1889 £42,000,000, or more than double. In 1869 the savings bank deposits amounted to £13,500,000, and in 1889 they amounted to nearly £68,000,000, or about five times what they were twenty years ago. In 1869 the gross receipts of the department from all sources fell short of £5,000,000, and in 1889 they exceeded £12,000,000. He did not suppose that there was any other institution that had ever existed which could point to such a record of universal progress in every branch. He would remind them that when the General Post-Office West was designed it was intended to accommodate the Post- master-General's office, the Secretary's office, the Solicitor's office, Receiver and Accountant-General's office, and the Central Savings Bank. There was also intended to be a central hall for the transaction of all kinds of public business. The number THE JT'BILEE YEAR, 1890. 7 of persons originally intended to be accommodated was about 7<*0. Now, what was the statf to-day ? The transfer of the telegraphs to the Government in 1870 altered the arrangement altogether. The upper part of the building, which had been intended for the Savings Bank, was appropriated to the Central Telegraph Office, and an entirely new Imilding for the Savings Bank had to be erected in Queen Victoria Street, and that accommodated a staff of no fewer than 1,250 persons. An additional story ha<.i had to be added to the General Post-Office West in 1884-, and further accommodation had been found at the Mount Pleasant depot. After all these removals and trans- fers of statf from the principal building they had still no fewt-r than 1,07(1 connected with the branches still housed there who could not iind accomtnodation within tlie walls of the General Post-Office West. The new building, which came to meet their patent and obvious necessities, was to be called the General Post-Office North, and the site, exclusive of the Money Order Office, cost no less than £326,000. The structure had been designed by Mr. Tanner, and he was glad to be able to compliment that gentleman upon a design which would group very harmoniously with the line buildings which already accommodated the Post- Office. He thought we were beginning more to appreciate the merit of plainness and classical outline and of simplicity in public buildings, and he was quite satisfied that when the new building raised its head in the City of London it would be con- sidered worthy of its position even in a city which, perhaps, contained within its limits a greater number of really beautiful buildings than any other city in Europe. The total number of persons to be accommodatetl would be no less than 1,550. He knew he was not only addressing a body of gentlemen highly qualified to appreciate their importance, but everything at the present day wliich concerned tlie Post-Office was read with interest, not only in London or the LTnited Kingilom, but even in our most remote Colonies and Dependencies ; and, as thev knew, it was generally the custom with eveiy person who had a letter detained in transit, or whose parcel had gone wrong, to enlist in the discussion of his wrongs half the Press of the United Kingdom. It was as well when fitting opportunity served that the public should be reminded, as he hoped he had reminded them with becoming modesty, of the enormous work which that great department did for their good, and of the continually increasing responsibilities and cares which beset those who were in charge of it. It would be impossible to carry on the service. 8 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. but for the department being officered by the most devoted pubUc servants which any State had ever had to rely on, and he hoped when people saw in the papers a tirade against the short- comings of which they were suspected or with which they were charged, there would be borne in mind the great work which they were daily and hourly rendering to the public, the enormous labour, the infinite anxiety which they bore in patient silence, trusting that their countrymen would judge them by their work. After expressing regret that many of those who witnessed the laying of the foundation stone of the General Post-Office West tAventy years ago were not present, he said their absence might be accounted for by the fact that official service was compara- tively short. He believed an omnibus horse was supposed to have a life of three years, and he was happy to say that the life of a superior officer of the Post-Office considerably exceeded that span, but still it was, he thought, a melancholy circumstance that there should be present so few of those who were there twenty years ago. He was happy to think that the Postmaster- General of that day still lived and flourished, and was indeed only just about entering what was considered the middle life of a statesman — he referred to the Marquis of Hartington. There was present that day Mr. Walliker, the Postmaster of Birming- ham, who attended the ceremony of twenty years ago, and he hoped that gentleman would be spared to see the day when his (Mr. Raikes') successor came to lay the memorial stone of the General Post-Office South, and which he had not the smallest doubt would be called for by the increasing exigencies of the service in the very early period of the twentieth century. The list of interesting events of the year was brought to a close with the Annual Meeting of the Rowland Hill Memorial and Benevolent Fund, which was held at the Mansion House on the 11th of November. The Lord Mayor (Mr. Alderman Savory) was in the chair, and among those present were Sir James Whitehead, Bart., one of the founders of the Fund, Sir Henry Peek, Bart., and Mr. Causton, M.P. Mr. Baines, C.B., Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Jubilee Cele- bration, was able to hand over to the Lord Mayor, for transfer to the Trustees of the Benevolent Fund, a cheque on account for £16,000, the result of the several special efforts made during THE JUBILEE YEAR, 1890. 9 the year; and subsequent subscriptions have raised the total sum thus obtained to £22,000. In other words, the Rowland Hill Fund has been more than doubled, a result which could not have been attained but for the cordial co-operation of officers througrhout the service. A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE POST-OFFICE, WITH ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE PROGRESS OF THE FIFTY YEARS ENDED 1890. The system of uniform Penny Postage for letters throughout the United Kingdom, originated by the late Sir Rowland Hill, was introduced on the 10th of January, 1840, and during the fifty years which have elapsed since that date the business of the Post-Office has developed to an extent far exceeding his utmost anticipations. Before 1840 the rates of postage on letters sent from one part of the United Kingdom to another were almost prohibitive. It is true that in regard to letters posted in London and other large cities for delivery within their local posts, there existed, as shovVn hereafter, a " penny post " and a " twopenny post," but beyond these limits the rates for a "single letter," unless "franked" by a member of Parliament, were as follows : — From any Post-OfRce to any place not exceeding 15 miles from snch Post- Office 4d. Above 15 miles and under 20 5d. 6d. Id. 8d. 9d. 10^7. Ik/. I2d. And one penny for every additional 100 miles ; while as regards Scotland an additional charge of one halfpenny was made on every letter sent across the Border. 20 55 ) , 30 30 )J 3 , 50 50 !) ) , 80 80 5) J , 120 120 55 5 , 170 170 55 5 , 230 230 55 5 , 300 A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE I'OST-OFFICE. 11 Only "single letters," i.e. letters written on a single sheet of paper, coukl be sent at tliese rates. Hence the use, which some of the present letter wi-iters can remember, of the large square sheets of letter paper, folded in four and secured with a seal. The use of an envelope or cover, or of two sheets of paper, or the transmission of any iuclosure, rendered the letter liable to double postage, and two inclosures involved treble postage. Also, if the letter weighed an ounce the postage was quad- rupled, and every additional quarter of an ounce in weight led to an additional rate of postage. Thus the postage on a " single letter " from London to Brighton was 8^/. ; to Manchester, 11(/. ; to Edinburgh, IShl.', and to Cork, I7d., instead of one penny, as at present. But if the letter weighed just over If oz., the postage was, to Brighton, 4s. Sd. ; to Manchester, 6s. od. ; to Edinburgh, 7s. 7orf. ; and to Cork, 9s. lid. The inconvenience which these high rates inflicted on the public is stated to have been forcibly brought home to Sir Rowland Hill by the fact that when engaged to his future wife he and she found it necessary, from motives of economy, to sacrifice sentiment and to restrict their correspondence to a letter once a fortnight. An article in the Blacl-friars Magazine — a journal the plan of which has since been taken by the St. Martin' s-le-Grand Magazine — traces the inception of the idea of penny postage : — " It was the practice of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Wright Hill to encourage their children to select and discuss, in the long, dark evenings of the winter months, topics of general interest ; political questions, social, physical, and other problems. Each was at liberty to contribute his views, the parents guiding the discussion, and throwing in now and again a shrewd remark or two, born of their Avell-ordered minds and ripe experience. It was, no doubt, a home debating society, at which, however, the ' previous ([uestion ' was never put, and ' calls to order ' were superseded by the sense and moderation of the disputants. " On a previous occasion they had debated the printing-press and the feasibility of its improvement ; on this particular evening SIR ROWLAND HILL's BIRTHPLACE, KIDDERMINSTEH. (By permission of the Proprietors of the nUistrated London News.) A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE POST-OFFICE. 13 the family circle discussed the heavy postage which the lightest letter cost between any two distant points — between, for instance, London and Liverpool, for which tlie postage was elevenpence ; or even between places so near each other as Birmingham and Wolverhampton, the postage being in such cases at least fourpence. " Out of that family council arose great things, with most of which the readers of Blackfriars, by reason of their occupation, are well acquainted. " Of the five boys, Matthew, the eldest, intended for the Bar, took, one may be sure, an active part in the discussion; the budding advocate detecting at once the strong and weak points of a possible adversary's case ; Edwin, the next, with a turn for mechanical contrivances, reflecting what sort of machinery a postal service might require, would address himself to locomo- tion and its cost ; Arthur, with an inborn gentleness which never forsook him, would cast about, perchance, for excuses for those who permitted the levying of extravagant rates ; Frederic, the fifth son, then but a child (the sixth and youngest being probably in the nursery), waiting with deference for the settled opinions of his elders, would in due season express himself, young as he was, with sagacity and prudence ; while Rowland, the third son, debating the whole proposition with such energy and grasp as to make it clear that further inquiry on this im- portant track was his particular forte, carried with him the whole of the Councillors in his youthful demand for postal reform. Then the Council resolved that the question of the printing-machine should be for Edwin further to take up, and that the field of the Post-Oftice should be left free to Rowland. So from that or a subsequent family council the brothers went on their way through life — Matthew to become a Barrister, King's Counsel, and Recorder of Birmingham ; Edwin, Chief of the Stamp Office at Somerset House, and Improver of its Printing and Stamping Machinery ; Arthur, Head of the famous Bruce Castle School at Tottenham ; Frederic, Inspector of Prisons in Scotland, and afterwards Assistant Secretary in the Post-Oflice ; and Rowland — the great Postal Reformer — Secre- 14 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. tary of the Post-Office and Knight Commander of the most Honourable Order of the Bath. " It has been said that great things arose out of that family council. Among others it has led to the expansion of a total of 76^ millions of letters, delivered annually, into the wondrous aggregate of nearly 1,800 millions. If we throw in some other odds and ends, such as a trifle of 400 millions of book packets, forty millions of parcels, and two or three milHons of samples, it may not be wide of the mark to say, for sake of roundness of numbers, that two billions of j)ostal articles under the vivifying schemes of Sir Rowland Hill are passing through the post." Now Penny Postage brings within the reach of every class the means of correspondence, and that as frequently as the exigencies of the busy life of to-day may require. The growth of the Post-Office business during the last fifty years has not. moreover, been confined to articles sent through the post. The establishment in the autumn of 1861 of the Post-Office Savings Bank, the deposits in which amounted in that year to £785,000, but have now reached £60,000,000 ; the transfer to the State in 1870 of the telegraphs, the number of messages sent by which was then 8,900,000, but amounted last year to 62,^68,000 ; the introduction in 1881 of postal orders, of which upwards of 178,000,000 were issued last year; the introduction in 1883 of the parcel post, by which 2,000,000 of parcels were sent that year, and upwards of 39,000,000 last year, together with the transaction of life insurance and annuity business and facilities for investment of small sums in Government stocks, have all contributed to render the Post-Office one of the largest and most important of the Departments of the State. The advantages of cheap postage have however been enor- mously increased by the simultaneous development of railway communication, which has afforded the means of rapidly trans- porting the immense quantity of matter sent through the post at the present day. Facsimile of Manuscript Page (in Sir Rdwland Hill's handwriting) of tlie Draft of ' bis rami>lilft on Post Office Reform. See 3rd Edition (1S37) page 49. ^^^ ^^^ ^=-^^' '^^^^^^ >^>i^ A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE POST-OFFICE. 15 Mail Coaches. One of the greatest reforms ever made in the Post-Office was effected by the introduction in 1784 of Mr. John Palmer's plan for sending mails by coach. Mr. Palmer, who was the manager of the theatre at Bath, had observed that when the tradesmen of that city were particularly anxious to have a letter conveyed with speed and safety, they were in the habit of enclosing it in a brown paper cover and sending it by the coach, notwithstand- ing that the charge was much higher than the postage of a letter. He therefore suggested that mail bags should be sent by passenger coaches in charge of well-armed and trustworthy guards, and that the coaches should be so timed that they should all arrive in London, as far as possible, at the same time, in order that the letters might be all delivered together. Up to this time the mail bags had been carried by post-boys on horse- back, at an average rate, including stoppages, of from three to four miles an hour ; and Mr. Palmer, in submitting his plan to Mr. Pitt, in 1783, pointed out that "the post, instead of being the swiftest, is about the slowest conveyance in the country," and that " the mails Avere generally entrusted to some idle boy, without character, mounted on a worn-out hack, and who, so far from being able to defend himself or escape from a robber, is much more likely to be in league with him." The officers of the Post-Office vehemently opposed Mr. Palmer's plan, but its merits were recognized by Mr. Pitt, and under his auspices an Act was passed authorizing its adoption. Mr. Palmer was appointed Controller of the General Post- Office to carry out his plan, with a salary of £1,500 a year and 2h per cent, on any excess of revenue over £240,000 a year, and he appears to have performed his duties Avith great ability. The speed of the mails was at once increased from three and a half to six miles an hour, and subsequently still greater acceleration was attained, accompanied by a large immediate increase of correspondence and of revenue. In 1792, Mr. Palmer was suspended from his functions, an 16 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. allowance of £3,000 a year being made to liim in lieu thereof. This sum was much beloAv what he was entitled to under his agreement, and after unsuccessfully memorializing the Treasury against the arrangement he laid his case before Parliament, and in 1813, after a struggle lasting many years, a Parliamentary grant of £50,000 was made to him. About the year 1814, Mr. Macadam's improved system of road-making enabled a great acceleration to be effected in the speed of the mail coaches. The speed gradually increased to ten miles an hour, and even more, until in the case of the Devonport mail the journey from London of 216 miles was punctually performed, including stoppages, in twenty-one hours and fourteen minutes. Mails First Sent by Railway. In 1830, on the opening of the line between Liverpool and Manchester, the mails were for the first time conveyed by rail- way, and the payment to railway companies for conveyance of mails amounted last year to £900,000. The first Travelling Post-Office, for the purpose of sorting correspondence in transit, was established on the Grand June - tion Railway between Liverpool and Birmingham on the 1st July, 1837, and on the completion of the railway to the metro- polis in July, 1838, that Travelling Post-Office began to run throughout between London and Liverpool. The speed was then a gentle twenty miles an hour, as even at a somewhat later period, when the railway northward had been completed as far as Lancaster, the mail train took eleven hours and a half to perform the journey from London to Lancaster, a distance of 241 miles. Now, when the mail train to the north has travelled eleven hours and a half it is pulling up at Forfar, so distant as 471 miles from London. Travelling Post-Offices are attached to numerous mail trains on all the principal lines, those under the control of the Loudon Postal Service running in the aggregate about 3,000,000 miles annually over the principal railway systems of Great Britain. About !^ ■-m O 'at < J2 18 ■ JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. 1,800,000 miles, or three-fifths of the total distance traversed by the mail carriages, are riui on the London and North- Western and Caledonian Railways ; about 270,000 miles are run on the Midland and North Eastern Lines, and nearly 300,000 on the Great Western Railway. The total number of letters, &c., dealt with in the Travelling Post-Offices annually is about 210,000,000, besides about 4,000,000 parcels. Extensive use is made of the apparatus for receiving mails into, and leaving mails from, mail trains travelling at full speed. Mr. Ramsay, formerly an officer of the General Post-Office, is said to have suggested the machinery for the purpose. To Mr. Dicker, also an officer of the Department, must be ascribed many important improvements of the apparatus, which made it fit for general use, Mr. Dicker receiving his reward in the shape of a grant of £500 from the Board of Treasury, and the appointment of Supervisor of Mail-bag Apparatus. Mr. Pearson Hill, only son of Sir Rowland Hill, is credited with further advantageous changes, and still further improvements have been made of late years by the present supervisor, Mr. Garrett, The total number of apparatus stations in England, Scotland, and Wales, is 220, and there are 355 standards and 372 nets erected at these stations for the despatch and receipt of mails. There are forty-four Travelling Post-Office carriages to which the apparatus nets, &c., are fixed. The number of exchanges of mails daily from the station standards into the carriage nets is 516, and from the carriage to the stationary nets 530. The total number of mail bags in- cluded in these exchanges is about 2,000. It rarely happens that a bag is missed or dropped. On an average about 110,000 letters, &c., a day are exchanged by the apparatus at a normal period, of which about 85,000, or nearly four-fifths, are sorted in the Travelling Post-Offices, the remainder being sent direct in bags from one town to another through the Travelling Post- Offices unopened. A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE POST-OFFICE. 19 Foreign and Colonial IVIail Packet Service. The Foreign and Colonial Mail Service benefited almost as much by the introduction of steam packets as the inland service did by the introduction of railways. The state of the mail service to Ireland in old times is illustrated by the fact that in 1693 a piteous petition was received from James Vickers, the Captain of the Grace Dogger, who, while his vessel lay in Dublin Bay waiting for the tide to take him over the bar, was captured by a Privateer, the Captain of which, he complains, stripped the Grace Dogger of all her rigging and the furniture " wherewith she had been provided for the accommodation of passengers, leaving not so much as a spoone or a nail -hook to hang anything on." The vessel herself had to be ransomed for the sum of fifty guineas, which the Postmaster-General had to pay. The result of this and similar misfortunes was that the Postmaster-General resolved to build swift packet-boats that should escape the enemy, but built them so low in the water that a report states, " We doe find that in blowy weather they take in soe much water that the men are constantly wet all through, and can noe ways goe below to change themselves, being obliged to keep the hatches shut to save the vessels from sinking, which is such a discouragement to the sailors that it will be of the greatest difficulty to get any to endure such hardshipps in the winter weather." It is difficult to realize this state of things now, when the mail packet service is performed by splendid steam vessels of extraordinary power and speed — the voyage from Dover to Calais being performed in little over an hour, and that from Holyhead to Kingstown in three hours and a half; while the mails for the United States, India, and the colonies, are conveyed with the utmost rapidity and regularity by magnificent fleets of the finest steam vessels in the world. When the Pilgrim Fathers settled in America they could never have imagined that the mails would traverse the Atlantic in less than six days in floating palaces like the Teutonic, nor could the East India Company have anticipated c 2 20 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. that the mails which occupied six months in voyaging round the Cape in a sailing vessel, would complete the journey to Bombay in seventeen days by means of the splendid steam vessels of the Peninsular and Oriental Company ; while it would have been equally incredible to the first settlers in Australia that the vast distance intervening between them and the mother country would be accomplished in thirty-two days. The great facilities which thus exist for communication with India and the colonies have, of course, been still further en- hanced by the recent reduction of the postage to 2UL for a letter under half-au-ounce in weight. The feat of delivering letters in London within a week of their despatch from New York was accomplished for the first time in October last. The Inman steamer City of New York, and the White Star liner Teutonic, passed Sandy Hook at 7.35 A.M. and 7.51 A.M. respectively on Wednesday, the 15th October. Mails were carried by both vessels, those on board the City of Neio YorJc numbering 392 sacks, and those on the Teutonic 31 sacks. The bulk of the mails was sent by the Inman steamer, while only correspondence specially addressed was forwarded by the Teutonic- The White Star liner, however, made the quicker passage, and arrived ofi" Roches Point at 12.45 p.m. on the 21st, or 1 hour, 47 minutes in advance of her rival. The mails were sent on from Queenstown by the 1.40 p.m. mail train, and reached London with the Irish mail at 6.50 A.M. on Wednesday, the 22nd, in time for the correspondence to be distributed by the second delivery in the City and other town districts of London, and for the closed mails for the Continent to be forwarded by the first day mails. The mails conveyed by the City of Neiu York were landed at Queenstown at 2.30 p.m., and every effort was made to overtake the Teutonic's mail by the employment of a special train to Dublin, a special boat to Holyhead, and a special train thence to Euston. By these means the mail reached London only 2 hours, 18 minutes after that conveyed by the Teutonic, diwdi the letters, &c.. A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE POST-OFFICE. 21 fell into the next or third delivery throughout London, and the Continental mails were forwarded by the second day mails at about 10.30 A.M. If this mail had been forwarded from Queenstown by the ordinary arrangements it would not have reached London until late in the day on Wednesday, and, consequently, letters, &c., would not have been in the hands of business men before four or five o'clock. Post Office Savings Bank. The establishment in 1861 of the Post-Office Savings Banks afforded great facilities for thrift to the industrial classes. In that year 3,532 Post-Offices throughout the kingdom were opened for Savings Bank business, but the number is now up- wards of 9,000. The public appreciation of these facilities is shown by the fact that the number of depositors has increased from 91,965 to 4,220,927, and the amount annually deposited has increased from £735,253 to £19,052,226, while the average amount of each deposit has diminished from £3 125. 8d. to £2 10s. 6(1. Since 1880 depositors have been enabled to invest their savings in Government stocks with little or no trouble. In this way £3,785,600 of stock is now held by 43,000 persons, the dividends being credited to their Savings Bank accounts. The smallest sum which a depositor can invest in the purchase of Government stock is one shilling. The Post-Office Savings Bank is much used by friendly societies, provident institutions, and penny banks as a safe place of deposit for their funds. The idea of establishing this branch of the department is largely and with justice attributed to the late Sir C. W. Sikes, a merchant of Huddersfield. The machinery which rendered the idea practicable was in the main reduced to a workable form within the department, the late Mr. F. I. Scudamore, C.B., and Mr. G. Chetwynd, C.B., being those chiefly concerned. 22 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. Telegraphs. The year 1870 was rendered notable in the history of the Post-Office by the acquisition by the State of the telegraphs, which had previously been in the hands of various companies. On the 29th of January in that year the transfer of the busi- ness to the Postmaster-General took place, but for another week the telegraph companies continued to perform, as agents of tlie Post-Office, most of their practical functions, until at midnight (or more strictly speaking at seven o'clock on the morning) of the 5th of February the Postmaster-General — then the Marquis of Hartington, M.P. — took up the management of inland telegraphy. The history of telegraphy in this country yet remains to be written. The postal share of it may perhaps be briefly indi- cated by Parliamentary papers, which show that in 1854 Mr. Thomas Allan, a well-known electrician, published a paper entitled Reasons for the Government annexing an Electric Tele- graph System to the General Post-Office. Mr. Allan proposed a uniform charge for telegrams of one shilling for twenty words. In 1858 Mr, F. E. Baines, C.B., an officer of the department, submitted to the Lords of the Treasury, by permission of the Duke of Argyll, then Postmaster-General, and with the con- currence of the late Sir Rowland Hill, a plan For the establish- ment in connection with the Post-Office of a comjjrehensive system of Electric Telegraphs throughout the Kingdom. Mr. Baines advo- cated a sixpenny rate of charge, free delivery within prescribed limits, a legal monopoly, an extension of postal telegraph wires, first to post-towns and ultimately to 8,000 or 9,000 sub-post- offices, separation of the railway from the public telegraph service, consolidation of the public telegraph system under one management, and an extension of underground wires. All these suggestions have now been realized. When Mr. Baines framed his proposal 470 post-towns had no telegraphic com- munication whatever; at 210 post-towns the telegraph office was to be found only at the railway station, while the smaller A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE POST-OFFICE. 23 towns and villages were without any telegraphs whatever, or at best had to depend on a railway service wire at the nearest railway station. In 1865 the late Lord Stanley of Alderley, Postmaster- General, took up the question, and he directed the late Mr. Frank Ives Scudamore to examine it. Mr. Scudamore's report was laid before Parliament in April, 1868. At that time the Duke of Montrose was Postmaster-General. He advised the Government to bring in a Bill for the acquisition of the tele- graphs. This Bill became law, and was followed by a Money Bill in 1869, which confirmed and extended the Bill of 1868. The burden of organizing the acquisition of the telegi'aph companies' property, and of establishing the system of post- office telegraphs, fell on Mr. Scudamore. It was a work of excessive labour, and was performed in an incredibly short space of time. Under Post-Office management the facilities afforded to the public have been greatly increased, and the business developed in all directions. In 1870 a uniform minimum charge of one shilling for each inland message was intro- duced and the total number of messages sent in the first year was nearly 9,472,000, excluding about 700,000 press messages ; the number of telegraph offices throughout the king- dom being 3,700. In October, 1885, the minimum charge for a message was reduced to sixpence, and tlic total number of messages last year was 62,368,000, The cost of the telegraph service last year was £2,042,394, while the total receipts amounted to £2,129,699. Vast strides have been made in telegraphy since Cooke and Wheatstone, in July, 1837, transmitted their first signals between Euston Square and Camden Town. The Post-Office has now duplex, quadruplex, and multiplex apparatus, transmitting many messages on one and the same wire at the same time, while the capabilities of the more recently invented Wheatstone Automatic Apparatus have been developed to an extent unthought of by the inventor. This apparatus can now transmit as many as 600 words in a minute. The first attempt to con- 24 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. nect England and the Continent was made in 1850 by a wire laid from Dover to Calais, and in the following year permanent communication was established by a cable, of which a portion is in use at the present time. There are now no less than nineteen cables between Great Britain and the Continent. Those which were established by the Submarine Telegraph Company between England and the Continent were acquired last year by the British and foreign Governments, the concessions to the company having expired. On the 5th of August, 1858, the first line to the United States was completed, and telegraphic communication esta- blished between the two hemispheres ; but the cable soon broke, and, although another cable was laid in 1865, it also failed, and it was only in 1866 that the third cable was successfully laid. The second cable was subsequently restored, and at the present time there are no less than twelve cables crossing the Atlantic. The telephone and the microphone are recent productions of telegraph science, but although the Post-Office has established several telephone exchanges the application of these inventions, so far as this country is concerned, is chiefly in the hands of companies. Parcel Post. The latest great addition to the Post-Office business is the Parcel Post, which came into operation on the 1st of August, 1883. This beneficent measure was introduced into Parliament and carried into law by the energy and skill of the late Pro- fessor Fawcett, the blind Postmaster-General. Mr. Fawcett took the deepest interest in every detail of the new post, personally examining all the regulations and satisfying himself of the justice and propriety of every condition attaching to it. During the first year the number of inland parcels (for the Foreign and Colonial Parcel Post was not inaugurated till the 1st of July, 1885) was upwards of 22,900,000, but the number last year, including foreign and colonial parcels, was upwards of 39,500,000, the gross postage upon which amounted to £878,547. Close upon 1,500,000 parcels were dealt with in i 2 26 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. London during the Christmas week of 1890, 185,000 being posted on the 23rd of December alone. The Parcel Post has been extended to all the colonies, except Queensland, and to almost every foreign state, and the number of parcels sent last year between Great Britain and colonial and foreign states, in both directions, was about 867,000. The total postage amounts to not far short of £100,000 a year. The number of outgoing parcels is to the number of incoming ones in the proportion of almost two to one. Many parcels are of great value, and sometimes contain between £2,000 and £3,000 in gold. In connection with the Parcel Post the department has, in a few instances, reverted to coach service, and parcel coaches or vans run nightly between London and Brighton, London and Oxford, London and Chatham, London and Tunbridge Wells, London and Ipswich, London and Watford, London and Hert- ford, and Liverpool and Manchester, a less expensive mode of conveyance being thus obtained than the railways afford. Post-Office in the Crimea. -During the Crimean war it was found necessary to make special arrangements for the postal service of the army, and in 1854 an experienced officer of the department w^as, with the approval of the Secretary for War, sent to the East as Post- master to Her Majesty's Forces, with three assistant postmasters and seven letter sorters. To assist in the jDOstal work soldiers were detached from different regiments who naturally possessed no knowledge of postal work, and this disadvantage added greatly to the difficulties of the undertaking. The late Mr. E. J. Smith, who subsequently became Postmaster of Leeds, was Army Postmaster, and Mr. Mellersh of the Circulation office. Captain T, Angell, now Postmaster of South Western London, Mr. Leonard Bidwell, chief clerk of the Secretary's Office, Mr. Sisson of the Travelling Post-Office, and the late Mr. Bertram also held responsible posts. A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE POST-OFFICE. Army Post-Office Corps. When in 1882 it was decided to send an army tu Egypt, Mr. Fawcett, the then Postmaster-General, established an " Aimy Post-Office Corps " upon the basis of a scheme prepared, with the sanction of the War Office, by Colonel Du Plat Taylor, C.B. This corps consists of selected sorters and postmen, who arc trained members of the Post-Office Rifle Volunteer Real- meut, with officers of that regiment as Army Postmaster and Assistant Postmasters, all being enrolled in the First Class Army Reserve. This newly-created organization was scarcely completed when its services were required with the army in Egypt, and another detachment was again sent out with the expedition to Suakin in 1884, On both occasions the work was most successfully performed to the satisfaction of the army and of the Postmaster-General, The detachments went out under the command of Major Sturgeon, now Postmaster of Norwich, and the late Major Viall. Reserve of Trained Telegraphists. In 1884 a somewhat similar body was organized from among the skilled telegraphists in the Post-Office Volunteer Regiment. This body, numbering 100 of the best-trained telegraphists in the kingdom, furnished a detachment to assist the Royal Engineers in 1884 on the despatch of the expedition for tlie relief of Khartoum, and rendered jjood service in maintaining telegraph communication along the Nile from Alexandria to Abu-Gus. These two bodies are now permanently incorporated in the Army Reserve. Revenue. The Post-Office Revenue has increased enormously in the last two centuries. When it was settled by Act of Parliament in 1663 upon the Duke of York and his heirs in perpetuity the net amount was £5,000, and in 1685, when, owing to the 28 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. Duke having become King, it became necessary to re-settle the revenue upon His Majesty and his heirs, it had reached £65,000 ; but last year the gross revenue, including the tele- graphs, was £11,770,000, and the estimated expenditure about £8,400,000, leaving a net revenue of about £3,370,000; or upwards of six hundred times the amount settled on the Duke of York. Post-Office Buildings. The increase in the work of the Post-Office led in 1814 to the adoption of measures to provide a new General Post-Office, but the building in St. Martin's-le-Grand was not occupied till 1829. This building was deemed extravagantly large at first, but it has Ions' asro become insufficient for the needs of the Post-Office, and a much larger building was erected opposite to it in 1873. These combined offices have now proved too small to accommodate the staff, and another large building is in course of erection on a neighbouring site, while portions of the staff are housed in the old prison at Coldbath Fields, now the Central Parcel-Post-Office, and known as " Mount Pleasant," in Moorgate Street, Newgate Street, St. Paul's Churchyard, and other places, besides the large buildings of the Savings Bank Department in Queen Victoria Street, and Knightrider Street. The work of the Post-Office is carried on by a staff numbering about 108,000 persons. Of this number more than half are on the permanent establishment, the remainder being employed by local postmasters, &c., throughout the country. These numbers include about 20,000 women. The Service in London. In order to show what an advance has taken place since 1840, it may be remarked that the staff employed in the Circulation Department and Metropolitan area at that time was about 1,540. In 1890 it had risen to 17,456, or over eleven times as many as in 1840. The total number of letters, &c., now delivered in London per year is 690,000,000 (or about 30 per cent, of the total for the A BRIEF ACCOUNT OK THE POST-OFFICE. 29 United Kingdom), averaging about 138,000 per postman in the year, or about 430 per man per day. The letters, &c., collected throughout London in one year now number 850,000,000 (or more than one-third of the total number posted in the United Kingdom) as against 564,000,000 in the year 1881. The number of letters despatched from London on January 10th, 1840, was 112,104. The number of letters and newspapers now sent out from London daily is about 2,000,000. The mails despatched from London to the provinces by railway weigh 28,000 tons a year, and those received in London 18,000 tons. The number of telegrams delivered in London annually is 18,500,000, and of parcels nearly 8,000,000, the rate of delivery per head of the population being about 138 letters, &c., 3f telegrams, 13- parcels. The postmen employed in delivering and collecting letters, &c,, were in 1881, 3,751, and now 5,321. or an increase of 41*8 per cent. The complaints made by the public of late delivery of letters, &c., in the London postal area during the year ended the Slst December, 1889, numbered 220 only. The Female Staff employed on counter and telegraph duties in the London postal service numbers 560 persons. On the average twenty retirements take place annually. About twelve leave to be married, four on account of ill-health, and three to better their position. The death-rate of the female staff is less than 0*5 per cent. In 1890 there were in the Metropolitan area eight principal distributing offices for letters and parcels, and six separate depots for parcels, together with 93 secondary sorting and posting offices for the collection into and delivery from of letters and parcels. The public business, such as the sale of stamps, &c., is conducted at 98 Crown offices, and 770 letter receiving houses. In 1839 there were about 70 letter receivers in the London district. Stamps can be purchased by the public from about 3,000 30 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. shopkeepers licensed for the purpose by the Inland Revenue authorities. There are 11 head, 96 branch, and 304 receiving offices in the Metropolis where telegraph business is transacted. The area included in the London postal system, which extends from Mill Hill and Whetstone in one direction to South Norwood and Sydenham in another ; from Chiswick to North Woolwich ; from Wimbledon to Greenwich ; and from Hanwell to Woodford, is about 250 square miles; and the population is estimated at 5,000,000 ; this gives about 2-| square miles to each of the 107 centres of letter and parcel distribution. As about 35 miles of new streets, and 15,000 new houses are built in every year new centres have been arranged for letter delivery. The annual increase adds houses and streets to the Postal zone equal annually to Oxford and Cambridge. The conveyance of the letter and parcel mails between the various districts of London, and to and from the respective railway termini, is performed by means of vehicles of different descriptions amounting to about 550 in number. The total distance traversed daily by these conveyances is about 5,750 miles, or nearly a fourth of the circumference of the globe. The distance travelled by these vehicles in one year amounts to about 1,800,000 miles. About 380 regular and 95 casual drivers are employed, and 1,100 horses are used. The Valentine has nearly had its day. Missives of this description in London have dropped from 3,000,000 in 1883 to 342,000 in 1890, and of the latter about 12,000 circulated by the comparatively new Parcel Post system. Easter Cards are gaining in public favour. The number circulating within London bounds in 1890 was about 640,000 as against 520,000 in 1889. Christmas Cards dealt with in London have reached the prodigious number of 50,000,000. And now the commemoration of another festival has to be watched in its effect on postal duties ; — that of Primrose day. Last year the delivery of Primrose Parcels by Letter and Parcel Post was 55,000, or about double the number in 1886. Of these over 3,000 were brought into London by the Brighton parcel coaches. A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE POST-OFFICE. 31 Rowland Hill Benevolent Fund. Ill the year 1882 a fitting memorial to the late Sir Rowland Hill, the originator of Uniform Penny Postage, was created by the establishment, under the auspices of the Lord Mayor of London and many influential citizens, of the " Rowland Hill ^Fc'inorial and Benevolent Fund." This Fund has for its object the relief of Post-OfiEice servants throughout the United Kingdom, the only condition of relief being that the recipient is, through no fault of his own, in necessitous circumstances. It also affords assistance to their widows and orphans. The Fund is managed by a body of Trustees, who are assisted by a Committee of Recommendation, composed of officers of the Post-Office. The Trustees are Avell-known gentlemen, of high standing and repute in the City of London, to whose benevolent efforts on behalf of the Department the Fund owes its origin. The relief is given only after careful inquiry by the Committee of Recommendation, who possess the means of obtaining authentic particulars of the merits of every case submitted to them. Sometimes the grant is renewed in a succeeding year ; but the Funds at the disposal of the Trustees do not admit of annual payments being maintained, even in cases where the circumstances would — funds permitting — abundantly justify such a course. The Fund is available for the relief of every class of officers employed by the Post-Office, whether in receipt of a pension or not ; the only condition being that there shall be actual distress on the part of the person relieved. Aged people, past work and with very small means, or none at all, and widows with young children and few or no resources, are the chief recipients of assistance from the Fund. The Superannuation Act affords pensions to those who have been in the Post-Office not less than ten years. A pension, even if it should prove to be sufficient for actual support, ceases on death, and the widow and orphans are often left destitute. Sometimes 32 JUBILEE OF PENXY POSTAGE. a deserving and distressed Post-Office servant has not served long enough to qualify for a pension, and sometimes persons who have acted for years as auxiliaries in the postal service are not entitled to any pension at all. In such cases the distress is occasionally severe. There are certainly fifty thousand, and, counting those not on the establishment of the Department, probably one hundred thousand servants in the Post-Office (chiefly in receipt of weekly wages) whose cases might come within the scoj)e of the Rowland Hill Benevolent Fund, but the income at the disposal of the Trustees of that Fund is very limited. In 1889 the total in- come arising either from investments or from donations and annual subscriptions amounted to £1,673 5s. 2d ; of which amount the Trustees felt themselves warranted, having regard to possible claims in the future, in spending no more than £1,027; to that extent administering relief in 175 urgent cases, in sums ranging from £5 to £10. At present the Fund is mainly supported by contributions from within the Post-Office itself. Of the Donations and Annual Subscriptions, amounting for the year 1888-9 to £1,024 14s. 9d the sum of £838 4s. lid. was so contributed. It was an object to ensure the stability of the Fund by enabling the Trustees to increase their investments, as well as to widen the scope of their beneficent action by adding to the income of the Fund the interest of increased investments. It will be seen elsewhere how, by concerted action, this result has been largely attained. SOME REMINISCENCES. (From an article in the Bhuhfrlars Magazine.) When penny postage came into force, the Earl of Lichfield was Postmaster-General. When the Jubilee of that reform of the 10th of January, 1840, was celebrated, the Right Honourable Henry Cecil Raikes, M.P. — Chairman of the feast of the 1.5th January, 1800 — reigned in his stead. When the old rates of postage were abolished, Lieut.-Colonel Maberly occuj)ied the secretarial chair, but the guiding spirit was Sir Rowland Hill. Soon he became sole Secretary. After him, in 1864, came Sir John Tilley, K.C.B., who, at the Jubilee banquet (January 1800), recalled his experiences, gained before most of the guests in the Venetian chamber, in which he spoke, were bom ; before, indeed, the actual Secretary of the Post-Office himself — the vice-chair- man of the evening — Sir Arthur Blackwood, K.C.B., had seen the light. Between Lord Lichfield and the Right Honourable Henry Cecil Raikes there came as Postmasters-General the Earl of Lonsdale, the Earl of St. Germains, the Marquis of Clanricarde, the Earl of Hardwicke, Viscount Canning, the Duke of Argyll, Lord Colchester, the Earl of Elgin and Kincardine, Lord Stanley of AKlerley, the Duke of Montrose, the Manjuis of Hartington, Mr. Monsell (Lord Emly), Sir Lyon Play fair, Lord John Manners (Duke of Rutland), Professor Fawcett, Mr. Sliaw-Lefevre, and Lord Wolverton. Now, in the administrations of these thirteen ministers of the Crown, assisted by the four secretaries named, what has been accomplished ? Who have been active figures in D 34 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. the minor parts ? Why is a period of fifty years of official work cause of jubilation ? The army of one hundred thousand Post-Office servants — established and auxiliary — scattered over the face of the land must' be as exact and well ordered in their movements as would be an actual army in the field, in the finest condition and under tlie severest discipline. But, unlike an army whose component parts move in masses, each man in the Post-Office has his dis- tinct sphere of action, and yet must move in such exact harmony with his distant comrades that loitering of the rural postman at John o'Groats may not trouble the dwellers at the Land's End ; and in lieu of martial law, the working bees are held together by no more potent bond than the value of their situa- tions, a short set of rules, and a British sense of duty. What servant of the Post-Office has been ever known to shrink from his post of duty, even when danger threatens ? Marine mail-guard Mostleman, on board the Vivid, in a storm in mid- channel, knowing that the vessel into whose hold the water was swiftly pouring must soon be lost, goes down darkling into the flooded mail-room to rescue, if it may be, the bags in his charge, and so, dying in the act, leaves his life a memory. The Scotch rural messenger, blinded and frozen by the snowstorm, hangs the mail-bag on a tree, so that it may at least be saved, and then lies down to die beneath it. The mail-guard, Bennett, sorely hurt in a railway collision, thinks less of his mangled body than of col- lecting the fragments and contents of the scattered mail-bags. The Northumberland mail-cart contractor, not daunted by a raging storm, heroically drives across the moor because he sees his duty plain before him, and lays down his life in doing it. So in all grades of the Service, in all the varying conditions which official duty presents, and regardless of time and circum- stance, the grand old signal of what England expects her sons to do is ever to the fore. Who would not find cause for jubilation in belonging to a ser- vice whose honourable watch-word is " duty," and whose labours rarely cease ; a service in which there is daily something to be attempted, and, if Heaven wills, to do ? Who would not see in SOME REMINISCENCES. 35 the completiun of titty years of the operations of a great aiul world-wide fiscal reform, which has brought unnumbered blessings to the human race, a fit occasion for ''ivin<; utterance to some not unreasonable rejoicings ? In these fifty years tiie plan of penny postage has been worked out, a book-post established, half-penny post-cards introduced, a sample-post set at work, a parcel-post which benefits the million cheap and widely extended telegraphy, telephones, and the vast Savings Bank established. Perhaps, after all, these are trifles and more remains for mightier men to do. Lonl Canning sanctioned the book-post, and Sir Lyon Play- fair the post-cards and postal orders. Mr. Raikes introduced the sample-post, Professor Fawcett, parcels. The Duke of Montrose began upon, and Lord Hartington finally brought out, the telegraph system. The name of Lord Stanley of Alderley is linked with the Savings Bank, and Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, although out of office, virtually carried in Parliament the sixpenny rate for telegrams. Few can remember the first posting of penny post letters on the 10th of January, 1840. Some can. ]\Ir. William James Godby is certainly able to do so. He was a surveyor for fifty years — so that he can recall 1840 with ease, and, as a young clerk, have a good margin to spare. A few months ago, there died a very ancient Post-Office servant — Mr. Job Smith, of Islington, N. He had been a postman in the old days, nearly seventy years ago, and was in 1889 still a pensioner, aged 03. He died on the very day on which, trudging to St. Martin's-le-Grand, as usual, he received ins monthly stipend. Mr. Moses Henry Nobbs, the last surviving mail-guard, began work June 27th, 183G, and still does duty as mail- officer at Paddington. He could remember a good deal in his fifty-four years of service. Old memories must have revived as he went down from London to Brighton, two or three 3'ears ago, as guard-in-charge of the special trip of the new Brighton parcel coach. He was fully equipped, as of yore, for that perilous journey, a timepiece from Jamaica serving to complete tiie outfit. A blunderbuss from Exeter was handed in at the i» -J 30 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. last moment to make the armament fourfold ; and had to be tied on to the hind seat with official string. Several valued colleagues still in active service date from pre-historic, that is, ante-penny-postage times. If we knew their names for certain, we would chronicle in these pages all the good men and true who have for so many years borne, like our famous flag, " the battle and the breeze " of official life. Once some time in November, 1867, when Mr. Disraeli was Chancellor, there came a little note from the late Mr. George Ward Hunt at the Treasury, to the late Mr. Scudamore. It contained only a few words : " You may give the notices for the Telegraph Bill." That brief intimation, like the magician's wand, has largely changed the face of the Post- Office, given the postal side perhaps eighteen or twenty thousand colleagues, erected 183,000 miles of telegraph wire ; produced an annual transmission of fifty millions of telegrams, and an annual receipt of two millions of money. Many years ago some miscreants blew down a prison wall in Clerkenwell with gunpowder. As a result, fifteen hundred special constables were sworn in at the Post- Office. The astute Colonel John Lowther du Plat Taylor, C.B., an old servant of the Post-Office, and a soldier born, swiftly saw his opportunity, and formed therefrom, and has ever since maintained, his splendid Post-Office regiment of a thousand volunteers, fit to go anywhere and do anything, as was shown by their services in Egypt. More power to his elbow — and theirs. Once, half a dozen clerks in the Post-Office bought a chest of tea, kept it in a cupboard, and dealt it out among themselves at cost price, a few pounds at a time. Look out of the windows of the Savings Bank, craning your head a trifle, and there you will see the modern replica of the postal cupboard, a building and a business with an annual turnover of a million and three- quarters sterling. So do great things grow from small begin- nings. One day, about thirty years ago, a bank director of Hudders- field, Sir Charles William Sikes, wrote a little paper on a possible Postal Savings Bank. How many hundreds of millions t 9 38 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. sterling, the savings of the j^eople, have passed — mainly, as a result of Sir Charles's suggestions, through the coffers of the Post-Office on their way to the National Debt Office for care and investment ? In the past there have been (as there are in the present) many active figures on whom, uniting, as they did, a sound discernment with an absorbing power for official work, must rest in large degree the merit of what has been accomplished. Of the brilliant statesmen who have ad(jrned the office of Postmaster- General, a volume could be Avritten. But good as were their services to the State at the Post-Office, it is mainly in other spheres of public duty that their substantial rejjutation has been acquired. Sir Rowland Hill rests in Westminster Abbey, and he " though dead yet speaketh " in the administration of the Post- Office. A foreign grave has closed over the remains of one of the ablest and most devoted of officials, the late Mr. Frank Ives Scudamore, CB. He might often be seen dictating official minutes from nightfall until daybreak with untiring vigour when time was known to be of consequence, and when per- sonal convenience had to be wholly thrust aside. His power of work was prodigious, his faculty of attracting men to work with him unsurpassed. Organization had a charm for him ; the Telegraphs pre-eminently, the Savings Bank, the system of accounts, the packet service, and the registered letter system, all felt the power of his grasp. His pupil, as it were, and, perhaps, his favourite disciple, the late Mr. C. H. B. Patey, C.B., justified all Mr. Scudamore's con- fidence, and realized all — perhaps more than all — that he had foreseen of aptitude and capacity. The absorbing nature of the duties in connection with the telegraphs withdrew Mr. Patey in great degree from an active participation in the management of the purely postal side of the department. But not altogether. For he could find time, even amongst his most pressing engage- ments, to identify himself with the inner life of the office, to share in its social or benevolent gatherings, and to stamp his mind on whatever official questions came before him. In fact, in the later years of his life, important branches of postal work were added to SOME REMINISCENCES. 39 the inuiii duty of conducting telegraph business which was con- fided to his care, and in all of these he showed the insight and good judgment which made him eminent in the Post-Oitice. The late Mr. Benthall was a valued and most trustworthy servant of the State. He had taken a good degree at Cam- bridge, and soon rose in official life. He supervised the relations of the department with the railways with an astuteness and cordiality which left nothing to be desired. He was greatly respected in the railway world. Numerous Crown Post-Office buildings throughout the country are witnesses of the careful hand and experienced judgment of John Strange Baker. He was much beloved. Mark Beauchanip Peacock, W. H. Ashurst, and Henry Watson bore the brunt of the legal work of the de- partment in London, as did the genial and accomplished Robert Thompson in Dublin. They were all men of capacity and honour. Wilh'am Bokeuham, Thomas Boucher, and Thomas Jetfery will lonff be remembered as Controllers in succession of the Circula- tion-Office, and men of great experience and shrewd judgment. Controllers of the Savings Bank who have passed away are no fewer than four in number — the energetic and many-sided Chetwynd, better known, however, as Receiver and Accountant- General ; A. Milliken, A. C. Thomson, and G. Ramsay. They built up that great edifice in which so many of our officers look after the finance of the toiling million. The " eyes of the department," once said a great authority, " are tiie Surveyors." Since penny postage times how many of these valued officers have fallen away from the side of their old and honoured colleague and doyen, Mr. W. J. Godby. South Wales still remembers Mr. Gay ; Cambridgeshire the versatile Anthony Trollope ; and Manchester has reared a monument to the beloved St. Lawrence Beaufort. There are other names to be recalled — Creswell, Smith, Johnson, Rideout, Stow, and Neal of old ; those of Edward Page, Hodgson, and Churchill ; of Wedderburu and West ; of John Allen, Henry James, T. B. Hark- ness, and J. P. Good ; and of John Kains in the f;ir away West Indies. The telegraphs are still young in the history of the Post- Office. Mr. R. S. Culley is with us yet, but for Mr. T. H. Sanger, and Messrs. Shaw, Tansley and Walsh, the tale of years is told. 40 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. What would the Post-Office be v/ithout accounts ? Where could abler men be found than in the latest three — George Richardson (the last to pass away), G. Chetwynd, C.B., and F. I. Scudamore, C.B., who filled in turn the heavy post of Receiver and Account- unt-General ? What wonders the three accomplished in making- accounts clear and simple, in dealing with the vast mass of financial work which presents so many aspects as that arising out of the postal revenue, and how the last-named two especially, diverging from the beaten track, were always ready successfully to grapple with new problems and untie the tightest knots. As to the medical department, Dr. Gavin, of the cholera year, sleeps in the far-off Crimea, and Dr. Waller Lewis in his native land. Happily, all that have written Finis on their postal work have not yet gone to the great majority. Sir John Tilley, K.C.B., is as vigorous as ever. Fifty or sixty years of hard and responsible work have made little difference in him. He built, or, at his instance was built up, the new Post-Office now about to be devoted to the purpose of a central telegraph station. He reduced rates of postage, and prepared the way for a parcel post. Mr. Frederic Hill still lives at Hampstead, at an age frosty yet kindly ; advanced indeed, but still, at eighty-si.x, full of vigour. At -the Post-Office he was the main agent in reducing the cost of the packet service, in cheapening postage to the Continent, and in, at least, preparing the way for the postal order scheme, which the late Mr. Chetwynd brought to maturity. In a hundred other ways he did good service to the State. Mr. Francis Abbott, at about the same green old age, flourishes in Edinburgh, where he was so long the secretary. His name will be found as a subscriber of £5 to the special effort of 1890 on behalf of the Rowland Hill Benevolent Fund. Mr. C. B. Banning, Mr. Warren, Mr. Milliken, Mr. Barnard, Mr. Stow, Mr. Guinness, Mr. Newman, Mr. South, Colonel Tajdor, Mr. Mellersh, and Mr. Teesdale, and a hundred others, whose names escape me cit the moment, deserve to be cherished in the memory of their colleagues. Are these recollections out of place amidst our jubilation ? Shall we not rejoice that the Post-Office is so rich in the record of good and faithful servants — men whose lives have been spent I SOME REMINISCENCES. 41 within, as it were, the official walls ; of whose labours, diligence, devotion, and consntninate skill the general public have heard but little, but wlio have done — some, perhaps, unseen, unthanked, unknown — with all their might, the duty which lay to their hand. Long may this spirit still prevail with us, and keep our office fore- most in efficiency, usefidness and zeal for the public good amongst the several branches of Her Majesty's Civil Service. For fifty years the Post-Office, in its modern garb, has been before the public, working under its eye, and even though it be its servant, hand in hand with it. So a strong bond of mutual good will and confidence has grown up. The servant has been not ungenerously treated — and the master is, with no ungrudging hand, heartily well-served. Shall we not rejoice that it is so ; that, looking back on these fifty years of labour, whether of our- selves or our predecessors, we are conscious of ever striving for the public good ? We might, perhaps, claim that, as officials, we are not always mindful of what is pleasant and convenient, and in giving of our best, whether of brain or muscle, we have at least earned the right to hug the flattering thought that Diogenes, looking around for the State's bad bargains, need not trouble him- self to brincr his lanthorn to the Post-Offick. FKEDERIC HII-L, KSQ. SoU siiri-iving hrother of the Inte Sir Hoicland Hill (From o iihotograj'h taken in his S7th ycai'.) THE JUBILEE OF THE PENNY POST. (From Punch, January 18, 1890.) *' On Jan. 10, 1840, the Penny Post became an accomplished fact." — Times. Attend, all ye who like to hear a noble Briton's praise ! I tell of valiant deeds one wrought in the Century's early days ; When all the legions of Red Tape against him bore in vain, Man of stout will, brave Rowland Hill, of true heroic strain. It was about the gloomy close of Eighteen Thirty Nine, Melbourne and Peel began to melt, the P.O. "sticks" to pine, For vainly the Official ranks and the Obstructive host Had formed and squared 'gainst Rowland Hill's plan of the Penny Post. Still poor men paid their NinejDences for sending one thin sheet From Bethnal Green to Birmingham by service far from fleet ; Still she who'd post a hilld donx to Dublin from Thames shore, For loving word and trope absurd must stump up One-and-four ; Still frequent "friendly lines" were barred to all save Wealth and Rank, Or Parliamentary " pots " who held the privilege of " Frank ; " Still people stooped to dubious dodge and curious device To send their letters yet evade the most preposterous price ; Still to despatch to London Town a business " line or two " Would cost a Connemara peasant half his weekly " screw ; " Still mothers, longing much for news, must let their letter lie Unread at country post-offices, the postage being too high For their lean purses, unprepared. And Trade was hampered then, And Love was checked, and barriers raised — by cost — 'twixt men and men. THE JUBILEE OF THE PENNY POST. 43 Then lip ami spake brave Rowland Hill in accents clear ami warm, " This misery can be mended 1 Read my Pod-Offixc Reform ! " St. Stephen's heard, and " Red Tape " read, and both cried out " Pooh ! Pooh ; The fellow is a lunatic ; his plan will never do ! " All this was fifty vears ago. And now, — well, are there any Who do not bless brave Rowland Hill and his ubiquitous Penny ? ( )ne head, if 'tis a thinlcing one, is very often better Than two, or twenty millions ! That's just why nr get our letter From Aberdeen, or Melbourne, from Alaska or Japan, So cheaply, quickly, certainly — thanks to one stout-soul'd Man. Fifty years since ! In Eighteen Forty, he, the lunatic. Carried his point. Wiseacres winced ; Obstruction " cut its stick." He won the day, stout Rowland Hill, and then they made him Knight. If universal benefit unmarred by bane gives right To titles, which are often won by baseness or a fluke. The founder of the Penny Post deserved to be a Duke. I^)Ut then he's something better — a fixed memory, a firm fame ; For long as the World " drops a line," it cannot drop his name. 'Tis something like a Jubilee, this tenth of Janua-rcc / Punch brims a bumper to its hero, cheers him three times three, For if there was a pioneer in Civilisation's host. It was the cheery-hearted chap who schemed the Penny Post, And when the croaking cravens, who are down on all Reform, And shout their ancient shibboleth, and raise their tea-pot storm. Whene'er there's talk of Betterment in any branch of State, And vent their venom on the Wise, their greed upon the Great, Punch says to his true countrymen, " Peace, peace, good friends —be still ! Reform does not spell Ruin, lads. Remember Rowland Hill ! ! ! " TO THE HONOURED MEMORY OF SIR ROWLAND HILL. His is no victor's wreath of blood-stained bay, No humbled foemen cowered before his name, No martial multitudes with loud acclaim Placed on his brow the laurel green to-day Though half a hundred years have rolled away. Far happier he, whose clear, keen-sighted aim By patient service won a peaceful fame Nor Time can touch, nor envious tongues gainsay. We reap what he hath sown : his fostering hand Sheltered the sapling : from the spreading tree 'Tis ours to pluck the fruit, and celebrate The strength that laboured and the skill that planned To closer draw the bonds of unity. And make our England's greatness yet more great. Henry F. Smart. January, 1891. THE DINNER IX THE VENETIAN CHAMBER, HOLBORN RESTAURANT, JANUARY 15, 1890, The Eight Hon. Henry Cecil Raikes, M.P. (Postmaster-General. ) (From a ntgativc Icindly lent hy Messrs. Barraud.) PENNY POSTAGE JUBILEE DINNER. (From the Times, Jan. 16, 1890.) Last evening a large party of officers and ex-officers of the General Post-Office dined together at the Holborn Restaurant, to celebrate the jubilee of the penny postage. The chair was taken by the Right Hon. H. C. Raikes, ]M.P., the Postmaster- General, who was supported by two of his predecessors, the Right Hon. Sir Lyon Playfair, K.C.B., F.R.S., M.P., and the Right Hon. G. J. Shaw-Lefevre, M.P. The vice-chair was occupied by Sir Arthur Blackwood, K.C.B., secretary of the Post-Office, and those present included Sir J. Tilley, K.C.B., secretary of the Post-Office from 1864 to 1880, Mr. Pearson Hill, son of the late Sir Rowland Hill, K.C.B., and late of the secretary's office in the General Post-Office ; Mr, Algernon Turner, C.B., financial secretary of the Post-Office; Mr. H. Joyce, third secretary ; Mr. F. E. Baines, C.B., assistant secre- tary and inspector-general of mails ; Messrs. E. H. Rea and J. C. Lamb, assistant secretaries ; Mr. A. M. Cun;ynghame, surveyor- general for Scotland ; Mi\ H. L. Creswell, secretary for Ireland ; Mr. W. H. Preece, electrician to the Post-Office ; Mr. Philbrick, Q.C., Mr. R. Hunter, solicitor to the Post-Office, and upwards of 250 more members and ex-members of the staff, including among the retired members Mr. Edmund Yates. The speaking was interspersed with quartets and songs, given by Messrs. E. Richardson, Sealey, Barnes, and Sydney Beckley. ^Ir. \V. G. Gates, of the secretary's office, has picture.sque, but it is also practical, and that is the establishment of parcel coaches. I observed the other day some strictures from some antiquated and Rip Van Winkle Radical, who was shocked at the idea of reversing the magnificent railway system by going back to the old coach and four. I read that letter with some amusement, because it showed me how a man who believed himself to be possessed of the newest ideas may be the representative of the most antiquated prejudices. I am happy to believe that we have saved a considerable sum of money to the State by the institution of the parcel coach to Brighton. We mean to save by our parcel coach between Manchester and Liverpool. I was particularly anxious to run this coach, because I thought it was the most picture.stiue and telling manner of bringing home to the attention of the nation the fact that iu existing circumstances the con- tract between the railways and the Department is one which is not beneficial to the public service. We are always told that we ought to le making a new dejiar- 56 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE, tare. We are always making new departures. If the public only knew the secrets of the Post-Office they would find that there is no Department on the face of the earth which is so prone to ventilate and push new ideas. We are being held up occasionally by ill-informed persons to public obloquy as if we did not go with the times, when the fact is that our endeavour is, not merely to go with the times, but to keep ahead of the times. But we have a partner — Mr. Jorkins. The Post-Office is never in the position to give effect to its own promptings without con- sulting that very formidable person in the background. There is another Department of the Government which may literally be said to be paved with good intentions, and it is because our good intentions only go to pave that Department that we have not been able to show to the public what we realize among our- selves — the strenuous progressive spirit which still animates every rank in the service. But it is not only that Ave have this difficulty at which I have hinted ; we have also difficulties created by those who sometimes wish to pose as postal reformers. There are people, you know, who make the best of causes ridiculous, and there are those whose advocacy is so unfortunate as to provoke hostility and antagonism, I would illustrate that for a moment by reference to, a question of which we hear a great deal in the newspapers, and something occasionally in the House of Commons — the question of what is called interna.tional penny postage. I am not going to say that there may not be reasons of high State policy calling for a great reduction of our external postage rates. I do not propose to discuss that question here this evening, but 1 wish to point out the hollowness of the agitation which has been maintained upon this question by simply putting it to the test of the example of Sir Rowland Hill. Now Sir Rowland Hill, when he devised the penny postage for the United Kingdom, had satisfied himself of what I will call the enormous area of productivity which he might look to in order to recoup the revenue. There are 36,000,000 people in the country ; there were about 25,000,000 at the time when the penny post was established ; The RiciHT Hun. mu I.y.in I'laykmk, K.C.B., M.P. (from « photograph by the London Stereotcopic Company.) THE DINNER IN THE VENETIAN CHAMBER. 57 but if those 30,000,000 of people were each to write one letter a day — and I think it is not imjiossible — if we may arrive at that happy state of inter-communication, we should have a circulation of letters nine or ten times greater than that which subsists at present. In fact the area of productivity is almost immeasurable, and to that Sir Rowland Hill looked for the recovery of revenue. Take the cost of the Indian post. There are 200,000 British- born persons in India, including the Army. Suppose that each of them writes a letter by each post. There are only fifty-two posts to and from India in the year, not 365. Supposing four times as many of the native community write their letters, say, one a year, you would have 1,000,000 people writing fifty-two letters in the year as against 36,000,000 people writing a letter 365 times a year. If you take the case of Australia, although the figures are more favourable to the reformer, they still land liim in the hopeless position of inability to prove that he has that area of productivity, or anything approaching to it, which Sir Rowland Hill saw before him when he proposed his scheme. Sir Rowland Hill had satisfied himself that in the British Islands the cost of transmission was so small that it might be absolutely disregarded. But in the case of the transmission of a letter between this country and India, China, or Australia, we know that the cost of such transmission must be three times, if not more, the total sum Avhicli the reformer proposes to levy by way hoiO(irapli by the London Sttrcotcoi)ic Company.) THE DINNER IN THE VENETIAN CHAMBER. 61 well-working of the Post-Office, conscientiously believed that the uniform penny postage system would be detrimental to the public welfare, such opposition on tlioir part was not only justifi- able but was the only course they could take with honovu-; and that Sir Rowland Hill himself held that view will, I think, bo clear when I tell a little bit of postal history whicli will, no . -id., a large sum in those days, for the delivery of the letter. The letter-carrier was a Scotchman, called William Plnyfair, who held the office of letter messenger to the Earl of Orkney. As the name is not common, and as he hailed from Scotland, this letter-carrier of GOO years ago may have been my ancestor, and if so, it is natural, in the Darwinian process of evolution, that I should have become a Postmaster-General. Unfortunately for myself, a change of Government prevented me from holding this office for more than a few months, so that it is good of you even to recollect the fact that at one time I was Postmaster-General. My only useful work in regard to the Post-Office was prior to this appointment. In 1870 I entered into a conspiracy with the late Lord Advocate of Scotland, Mr. Macdonald, to press upon the Post-Office a system of open letters, which wo called post-cards. At that time Mr. Macdonald was not in Parliament, so the Parliamentary advocacy of post-cards fell upon me, but my ally in Edinburgh was most efficient in getting up influential memorials in its favour. Our work was short, because Lord Hartington — then Postmaster-General — saw the value of the suggestion and adopted the system of halfpenny ])ost-cards, which now number 201,000,000 annually, or nearly twice as many as the letters were the year before our jubilee. E.xcuse my egotism in recalling my connection with tlie introduction of the post-card, for I value this humble service as a pleasant memory. I now turn to my recollections of Rowland Hill, whose memory we are now to a grreat extent celebrating. When I first came to London, like other Scotch youths looking for occupation, the IK'uny post had been established for one year. It was my good fortune to become acquainted with some men of light and leading, among whom were Rowland Hill, John Stuart Mill, Edwin Chadwick, Neil Arnot, and others. We formed a club to dine at 72 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. ' each other's houses, calling ourselves " friends in council," in order to discuss various economical subjects. Among these postal reform was one of the most prominent. Even at that early date the penny post, which had been so vehemently opposed, had got to the stage when people denied its novelty, and decried the merits of Rowland Hill as an inventor. All successful inventions go through this stage of denial and ingratitude ; why, even a court of law has left a solemn decision that Watt did nothing to improve the steam engine ! It is a matter of perfect indifference to me whether Rowland Hill alone, or a dozen men before him, proposed a penny post. As a fact, we know that there were private companies which carried letters for a penny in various cities. The mere idea of making a local rate a uniform rate throughout a country was sure to suggest itself to some people. When the tree ripens much of the fruit gets ready about the same time, but it was Rowland Hill who grasped the idea and made it his own, who grappled with prejudice and monopoly, who awakened public conviction, who showed that a o-reat agitator could be a great administrator, and who ultimately conferred the inestimable blessing of the penny post on the toiling millions of the people. I recollect that, at our friendly dinners, Rowland Hill delighted to- discuss the effect of cheap postage on the affections and education of the people. I illustrated my own case, which was by no means rare, of a family living in India, with whom it was difficult to keep up constant correspondence on account of the cost. At that time a letter consisted of a single sheet, crossed and often recrossed, and this cramped and stunted family affections. A quarter of an ounce of love even from Scotland cost Is. id. ; from India much more ; whereas now we can get a whole ounce of love for Id. As an educational agency the penny post has been most iDowerful. The three R's given in our public schools form such a thin veneer of knowledge that it is rubbed off in three years' wear and tear of life. Reading, writing, and arithmetic, as taught in elementary schools, are plants of weak growth, but they are watered and made to thrive by the penny post. THE DINNER IN THE VENETIAN CHAMBER. 73 I recollect giving Rowland Hill an illustration which pleased him much. I had been travelling in Norway and Sweden, and found that tliey were abandoning their Sunday secular schools. On asking the reason I was told that since the introduction of the penny post they were no longer found to be necessary, as cheap letters kept up education better than Sunday schools. On a day of rejoicing and remembrances like this, let me say a word of appreciation of one of the greatest and best officials in the history of the Post Office — I allude to the late Mr. Scudamore. When I entered upon my duties as Postmaster-General he was in official difficulties with the Treasury and Parliament, because in his zeal he had used the revenue of the Department for the rapid extension of the system of telegraphs. Of course this was a grave official error, for the money ought to have been voted by the House of Commons. I entered the office believing that I would have much trouble with this impetuous secretary, but I left it feeling the highest admiration of his administrative capacity, and unselfish zeal. The country owe him a debt of gratitude for the rapid and efficient extension of the telegraphic system. One night of anxiety remains vividly in my memory. The new Post-Office buildings, with their fine telegraphic halls, were ready, but it was an anxious thing to disconnect the whole telegraphic communication of the country and re-establish it in the new building, Mr. Scudamore was equal to the occasion, and the change was made without the loss of a single message or more than one hour's delay. Like so many of our friends Mr. Scudamore has gone to the great majority, but liis memory should not be forgotten on this occasion. There is one feature of the Post-Office which has contributed greatly to its success — I allude to its perfect freedom from political action. I believe that the only survival of politics in it is in the appointment of rural messengers by members of Parliament for the district. This miserable remnant of patronage ought to be swept away. I do not think that I ever kne"\v, and certainly never asked, what were the political convictions of any candidate for office when I had to deal with the patronage, and this nmst be the practice and experience of my successors. 74 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. How different is the administration of the Post-Office in the United States ! At every change of a political party in the Presidency there is a sweeping change of officers, on the principle that "spoils belong to the victors." The present President has been in office only a few months, but when I left America in November, 17,000 postmasters had been dismissed because they were Democrats, and the party newspapers were urging in- creased activity in the process of disorganization. It is because our Post-Oflfice has been an efficient servant of the public, hav- ing only one thought as to how to do its duty without fear or favour, that it stands so high in public estimation. Its work has been great in the past fifty years, and it is a joy for us who are present to-night, to aid in the celebration of the benefits which half a century of pure and active administration has con- ferred on the public. Mr. F. E. Baines proposed " The Retired Officers of the Post- Office," and mentioned several to the merits of whom he paid tributes which were endorsed by the company. The deceased included the following : Secretaries : — Colonel Maberly, Sir Rowland Hill, F. I. Scudamore, C.B., Arthur Benthall, and C. H. B. Patey, C.B. Controllers of London Postal Service i- — W. Bokenham, T. Boucher, and T. Jeffery. Inspectors-General of Mails : — G. Stow (mail coaches), West, and Edward Page. Receivers and Accountants General : — Hyde, Chetwynd, Richardson. Surveyors : — Gay, Creswell, Johnson, Anthony Trollope, James, and Beaufort. Savings Bank : — A. Milliken, C. Thompson, and Ramsay. Telegraphs : — Shaw and Sanger. Doctors : — William Gavin and Walter Lewis. The living in- cluded Sir John Tilley, K.C.B., Frederic Hill, Francis Abbott, W. J. Page, F.R. Jackson, Pearson Hill, H. Mellersh, C. B. Ban- ning, C. Teesdale, R. S. Culley, J. H. Newman, Ernest Milliken, and finally E. Yates, of whom the speaker remarked that, finding the yoke of the Post-Office too easy, he took on himself the cares of the World. Sir J. Tilley, in responding, said that, if he were a useful servant at the Post-Office, he owed such usefulness in great measure to the assistance he obtained from those about him. The Right Hon. G. J. .Shaw Lcfevrk, M.P. (From a photograph by the London Stereoscopic Company ) THE DINNER IX THE VENETIAN CHAMBER. 75 He heard with intense pleasure the generous remarks of Sir L. Playfair about Mr. Scudaniore. Probably his own knowledge of Sir Rowland Hill was larger than that of any one present except the members of his family. With all Sir Rowland Hill's foresight, it was probable he never contemplated that the civilized world would take up his scheme in so short a time. When he was first appointed the General Post-Office occupied the site of the present branch office in Lombard Street, and his room was the kitchen of the old rectory house of St. Mary Woolnoth. The jhTSonml was somewhat difit'erent from what it is now. At that early date if gentlemen wanted to increase their incomes they did not write novels or their autobiographies or edit editions of Shelley. The Secretary had occasion to send for one gentleman, to whom he said, " I have the greatest ad- miration for trade and commerce; but you must decide between the Post-Office and a cabbage stall in the New Cut." The increased business was now carried on as easily as the small amount of work that had to be done in Lombard Street. It had grown largely since he left the Office ten years ago, and he believed it was conducted with greater ability than he couM have brought to bear upon it. Mr. Edmund Yates also responded, and said it was very kind of the company to drink to the health of a body of bygone and ft'cble old men, for whom he tremblingly returned thanks. He coukl scarcely bring himself to believe that it was nearly eighteen years since he gracefully retired from the public service. In that retirement he had acted on the principle of the pro- verbial well-bred dog, who went before he was kicked ; and as soon as he saw his friend Sir John Tilley's boots shuffling on the floor he made his salaam. Times had changed in the Post- Office, and he imderstood that more work was done there than previously. So far as he was personally concerned he admitted the possibility of such a change. His first chief. Colonel Maberly, used to impress upon him the necessity of not overworking himself: he had given the Colonel the pledge that he would not, and bad solemnly adhered to that sacred obliofation. 76 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. Sir a. Blackwood rose to propose the health of " The Post- master-General," and said, — If my unfortunate and intolerant principles forbid my asking you to pledge Mr. Raikes in flowing bumpers and no heeltaps, I can none the less invite you to join me in wishing him most heartily all happiness and prosperity. It has been extremely kind of Mr. Raikes to identify himself so thoroughly with the Department by presiding on the present occasion, and the postponement of our gathering for a few days has been well worth the advantage of his presence which we have thereby secured. The tenure of the office of Postmaster- General by Mr. Raikes has been remarkable for this fact — that it has comprised no less that three jubilees. First, his own — for he completed his fiftieth year of life since he came to St. Martin's-le-Grand ; secondly, that of her Most Gracious Majesty's reign ; and, lastly, the jubilee of the great event we celebrate this evenino: ; and I am sure that this occasion will ever be remembered by him as an interesting episode in his Post- magisterial career. If Mr. Raikes may fairly be congratulated on his good fortune in that respect, we also may consider our- selves fortunate in having so distinguished and able a statesman as our present Parliamentary chief. It is a happy coincidence that the Post-Office, which is nothing if not a literary Department, should have at its head the representative of one of the most famous seats of learning and letters in the world ; and not less fortunate are we in having as the Minister responsible to the country for our service one who, by his tact and courtesy no less than his ability, is so successful in his Parliamentary conduct of the business of the Post-Office. It has been my lot to communicate instruction — or, perhaps, I ought to say, lest I unduly magnify my office, to supply informa- tion — to several successive Postmasters-Genei'al, and, without any reflection on his jiredecessors, two of whom we are proud to have with us this evening, I may say that I never met with any one who more rapidly or more completely mastered the complicated details of our very intricate system. There is not one of those details with which the present Postmaster-General is not conversant, and I may add — what is perhaps of greater THE DINNER IX THE TEXETIAN CHAMBER. 77 importance — there is not one of the 100,000 people over whom he presides wliose interests he is not anxious to promote when- ever he can legitimately do so, and for whose welfare he is not solicitous. I am sure that no more laborious Postmaster-General has ever occupied Mr. Raikes's chair in St. Martin's-le-Grand. Nswers of congratulation. The Lord Mayor arrived about eight o'clock and was received by the Committee, who preceded him to the chair of state on the dais of the Library. Truth to say, the reception, which lasted nearly an hour and a half, was rather slow, and among the multitude of distinguished guests invited only few put in an early appearance. Indeed, for some time the Library was scarcely half full — for the wise ones, knowing how late the Prince was coming, discreetly examined the exhibition during the interval. In the great hall they had the advantage of the music of the Coldstream's band, under Mr. C, Thomas, and in the Council Chamber the Post-Office Choir, conducted by Mr. Beckley, gave two concerts, at eight and ten. The Aldermen's L 2 148 JUBILEE OF PENNY^ POSTAGE. Room was the home of the phonograph, and in the old Council Chamber was a series of dissolving views. But still the guests poured through the Library, and among the first distinguished arrivals was Sir Stevenson A. Blackwood, K.C.B., Secretary of the Post Office, in Windsor uniform. To him succeeded Sir Thomas Chambers and his daughters ; then came Sir Pope Hennessey, looking naturally thinner and grayer than Avhen, nearly twenty- seven years ago, he led the " Pope's Brass Band " in the House of Commons, and struggled in the cause of Poland. Mr, Henniker Heaton, satisfied with his half-way house of 2M. postage to the Colonies, and Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, an old Post- master-General, were quickly followed by an interesting group — Mr. Rowland Hill and Mr. Pearson Hill, sons of the reformer, with various other members of their family, to the number of about fifteen, including Miss Rosamond Davenport Hill, who, to the surprise of Mr. Lobb, had not brought any knitting. The first Alderman to arrive was Lieut.-Colonel Cowan. The Rev. J. R. Diggle, M.A., chairman of the School Board, was received with cheers, as was General Sir Daniel Lysons, G.C.B. the new Constable of the Tower. After him came Mr. C. Fielding, the new^ Master of the Turners' Company, only elected on Thursday, in succession to Mr. Burdett-Coutts, M.P. The new Treasurer of St. Thomas's Hospital, and Mrs. Wainwright, were warmly received, as were the Master of the Butchers' Company and Mr. Arthur A'Beckett, in military guise. Sir John Coode, G.C.M.G., soon followed, and then came Mr. George Spicer and Mr. Alderman Newton. Lord and Lady Meath were present, but did not go up to the dais, nor did Mr. Staveley Hill, Q.C., M.P. But Mr. Austin, who moves that " the question be now put " in the County Council, came up by himself. Then arrived Mr. and Mrs. Russell and Mr, Washington Lyon with Mrs. John Scott (niece of Sir Rowland Hill and wife of Mr, Justice Scott, lately appointed by the Government to supervise the judicial system of Egypt). Dr. McGeagh (as surgeon of the H.A.C.), Dr. Westmacott (as army surgeon-general), and Mr Edwin Freshfield arrived almost together, and Mr. George Sims — introduced as Sir George, amid applause — succeeded. Then THE CONVERSAZIONE AT THE GUILDHALL. 149 came the ]\Iaster of the Girdlers' Company and Mr. and Mrs. ■' Tam " Read, Mr. and Mrs. Pennefeather, Sir Edmund Hertzlet, Mr. H. G. Reid (president of the Institute of Journalists), and amid a flourish of trumpets, Mr. Cecil Raikes himself, the great head of the Post Office. The Lord Mayor, who was received with cheers said : My Lords, Ladies, and Gentlemen, — The committee entrusted with the aiTangements for to-day's celebration were good enough to .ask me to make a speech. You will doubtless be pleased to hear that I had sufficient fortitude and self-denial to resist that very great temptation. My reasons were various ; firstly, I thought that there were very many in this assembly who have heard at least enough of my voice during the current week ; then I thought of the many ladies who are amongst this audience ; and, lastly, I thought it would be wrong of me to stand between this assembly and the two distinguished speakers who will presently address you, in the persons of the Right Hon. Mr. Raikes, the Postmaster-General, and my excel- lent friend and predecessor the late Lord Mayor, who was, as you are aware, the founder of the Rowland Hill Benevolent Fund. Ladies and Gentlemen, — You will, perhaps, be asking yourselves why, if I am not going to make a speech, I must detain you. I will answer that question for you in a moment. I thought if I had contented myself Avith setting before you the mere fact that I had been able to resist that temptation to make a speech my silence might be open to misconstruction. There might be some doubt whether my heart is in this celebra- tion, and I venture, therefore, to tell you that it is, and that if I resisted the temptation it was for the consideration that I have given you, and I desire to assure you that no one in this assembly, or in this country appreciates more than I do the eminent services of the late Sir Rowland Hill. I cannot think of liim but as the greatest benefactor of his time — a man who did more than any other in his time in the interest of civilization. I have now the privilege to introduce to you the Postmaster-General. The Postmaster-General said : My Lord Mayor, my Lords, 150 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. Ladies, and Gentlemen, — The Lord Mayor, who has shown on this occasion no less than his usual sympathy with all good works and useful institutions, has almost too modestly restricted his right to make a speech to-night. And yet he has said enough, I think, to satisfy this great and influential audience how warmly he sympathizes both with the triumphs and the progress of the great institution, the Imperial Post Office, and also how sincerely he feels for the objects of the Rowland Hill Benevolent Fund, which I trust and believe must be greatly benefited by assemblies like this. We are collected in this ancient and historic hall — connected as it is with so many of the greatest and most interesting events of our history — to celebrate the jubilee of quite a modern institution, but of an institution which may be said to have done more for the cause of universal civilization than almost any other political or social discovery. The memory of Sir Rowland Hill, associated as it will always be with the introduction of the penny post, will, I think, be dear, not only to his own country, and not only to those who speak the English language in other and distant Continents, but also to all those who speak in other tongues and inhabit other countries, and who are able to appre- ciate the greatness of that peaceful revolution of which he was the prime mover. It is almost impossible at this time of day for ITS to realize the greatness of the change which has been brought about by the establishment of the penny post. Al- though I would not to-night weary an assemblage like this with tedious and tiresome figures, it may be at least permitted to me to remind you that, whereas in the year immediately preceding the establishment of the penny postage, the number of letters delivered in the United Kingdom amounted to seventy-six millions (and I have no doubt that was at the time considered an enormous number), the number of letters delivered in this country last year was nearly sixteen hundred millions — twent}'^ times the number of letters which passed through the post fifty years ago ; to these letters must be added the six hundred and fifty-two millions of postcards and other communications by the halfpenny post, and the enormous number of newspapers, THE CONVERSAZIONE AT THE GUILDHALL. 151 which bring the total number of communications passing through the post to considerably above two billion. I venture to say that this is the most stupendous result of any administrative change Avhich the world has witnessed. If you estimate the effect of that upon our daily life, if you pause for a moment to consider how trade and business have been facilitated and developed, how finally relations have been maintained and kept together, if you for a moment allow your mind to dwell upon this change which is implied in that great fact to which I have just called attention, I think you will see that the establishment of the penny post has done more to change — and change for the better — the face of Old England, than almost any other political or social project which has received the sanction of the Legislature within our history. I cannot forget, speaking here to you to-night, that Her Majesty's Government has found in this jubilee year of the penny post a suitable occasion for establishing a uniform postage from this country to our Colonies, together with those many great nations who are, like ourselves, the members of the Postal Union. I am happy, indeed, that the honour has been reserved for myself during my tenure of office to be the Minister specially charged with the carrying out of this great, and, as I believe, beneficial measure. I do not know whether it is possible for us to-day to forecast what may happen in the distant future in the way of drawing closer those family ties which bind the mother country to her daughter colonies, but if the result of the change which is taking place — as I hope it will take place — this year should be in any degree commensurate with the change which has oc- curred in England since the penny post was established, I think that this humble department, whose first duty is to carry your letters, to convey your telegrams, and to take care of your savings-bank deposits, may claim to have done more and to have laid a deeper and wider basis for the great British Empire of the future than might have been achieved by the most daring or brilliant statesmanship, or by the most successful and triumphant war. 152 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. We are here to celebrate a jubilee which nearly coincides with that of the reign of our most gracious Majesty, who had only occupied the throne of these realms for less than three years when the Ministry of that day found it possible to intro- duce that great change which Sir Rowland Hill had so powerfully and disinterestedly advocated. Therefore, it is but natural that the Royal House of Britain should take particular interest in this great triumph of peace. I am glad to think that not only you, my Lord Mayor, have placed the traditional hospitality of the Corporation of this great City on this occasion at the dis- posal of those who desire to celebrate the event in a fitting manner, but that this assembly is to be graced to-night by the presence of the Heir to the Throne. I ought not to detain you by reference to those other branches of the work which have grown up around the Post Office in the course of the last quarter of a century. It would be enough for me to remind you how, in 18G1, the Post-Office, not contented with its duty of being the letter-carrier for all classes, undertook to be also the bankers of the poor ; how nine years later it accepted the responsibility of the telegraphic communication of the United Kingdom ; how, ten years after that, it dared to -enter the field as carrier of parcels for the public generally, and how it has been constantly on the watch to extend the scope of its usefulness and bring to bear on the national life that nervous organization which it has perfected. So much has been done for the public, that while some ladies and gentlemen here may say that too much almost has been done, at least those of you who think that the present posts a- day are more than the most voracious appetite could desire — while so much has been done, and is being done, and has still to be done by the Post Office in the interest of the public, we hope that the public will not forget those — the humblest class of the servants of the Post Office — who form the basis of this great super- structure, and by whose labour the great benefits of civilization are carried to every corner of the globe. Those of you who may have studied the pamphlet which has been circulated this evening, or who may have looked at the THE CONVERSAZIONE AT THE GUILDHALL. 153 first pages of tlie catalogue which your committee kindly placed in my hand, may realize how much there is still to be done to ameliorate the lot of our working postmen, to comfort them in their anticipation of the future, and to console their declining years. The State is bound to be just before it can be generous. The public can afford to be generous before it considers whether it will be just, and I for one am certain that there can be no juster cause for unloosing the purse strings of that benevolence which has such high tone in the City of London than to ameliorate the condition of those servants of the public, for whom the State has not found it possible to make a sufficient pro- vision. As you know, there are pensions and superannuation funds by which servants of the public may expect to receive a very moderate amount of subsistence when they have served their full time and have passed out of the sphere of active usefulness ; but there are cases in which a man breaks down, perhaps in the middle of his career, or a man has served the public without being actually and technically in the service of the State, and who finds Avlien he is incapacitated from further public service that no provision exists for his necessities, and those of his family. All honour to those who, like Sir James Whitehead, not enlisted in the actual service of the department, have conceived that the m-eat name of Rowland Hill, and the mac^nificent services rendered by him to his country may best be ameliorated and assisted by inviting the sympathy and kind consideration of the public at large on behalf of those servants of the public whose labours have been so greatly increased by this reform. I think, my Lord Mayor, that you, as the Lord High Almoner of your countrymen, have never more worthily discharged that important function of your great office than in presiding over this meeting to-night; and I am satisfied that; liowever feebly and imperfectly I have attempted to connect in your minds those immense benefits and conveniences which have become part of our daily lives with the services of a most laborious, of a most honest, and a most dutiful class of public servants, the fact that you have been brought here to-night, under the presidency of the Lord 154 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. Mayor, and upon this most interesting and important occasion ■will have sufficiently brought home to you the duty, if I may say it, or at least the wish, which must pervade every generous breast in this country, to improve the condition, to meet the necessities of those to whom we are so greatly indebted for the benefits which we all in common enjoy. The Lord Mayor, again rising, said : I have the honour to call upon Sir James Whitehead. Alderman Sir James Whitehead^ said : My Lord Mayor, my Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, — I feel somewhat in a diffi- culty in being called upon to address you on this occasion, inasmuch as I have been preceded by the Postmaster-General, who has, to a very great extent, said what I myself was going to say. I had been asked, and I hope without any vanity I may add, not inappropriately asked, to say something this evening on behalf of the Rowland Hill Benevolent Fund. It may be in the recollection of some who are here to-night, that about eight or ten years ago I took part, along with others, in what we felt to be a due recognition of the great work that had been done by Rowland Hill, and starting from the point that we desired to erect a statue to his memory and a monument to record his good work in Westminster Abbey, we found our- selves in course of time in possession of a larger amount of money than we had at first anticipated. With a surplus of something like £15,000, it occurred to us that we might possibly perpetuate the memory of a great man, to whom we owe the introduction of the uniform system of penny postage, in a manner that would be in accordance with what we believed to have been the spirit of his life, and in what we believed to be the . desire of his family, and also the desire of a large number of the j)i'esent officials of the Post Office, who desire to keep his virtues and his good deeds green in the recollection of the present generation. Well, now, the Corporation have given this conversazione just as they always, as I conceive, do the right thing at the right moment, and they have opened their hand, and opened their purse in a manner which, I believe, will be well appre- THE CONVERSAZIONE AT THE GUILDHALL. 155 ciated, not only by the citizens of Loudon, not only by the people of the metropolis, but by the great bulk of the English- speaking people througliout the entire esiipire. Now it is not in accordance with the usual custom of the Corporation that there should be any charge for admission, or that there should be any collection within the precincts of this Guildhall. But while that is the rule which obtains amongst us, we are bound, as we feel, to respect the desire and the wishes of those officials who are connected with the Post Office, and to whom we owe such an exhibition of ancient and modern postal arrangements and postal facilities as has probably never been gathered together at any time under one roof. Well, we know that the postal leaders, the leading officials of the Post Office, desire nothing for their own services, but they do desire that some good should arise out of this great gathering on this occasion, for the benefit of an institution — the Rowland Hill Benevolent Fund — which has been referred to in such eloquent and kindly terms by the Postmaster-General. But you may very reasonably ask, What is the Rowland Hill Benevolent Fund — what is its object and what is its aim ? The Rowland Hill Benevolent Fund was established in the first instance by a few friends and myself, and it is to-day doing an enormous amount of good in proportion to the funds at its disposal — an amount of good that could not, in all probability, be exceeded by any other institution or associa- tion possessing so small an amount of money for the purpose of its usefulness. Now the pamphlet which has been placed in the hands of a large number of those who are here to-night does convey in clear and concise language what is the object of this fund, and at the risk of being what the Postmaster-General desired to avoids at the risk of being tedious and tiresome, I fear I shall be obliged to give you some statistics. The fund, according to the book which has been put into your hands, is available for the relief of every class of officers employed by the Post Office, w^hether in receipt of a pension or not, the only condition being that there shall be actual distress on the part of the person relieved, or on the part of the widow or children. 156 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. Aged persons past work and with very small means, or none at all, and widows with young children, and feAV or no resources, are the chief recipients of this fund. I know the public will ask, and perhaps not unreasonably ask, why there is a necessity for this. I know the public run away sometimes Avith the impression that the great public departments ought to provide for everybody en- gaged in the department, and for all who belong either directly or indirectly to it. But it is perfectly impossible that that can be so, looking at it from a national point of view, and while I am prepared to say that the amount of remuneration given to the servants of the Post Office is not too hicjh, I am bound to admit that the Postmaster-General and those who act under him do at all times, so far as I am able to ascertain, pay the full market price for the value of the labour they employ in each district where they require servants. Of course we are aware that the servants of the Post Office are some of them in the receipt of pensions, through what is called the Superannuation Act, but even if a servant of the Post Office is on the staff, it is well known that no pension is given until a servant has been in the service of the department for ten years. If he has been there for less than ten years, and he is unfortunately obliged to retire from the service, he is granted a gratuity, which is equal to one month's salary for every year he has served his country. Of course, if he has served for eight years, and his salary has been at the rate of £6 per month, when he retires from the service he receives a gratuity of £48, and every one who has had any experience of family life must know that there is the pos- sibility that such a sum as that may be swallowed up either by the doctor's bill, or by the funeral expenses, or by the two put together. The Rowland Hill Benevolent Fund comes in under circum- stances such as these, to give aid to the person who has received the pension, and to the widow and children of the man who may be taken away. Then again, if a servant of the Post Office has served for more than ten years, he is entitled to one-sixtieth jmrt of his income for every year he has served. I may give THE CONVERSAZIOXE AT THE GUILDHALL. 157 you an example : Supposing lie has £120 a year, and has served the Post Office for fifteen years, and is obliged to retire, his pension would be £80. If he had served twenty years it would be £40. Now, we know a great many men are obliged to retire because of delicate health, and it may be the man has a sick wife and a large family, and that he is called upon to look to other and extraneous aid for the support of those wlio are near and dear to him. There, again, the Rowland Hill Benevolent Fund steps in and gives assistance. Then again, if he dies his pension dies with liim, and the widow not infrequently has a very hard struggle, and then, again, the Rowland Hill Benevolent Fund gives such aid as it is able to give in accord- ance with the funds at its di.sposal. I will not trouble you either with a long dissertation on the wants of the servants, or with more figures to illustrate the object I have in view, but I do desire to bring home to you this evening that there is another object — there is a claim upon us which those of us who come here this evening ought, to some extent at least, to recognize. We know that the servants of the Post Office are among the most trustworthy of all labouring for the public good. We know that they convey missives which are of vital importance in commerce, tliat they convey missives which are of an affectionate and endearing character, and we know therefore that the penny postage service introduced by Sir Rowland Hill, apart altogether from the good that has been realized by us as a mercantile nation, has tended to knit and hold together whole families, who, except for that system, would have been very largely divided from each other. We ought, too, as it seems to me, to show our gratitude to the memory of Sir Rowland Hill for the services of those who act so well for us, and I am satisfied that if we who are here to-night decide that, from this time, we will contribute more largely to the Rowland Hill Fund than we have done hitherto, we shall not only be showing our gratitude to those who have given us this marvellous entertainment to-night, but we shall be doing a great service for the public at large. We shall also be doins somethino- which will stimulate the servants of the 158 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. public, who are not in the service of the Post Office, to perform their duties with as much zeal and as much desire to benefit the general community at large as those in the service. The speeches being over, the civic party, with the principal guests, retired to the Library Committee Room for refreshments, and were only summoned thence about twenty-five minutes past ten, when the telegraphist had announced the Prince's de- parture from Marlborough House. The Lord Mayor and Sheriffs met His Royal Highness at the porch of Guildhall, and conducted him to the dais, the Lord Mayor having on his arm Mrs. Raikes, while the Prince conducted the Lady Mayoress. Arrived on the dais the Lord Mayor addressed the Prince, and presented him with a catalogue of the exhibition. He then pre- sented Sir James Wljitehead and Mr. J. E. Sly, C.C, mover and seconder of the entertainment ; Sir J. Whittaker Ellis, the senior Alderman present; Mr. Baines, C.B., Assistant Secretary General Post Office, and Chairman of the Committee ; Mr. Tombs, Controller, London Postal Service ; and Mr. Preece, F.R.S., Chief Electrician. Immediately the party rose and proceeded through the building. The first visit was paid to the Art Gallery, where the Prince was greatly interested in the collection of artistic, quaint, and ignorant addresses found on letters. When a letter is addressed " Esser Quinstaxes, Ldn." it requires some skill to discover that it means " Assessor, Queen's Taxes." When one arrives from Italy with a couple of pears drawn on it, " England," it is only our knowledge of the great advertising firm that leads us to identify it. Then came the pistols and blunderbusses formerly carried by the guards of the coaches ; placards announcing rewards for mail robbers; franks of C. J. Fox, W. Pitt, and others of later date, all of which the Prince carefully examined. He also looked at the old accounts of one T. Randolphe, master of the posts, 1566, and another Stephen Lily, 1695. Then at Sir Rowland Hill's portrait and his wonderful pamphlet which changed the old system, but so slowly that there was exhibited the portrait of the sole letter-carrier in Wolverliampton in 1854. THE CONVERSAZIONE AT THE GUILDHALL. 159 In Wolverhampton of to-day there are over one hundred Post- Office employes. The tent of the Post-Office Volunteers, as used by them in the Soudan, detained the Prince, and he entered into conversation with the decorated sentries who were with the Volunteers the first time they received their baptism of fire. After admiring the models and pictures of coaches and mail stations, the Prince entered the Great Hall, in which was a machine he used to play with forty years ago. He sent off a message to France by the Hughes system, and waited some minutes for the reply. Again he stopped at the desk whence ran the special wire to the City Press, and accepted a copy of the proofs as sent down. One other machine attracted his attention, and then he proceeded to the Council Chamber, where, after the National Anthem, he heard a part song. After tra- versing the Old Chamber, he retired to the Committee Koom, Avhere he remained for nearly half an hour in conversation with the priucij^al guests, among whom was the Duke of Teck, who arrived at the last moment. It was not until half-past eleven that the Prince left, expressing himself interested and delighted with the whole entertainment — as did all those privileged to be present. The Lord Mayor informed the Prince of Wales that messages of congratulation had been received from all the principal municipalities of the United Kingdom, and that replies had been forwarded. During the evening a number of more or less humorous messages were despatched by the officials at Guildhall to Aberdeen, Penzance, and other towns with which there was direct connection. The Prince of Wales telegraphed an acknowledgment of a " kind message " to Penzance. The badge worn by the members of the committee is a -rcjjlica of the penny postage stamp at present in use, enamelled on silver, and with a cross bar in red colour bearing the words " Penny Postage Jubilee, 1890." The design of the admission ticket is entirely in black and tint. In the centre of the top portion is a portrait of Rowland Hill, the City Arms being in the lower part of the card ; underneath THE "city press" WIRE AT GUILDHALL. (By permission of the proprietors of tlie City Press.) THE CONVERSAZIONE AT THE GUILDHALL. 161 the portrait is a facsimile of the penny adhesive stamp issued by the Post-Office, bearing the letters V. R. in the top corners, with the dates 1840-1890 on either side, and flanked right and left by the two hemispheres. Rays of light proceeding from the portrait of Rowland Hill towards the hemispheres, bear the names of the chief countries of the world. The whole is sur- rounded by an artistically engraved border, and has been designed and printed by Messrs. Blades, East, and Blades, of Abchurch Lane. The "City Press" Exhibit, The following, printed as City Press Extras, was distributed during the proceedings to the company present at the Guild- hall :— Exhibitions are usually at least a month behind, and the first day is simple chaos. There is no rule, however, without an exception, and the Guildhall to-night is a brilliant exception to the rule to which I have referred. The Postmaster-General and Sir James Whitehead are up to time, and the Exhibition to celebrate the Jubilee anniversary of the introduction of Inland Uniform Penny Postage is a marvellous example of postal punctuality and electric speed. As far as one may judge from a hasty and cursory survey of the entire building, everything is ready, every machine is in working order, and every man at his post. Visitors are pouring in by the hundred, and it is expected that within an hour or so over three thousand persons will have assembled beneath the roof of the Guildhall. The first object which strikes the eye of the visitor as he passes the strong cordon of police under Superintendent Foster, is a mail coach, with passengers on top and bags of letters loaded up ready to start for some distant and unknown destina- tion. The awning outside the Guildhall is distinguished by a Royal Standard in company with two ensigns. A magnificent crush-room has been erected, about three times as large as the one in use at Mr. Stanley's reception. Everything proceeds smoothly, and there is no crushing or crowding at the windows M 162 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. where the hats are received and deposited. The walls of the crush-room are tastefully hung with tapestry and Indian drapery, while the floor is covered with crimson carpet, and piled up with the most lovely of summer flowers, having a fine background of tropical palms. A hundred men of the 24th Middlesex form a guard of honour in the vestibule under Captain Ogilvie. Along the corridor leading to the Library are stationed, in military order, about seventy postmen and messengers in uniform under Overseer Barnes and Inspector Howard. Beyond these and in the same line are a number of telegraph boys, some of them looking remarkably like girls, attired as Elizabethan pages, whose duty it is to distribute programmes to the j)assers-by. Leaving the Library, which is the reception-room for the evening, on the left we pass to the Art Galleries, which, strangely enough, contain anything but pictures. There are, indeed, on the walls ;a few splendid specimens of mail packets, which are even better represented in models under glass cases. There are an electric engine, which works whenever a penny is dropped into the slot, also a model travelling post-oflice, with apparatus for receiving and despatching mail-bags, and a model of the Liverpool and London mail coach. There are some grim rusty old blunder- busses, such as were probably used to frighten our grandmothers or protect the pockets of our grandfathers as they travelled north or south, while close by are notices offering rewards, varying from £50 to £200, for the apprehension of miscreants who had waylaid hapless post-boys and the benighted mails. The fac- similes of certain letters which have j^assed through the Post- Office form a curious feature. There is a specimen penned with an artistic border, " Sacred to the memory of the fine weather, which departed from this land June, 1888." Perhaps the most interesting object in this department is the Army Post-Office. The interior of the tent has a somewhat gloomy appearance, and one might almost imagine that the men inside were laying some deadly mine for the destruction of Arabi's devoted followers, rather than about to engage in the innocent work of flashing home the news of Wolseley's victory. THE CONVERSAZIONE AT THE GUILDHALL. 163 The men dressed in canvas suits and white helmets are those who served on the sands of Egypt a few years ago. The large hall is brilliantly lighted and in full working order, telegraphy at one end and post-office business at the other. The decora- tions are much the same as at the Stanley reception. The Congo flags have been removed, but there remain trophies, representing England, America, Germany, Italy, Belgium, and other nations. A large temporary gallery at the east end is draped with crimson cloth and gold fringe, and in the opposite gallery the band of the Coldstream Guards is discoursing most excellent music. The Guildhall Post-Office is doing a roaring trade, not to be equalled at St. Martin's-le- Grand a few minutes before post time. There is an extraordinary demand for the Jubilee penny post-card, for which sixpence is charged, and which, owing to the limited supply, will, it is rumoured, be worth at least five or ten guineas in a few years' time. I hope this information will not have the effect of increasing the rush, and causing anything like a disaster at the Guildhall. All the telegraphic machines, which extend along two parallel lines down one-half of the hall are clicking, and messages are being flashed to distant parts of the world. The City Press instrument, through which this report is being dispatched, is the centre of a small crowd of interested observers. Lower down scores of postmen are actively engaged receiving, sorting, and despatching letters to different towns of the country, and far beyond its borders. At the present moment the chief interest centres in the Library, which has been transformed into a magnificent reception- room ; curiously enough, books are conspicuously absent, being closed in by a mass of crimson drapery. All the bays of the two galleries are filled with fair forms and faces, while the body of the Library is crowded to such a degree that the temperature is anything but agreeable. At the far end a large dais has been erected, with a background of flowers of almost every colour and variety, red and white — the Corporation colours — naturally predominating. In front of the gilded chairs stand the Lord Mayor — in his M 2 164 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. State robes — and the Lady Mayoress — in a beautiful dress of Sfolden hue, and wearino^ a magnificent necklace of diamonds — receiving the guests as the names are announced by the masters of the ceremonies. Close by are the Sword and Mace Bearers and the Sergeant-at-Arms, with the symbol of civic authority, Mr. Alderman and Sheriff Knill, and Mr. Sheriff Harris, in their scarlet robes and chains, Alderman Sir James Whitehead, Bart., in black velvet Court dress, with the chain of a past Lord Mayor, and Sir Stevenson Blackwood, in Court dress, with a mass of gold braid. Since nine o'clock the company in the reception-room has been gradually dwindling away, and not even the music of Willoughby's string band, and a superabundance of the most brilliant diamonds and jewels on the loveliest of dress which presents almost every variety of colour, can stop the exodus. At last the Postmaster-General, the Right Hon. Cecil Raikes, has arrived, and the speech-making begins before a comparatively meagre audience, the four heralds, in scarlet coats, blowing a preliminary blast on their silver trumpets. The Lord Mayor, stepping to the front of the dais, starts the flood of oratory, standing on his right being the Postmaster-General, and on his left Sir James Whitehead, both ready to take their turn. The following message was sent by the Prince of Wales to the Emperor of Germany at 11.4 p.m. : " We are celebrating the Jubilee of Uniform Penny Postage at Guildhall, London, and I send you my warmest greetings on the oOth anniversary of an invention which has had such a marvellous influence for good in every country of the world." THE JUBILEE OF THE PENNY POSTAGE. The Collection of Historical Exhibits at the Guildhall. (From the CiUj Press, May 17, 1890.) Of all the departments of Government work, that which comes closest to the greatest number of Her Majesty's subjects is the Post-Office. Difficult as it would be to conceive of the limi- tations which surrounded the collection, transmission, and delivery of the mails fifty years ago, even within the confines of the United Kingdom, how impossible of realization the far more primitive methods of a century and two centuries ago ! We have only to go back a little more than 250 years to find nearly every merchant who transacted business by correspondence to any extent his own postmaster, dispatching and receiving his letters by private carriers; and when Charles I. attempted to put a stop to this practice by proclamation, tlie system of posts he established was little to the taste of the mercantile community, and scarcely less costly than the private post. With the great mass of the community the receiving or sending of a letter was a rare, almost an unknown, sensation, and the public news conveyed by one such epistle trickled like a refreshing shower through numberless rills, till it watered the parched minds of the remotest neighbours of the recipient. It was, in fact, exactly 250 years ago that the King's posts may be considered to have been fairly established as a settled insti- tution of the country, for then the establishment was placed in the hands of Philip Burlamachy, to be exercised under the authority of the Chief Secretary of State, though " Chief Post- 166 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. master of England " is the term bestowed by Camden on one Thomas Randolph, in the days of Elizabeth. In these early days, and up till as late as 1784, the mails appear to have been carried entirely by mounted couriers, or post-boys, furnished with relays of horses. In this latter j^ear, however, the coach was first utilized by the Post-Office, the idea having been suggested, it seems, by the custom of tradesmen to send letters by these conveyances, for the sake of the greater speed and safety thus ensured. The post-boy had fallen into condign disgrace with the public, and Mr. John Palmer, who made the suggestion of the change, characterized the post as then carried on as " about the slowest conveyance in the country ! " There is a singular parallel between the experiences of Mr. Palmer and of Sir Rowland some fifty years later. Both proposed to the depart- ment radical reforms ; each encountered the hostility of the establishment, and gained the ear of the public, and each was afterwards appointed to inaugurate and carry out the reforms proposed and urged by him. Sixty years ago, in 1830, the first mails were conveyed by railway. From conditions like these to those of to-day, what a leap ! It is stating a truism, but one which, after all, few realize, to say that nothing so plainly indicates our commercial and intellectual progress as the development of our postal facilities, and at the sam-e time, nothing has had so great an influence on our material progress as that particular line of development. Of course, increasing facilities of transportation, both by land and water, have gone hand-in-hand with this development, and the total progress is the sum of many units and influences, but we might have had the steam-boat and the railway without the modern machinery of the Post-Office ; and what we venture to say is, that the enormous economical stride of the last fifty years is due more to the cheapening and rapidity of communi- cation by post, telegraph, and telephone than by any other single agency. To-day, scarcely a household is so poor and friendless and insignificant as never to receive a Government messenger, bearing to its very door some welcome message from friend or THE CONVERSAZIONE AT THE GUILDHALL. 167 relative at home or abroad. The postuiian's knock is ia a very real and true sense the most significant evidence of nineteenth century progress. It is a daily announcement to everyone of us that the whole world is knit together by a system at once com- plex and simple, a piece of human machinery, stretching over six continents and isles of the sea innumerable, working: with marvellous precision, certainty and dispatch, making minds a thousand miles apart beat to the same rhythm at the same time. It is just this close relationship which the Postal Depart- ment bears to every man and woman that makes its operations, even its stupendous statistics, of absorbing interest to all. And it is just this absorbing interest which gives to the present exhi- bition at the Guildhall a claim upon general attention which probably no other collection of objects could command. In the Great Hall has been erected a counterfeit presentment of the Post-Office of 100 years ago, with its inquiry window and a hanging sign, bearing the Royal Arms, suspended above. The sign is a genuine relic. Genuine, too, is a notice board to pre- vent loitering before the Post-Office, " Every hawker," so it reads, " newsvendor, idle, or disorderly person who shall loiter on the pavement opposite the General Post-Office, or in any part thereof, will be liable to a penalty of five pounds." Other genuine and interesting announcements, furnished by the archives of the Post-Office, are posted up in the front of this ancient structure. Here is an " Account of the Days and Hours that the Post sets out from the Post-Office in Oxford," from which we learn that the mail coach left for Bath, Bristol, and " all parts of the West " three days in the week " at two o'clock at noon " ; to London every day except Saturday, and came in from London every day except Monday. One post a day, and that on five days in the \s-eek only, between London and Oxford ! This notice, though it bears no date, was earlier than the days of pre-paying stamps, for it contains the information that when any letters are put into the office marked " pre-paid," but the money not handed in at the same time they will not be sent. It is supposed to date from about 1790. A copy of the printed " Notice of Special Instructions to all Letter Receivers," being APosT-CrncE !V 1790. By permission of the Proprietors of the City Press. THE CONVERSAZIONE AT THE GUILDHALL, 169 the announcement of the reduction of postage, and bearing date January 2nd, 1840, is also shown, as well as a proclamation of an award of £1,000 for the discovery of the person who stole certain bank-notes from the Ipswich mail on its way from London on the night of September 11th, the year not being given. Contrasted with this early and primitive post-office is shown by its side the arrangement of a counter in a modern post-office, with which Ave are all so familiar; the high brass railing sur- mounted with the signs which testify to the multifarious functions of the Department to-day, the " Parcel Post," the "Insurance and Annuity" department, the Money Order, Postal Order, and Savings' Bank, Registered Letters, Inland Revenue Stamps and Licences, and Telegrams. In the Great Hall, too, are other exhibits of now obsolete appliances, such as a singularly uncouth-looking and cumbersome Pillar Box of the date of 1855, but the display here is chiefly of apparatus now in actual use. The process of sorting letters at large receiving offices, so deftly and quickly performed by trained hands, is one of the chiefest of mysteries to the uninformed. Much light will be gained, especially as to the appliances for facilitating that operation, by an intelligent study of a group of exhibits at the west end of the large hall. Here, for example, is a large stand illustrating the work performed at ten principal district and 100 sub-district sorting offices in the London area ; and another stand exhibits the appliances for parcel sorting, large baskets, appropriately labelled, standing upon a three-tier frame work. Packet and newspaper sorting requires a still different form of construction, the baskets being arranged in long rows and tiers, each labelled, and each pivoted at the lower back edge so that it may be tipped back and its contents discharged without removal from the rack. In fact, all the appliances for cancelling stamps, sort- ing every species of matter which passes through the post, modern pillar-boxes of the improved style now in use, are shown here, and form an object lesson to the uninitiated of the whole process of receiving and dispatching postal matter. One of the latest improvements shown is a large model, half full size, showing a combined lamp-post, letter-box, and fire alarm. 170 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. In this section, though on a relatively diminished scale, all the operations of a modern post-office are being actually carried on. Letters, papers, parcels, are being received, stamped, sorted, and despatched to their several destinations. Telegrams are received and delivered, postal and money orders issued and paid, stamps are sold, letters registered, and, in fact, the Guildhall Post-Office, by special dispensation established and maintained for such brief space of time as the exigencies of the occasion demand, is to all practical purposes a genuine branch of the de- partment to which the public are invited, and where they may, so to speak, get behind the scenes and study the manipulation of postal matter in all its stages. Finally, the modern mail coach stands in Guildhall yard, and once a day starts with its burden to the sound of the post-horn, while Post-Office vans come and go much as though St. Martin's-le-Grand had suddenly changed places with the abode of Gog and Magog. The process of sorting is too confusing to the outsider to be adequately described in the limits of such an article as this, but the confusion is only in the uninitiated mind. Order, system, and the perfection of routine machinery mark the actual opera- tion. The following extract from a description written by a postmaster at one of the largest offices, will best convey a suo'orestion of the nature of the work which has to be done • " The letters when posted are of course found all mixed together, and bearing addresses of every kind. They are first arranged with the postage-stamps all in one direction, then they are stamped (the labels, that is the postage stamp, being defaced in the process), and thereafter the letters are ready to be sorted. They are conveyed to sorting frames (or tables) where a first division is carried out, the letters being divided into about twenty lots, representing roads or despatching divisions, and a few large towns. Then at these divisions the final sortation takes place, to accord with the bags in which the letters will be enclosed when the proper hour of despatch arrives. This seems very simple, does it not ? But before a sorter is competent to do this work, he must learn ' circulation,' which is the technical name for this system under which correspondence flows THE CONVERSAZIONE AT THE GUILDHALL. 171 to its destination, as the blood courses through the body by means of the arteries and veins." The east-end of the Great Hall is devoted to the display of telegraphic apparatus. This exhibit comprises specimens of almost every known form of telegraph instrument. It may be divided into two classes, those of historical interest — showinor the earliest inventions of Wheatstone and Cooke, with subse- quent improvements by them, together with the productions of rival inventors — and the working apparatus of all kinds as actually now used in carrying on the telegraphic intercourse of the country. Close to the entrance two model telegraph-poles have been erected for the purpose of illustrating the ancient and modern methods of insulating aerial lines. The first pole supports no fewer than sixteen contrivances formerly in use, but now discarded in favour of more effective means. They include a lip insulator with a zinc cap in use about 1850, several specimens of glass insulators. Walker's double cone device, an ebonite insulator, and a few made of earthenware. The other pole is equipped with specimens of insulators for aerial lines as now used by the Post-Office. First comes a double-shed porcelain screw insulator, which is fixed by screwing to the bolt an indiarubber washer that serves as a cushion between the insulator and the shoulder of the bolt. Other examples include a single shed porcelain insulator used for unimportant and short wires, a post-office terminal, and several earthenware insulators. Arranged behind these poles is the City Press wire. The instrument is a direct-writing Morse inker. Its advantage over the Morse "embosser" lies in the greater legibility of the signals, which can be read in any light, and it at the same time requires much less power to work it. This form of instrument, which is fitted with a signalling key and galvanometer, is generally used on lines of moderate length, where the direct current is sufficient for all purposes. Passing up the right-hand side of the hall, a curious example of the woodpecker's deter- mination and power is shown. This pole was removed from Shipston-on-Stour last autumn. It liad been erected only three years. The perforations which eventually resulted in a large 172 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. hole, were made by the common green woodpecker, of which a stuffed specimen is shown upon the pole. It is supposed that the birds were attracted by the humming of the wires produced by the wind, and were under the impression that insects were concealed in the interior of the pole. The farther end of the hall is given up to the display of early forms of the telegraph instrument. There are several needle telegraphs of the Cooke and Wheatstone type. One dated 1838 is fitted with four needles. In this instrument some of the letters are indicated by the convergence of two needles, while other letters are indicated by the deflection of one needle only. Four-line wires are required, and the signals are transmitted by the simultaneous depression of two out of ten finger keys. Another instrument dated 1844 is fitted with crutch handles and supplied with two needles- Two-line wires are used, and letters indicated by the move- ments of one or both needles. An alarm bell was originally used for calling attention, but it was afterwards found that the " click " of the needles acted sufficiently well, and the alarm bell was abandoned. In the case of Highton's single needle instru- ment, shown here, the letters are indicated by the movement of the needle from side to side. Certain letters are formed by one or more movements of the needle to either side, other letters requiring combinations of movements to both sides. Two tapper "keys" are used to transmit the signals. A Dering's single needle telegraph, as used by the Electric and International Company, forms the adjoining exhibit. This instrument differs from the Highton and the Cooke and Wheatstone instrument, inasmuch as the movement of the needle is effected by means of an electro-mamet instead of a coil. A Bricrht's bell tele- graph, as used by the British and Irish Magnetic Telegraph Company, is exhibited. It is worked with a relay. The single needle alphabet is produced in this case by striking two bells of different tones, the hammers being actuated by electro-magnets, each worked by a relay and local battery. The relay consists of two electro-magnetic bobbins placed side by side, their ends being furnished with pole pieces turned inwards. Other instruments shown in this division include Henley's magneto- THE CONVERSAZIONE AT THE GUILDHALL. 173 electric single needle, Cooke and Wheatstone's ABC telegraph receiver, several Cooke and Wheatstone's ABC transmitters, Siemens' ABC transmitter, 1858, a Morse embosser, and Wheatstone's automatic telegraph transmitter. In this last apparatus, the transmission of the electrical current is regulated by the action of three vertical rods, which are caused to move up and down by the rotation of a wheel worked by hand. A slip of paper punched with holes corresponding to the signals to be transmitted passes over the upper end of the rod and through it the ends of the rods can pass. Near this exhibit are two old forms of Wheatstone's automatic telegraph receiver and also a telegraphic puncher. Coming now to the modern apparatus at W'Ork, there is seen ■opposite to the entrance a pneumatic tube as used for sending messages from a counter in the Post-Office to an instrument or to another room where the rooms are situated apart from each other. The messages in bulk are forced through the brass tube by air power, and are received in the cage as shown. Near at hand is a model telephone exchange, with a hand- somely-fitted Gower-Bell loud speaking telephone. The next stand contains an exhibit illustrating the working and mechanism •of Preece's railway block system. Diagrams of the down and up signals are shown on the operator's instrument. Two levers are provided to turn "off," and switches are placed in front to " open " or " close " the line. In the same annexe are shown the multiplex system of transmitting six messages over one wire at the same time as working to Birmingham, and the Hughes' type-printing telegraph. The Hughes' machine is mainly mechanical, the electrical action being confined to send- ing a single short pulsation of current at the instant the type wheel is in the proper position. Only one wave of current is needed to produce a letter. The transmitter and receiver are combined in one apparatus. The signals are dispatched by working keys similar in appearance to those of a piano. This instrument is extensively used for continental messages, for which it is especially suitable. Several forms of acoustic or •" sounder " telegraphs are shown. These machines are widely 174 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. used, and over long distances. A special exhibit is made of the Wheatstone automatic system, so largely used for press tele- grams. The messages have first to be prepared on a slip of paper. This takes the form of perforating the Morse characters along the slip. The slip is next passed on to the transmitter, and the message is received at the distant station in the ordinary dots and dashes of the Morse code. Enormous speed may be obtained with this instrument, ranging from 100 to 400 words per minute ; indeed, a speed of over 600 words per minute has been obtained between London and Bristol. To illustrate the connection of the Press with the tele- graph, an apparatus is arranged showing a complete news circuit. It consists of a transmitting instrument and three receivers, representing offices, say, in London (sending office), Newcastle, Edinburgh, and Glasgow (receiving offices). Along the farthest stand are placed cases containing specimens of different submarine cables. The most interesting is the piece of the first cable laid between Dover and Calais in 1850. The gutta- percha was not protected. It was sunk by means of lead weights attached at intervals throughout its length. The cable worked for one day only, and the specimen shown was picked up in 1875. A portion is also shown of the first sheathed sub- marine cable laid between Dover and Calais the year after the laying of the before-mentioned failure. Other specimens include portions of the seven-wire Irish cable, and of the first cable to Holland. In connection with the cables is shown a piece of rock removed from a cable off Portland. Tlie groove shows the outline of the sheathing of the cable, and has prob- ably been cut into the rock by the continued friction of the cable. Portions of aerial wires fused by lightning are also shown, together with the old and new methods of making joints in the air lines. The Exchange Telegraph Company show one of their recently-invented column printing telegraph, with trans- mitter and receiver in operation. There is also a model electric locomotive, lent by the North London Railway Company. If we were to notice the exhibits in the order substantially as visitors are directed to progress through the several apart- THE CONVERSAZIONE AT THE GUILDHALL. 175 ments, we should be led first to the Art Galleries. Here the walls are covered with engravings, photographs, and paintings, chiefly illustrative of the now obsolete features of mail carriages before the introduction of railways. A strong sentiment, for which our novelists are largely responsible, still exists for the Old mail coach, and it must be admitted that these views^suo-o-est a picturesqueness in travel by high road which is sadly lackino- in journeyings by rail. The starting of the Royal mail coaches, the scenes at the relay stations, the adventures of the road, mid- night travel — these and many more, here brought together in profusion, present a singularly vivid ensemble of the varied expe- riences of those whose lot it was to travel by mail coach, when they travelled at all, at the not very exhilarating rate of ten miles an hour, though even that was considered a marvel of speed when macadamized roads first enabled it to be done, in the earlier part of this century. These pictures exhibit, we should say, about every form which the mail coach has taken, and by arranging them in chrono- logical order a fairly true view of the evolution of the modern mail-coach could be obtained. In connection with the jDictured coaches we should not overlook a model, enclosed in a glass case, of the Liverpool and London mail-coach, and a model of the Indian post-cart from the collection of the South Kensington Museum, A special interest may be said to attach to a painting representing the last of the four-horse Royal Mail-coaches leaving Newcastle-on-Tyne for Edinburgh, July oth, 1847. The coach bears the Union Jack, but at half-mast, thus pathetically announc- ing its own death before th 3 steady advance of the iron horse. Amongst the pictures is a small painting which will attract no little attention. It is a portrait of the last of the mail guards, Mr. James Nobbs, who is still retained in the service of the Post-Office. Possibly his whip-hand has jDarted with some of its strength, if not its cunning, or his should be the post of responsibility on the box of the Royal Mail four-horse parcel coach, which, in memory of old days, starts nightly (for a brief time only), at nine o'clock, from Guildhall Yard for Brighton, can-ying parcels mail made up in the Guildhall. 176 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. The glass cases lining the Art Gallery contain a great variety of ana in connection with the history of the Post-Office, far too numerous for special mention, but all deserving the attention of visitors. The postage stamp collector may here revel in the contemplation of many a coveted addition to his stock, one album containing no less than 8,000 stamps. A full collection of English adhesive stamps, from 1840 to 1890, is shown in Case 1, and in connection with the system of prepaying letters with the adhesive stamp is shown the famous Mulready envelope of 1840, with an assortment of the caricatures which this ornate affair called forth from the light-minded humorists of a caricature-loving people. In other cases are collections of both foreign and English stamps, specimens of "franks," and dated stamps used in connection with them, printed notices issued by the Post-Office ; one, amongst the earliest, being in reference to undelivered letters, directing the length of time they shall be retained, depending upon whether they be refused, or the person to whom sent be dead or " gone away, not known where," whether " not to be found," or " not called for." The Post-Office, too, it seems, has not escaped the honour paid to most distinguished persons and institutions in having been the victim of the joint muse and musical composer, though the song here shown, entitled " The Post-Office," is that doubtful honour bestowed by the comic poet and his sympathetic collaborateur. It appears to have been composed by Mr. J, Sanderson, written by Mr. Lawler, and published by Messrs. Munro & May, Holborn Bars, but bears no date, though it is placed at about the year 1840. Those who are most interested in the curiosities of Post- Office working will linger over* the books of curious ad- dresses; the envelope of the letter which was twelve long years in reaching its destination ; the print of the dormouse which was entrusted to the tender mercies of the post ; the time-bill of the London and Edinburgh mail coach, which made the journey in forty-two hours in 1836 ; the nest of the tom-tit that was built inside a letter-box, and the famous bird itself, now preserved in a glass case ; a copy of the THE CONVERSAZIONE AT THE GUILDHALL. 177 second edition of the Post-Office, Directory issued in 1801, in which it is stated that 5,000 copies of the first issue had been sold ; Mr. Fundi 8 cartoon, representing Britannia crowning Sir Rowland Hill with a wreath of laurel, and PuncKs famous joke thereon, in Avhich he applauds Sir Rowland's act of sticking on the head of a good Queen as more meritorious than Cromwell's cutting off the head of a bad king. Another case on the north side of the gallery contains a particularly interesting collection of objects. Among them is the original Treasury warrant for regulating the rates of postage (245) dated November 22nd, 1839, and signed by Lord Mel- bourne, Sir F. Baring, and Mr. Tuffnell. This warrant directed that all letters should, after December 5th, be charged by weight, and not according to sheets of paper or enclosures, which calls attention to the practice formerly prevailing, when even the use of an envelope or cover doubled the postage on the letter, and two enclosures required treble postage. The previous rates, high though they were, only carried a single sheet of paper, which gave rise to the use of the large square sheets, folded in four, and then secured with a seal, the direction being written on the letter back. The introduction of the gummed envelope is comparatively modern, but the first envelopes were invariably sealed with wax, and the use of wafers is well within the memory of men still young. In the same case which encloses the Treasury warrant referred to is a diary of Sir Rowland Hill. It is opened at a page on which appears the following significant entry: "January 10 Rose at 8.30. Penny postage extended to the whole kingdom this day. Very able articles on the subject in the Chron., Advertiser, and Globe." Thus modestly did the originator of the penny post record the accomplishment of his task, but we can imagine that he had looked forward to this tenth day of January with an emotion which, if it finds no expression in his diary, was not the less real and intense. Something of the anxiety which he must have felt as to the ultimate success of his scheme, however great his confidence, is shadowed in the preceding entry, which deals with N 178 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. the then recent rapid increase in the number of letters posted in the United Kingdom. An ilkiminated copy of the resolution presenting the freedom of the City of London to Sir Rowland Hill, forms another interesting object in the same case. It is consonant with this Jubilee celebration that very much of the documentary and printed matter embraced in the collec- tion should bear upon the introduction of j)enny postage, its inception, the literature of the subject. Treasury and Post-Office Minutes, Royal proclamations, instructions to officials and ser- vants of the Department, and explanatory matter, officially issued for the information of the public. The curious in such matters will find in the several cases devoted to this branch of the subject abundant matter to arrest attention and reward scrutiny. Besides tlie collections furnished by the Government, many private possessors of curious fragments bearing upon the history of the Reform have sent their posses- sions to swell the lists of exhibits, and there can be no doubt but that the present collection is, at least in this feature, the most complete that has been, or for a long time will be, gathered together. In this connection a very fine portrait in oils of Sir Rowland Hill, painted by J. A. Vintner, should be mentioned. It hangs near the centre of the north wall of the art gallery. A fine, strong, intellectual face ; the head well set on an apparently robust body ; just the type of man to carry a reform sturdily, and yet with fine forbearance and patience, through to the end, if he had set his heart upon it ; a man to meet obstacles unflinchingly, to turn them aside graciously, if possible, but to turn them aside effectually. It is a genuinely English face in feature and complexion, and few who realize what benefits he conferred by his far-sighted intuition and judgment and self- confidence and persistence, will pass this portrait by without an inward acknowledgment of the debt we owe him. In still other cases arranged around the sides of the Art Galleries we find abundant evidence of the perils of the road in the times of the post-courier and the mail coach. A pair of flint pistols, carried by the guard of the mail coach running THE CONVEESAZIONE AT THE GUILDHALL. 179 between Clapham and Lancaster in 1835; a blunderbuss used by a guard in about the year 1780, and another, which belongs to a much later time, 1830, are fair specimens of the uncouth weapons with which the carriers of the Royal mails occasionally had to fight their way over lonely moors and along forest roads, to the no small peril and discomfiture of their passengers. Even now the guards to parcel coaches require to be well armed, as witness the revolver and the sword- bayonet, which form the defensive weapons of to-day. Com- paring this modern sword-bayonet with the cutlass used by a mail-coach guard in 1800, we are able to say that, though humanity is still unpurged of its dangerous classes, we are able to arm our protectors rather more efficiently than our ancestors ninety years ago. A curious survival from a theft perpe- trated upon a post-boy i-unning between Selby and York, which occurred in 1798, is the mail-bag of which he was robbed. It was found in 1876, hidden away in the roof of an old public- house, when the latter was pulled down to make room for improvements. One would like to dower that old leather bag with a tongue and other vocal organs, and get its story. As an evidence of specially perilous times, we are shown an ugly- looking bludgeon or baton, such as were issued to the letter- carriers and others in the employ of the Post-Office in 1848,. during the prevalence of the Chartist riots. Curious, too, is an original bell as used even so late as 1840 by the bellmen who collected letters. From the itinerant bellman to the pillar-box involves a reconstruction of street scenes as striking as the growth of correspondence which had crowded the former out of existence as an altogether obsolete and inadequate piece of machinery. A battered post-horn, which saw service in the earlier years of this century, has also been preserved and contributed by a private collector to the Exhibition; and a postman's leather pouch, used in 1837, is equally interesting by way of comparison. One of the most attractive features in these old prints of the mail-coach days, especially to the Londoner, is the series of glimpses many of them afford of the appearance of old London X 2 180 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. streets and buildings, as, for example, the views of the Bull and Mouth Inn, with exterior and interior, at St. Martin's-le-Grand, with the despatch of the mails ; the Bull and Mouth, Regent Circus, Piccadilly, and the Brighton Coach ; the " Peacock " at Islington, with the North-country mails ; and others which are scattered here and there on the walls of the room. Deserving of especial note as a grimly humorous illustration of the abuse of the franking system is one view of the Edinburgh coach. This coach is represented as bearing 354 lbs. of postal matter, but note the disproportion between the quantities and weights which go free and those which pay postage. Of news- papers, there is a parcel of 2,496, weighing 273 lbs., which pay nothing. There are 454 franked letters, weighing 47 lbs., and these go free. As a set-off we have from the general public 1,555 letters, weighing but ^34 lbs., and paying the sum of £93 in postage. What a commentary upon the system which came to an end with the advent of the days this jubilee anniversary so fitly celebrates ! The 1,555 letters, which averaged less than half an ounce in weight, paid an average of upwards of a shilling each. Fashions in uniforms, if not quite so ephemeral as those which regulate the ordinary attire of civilians, evidently change from time to time, and a water-colour drawing, exhibiting eleven different styles of uniforms for postmen, will be scanned with as much amusement as interest. These uniforms all belong to the last fifty years, and do not represent among them that now worn by postmen, so that the average duration of any one style of dress is but little more than four years. Another, and earlier fashion, is shown in the sketch of the postman (but one was required for the work) of Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1824, who is represented in a tall hat of remarkable proportions, and in the act of delivering a letter at the open door of a residence. Two small pictures, which will be found in the cases, illustrate phases of post-office working that always have an attraction for the public. One is a drawing, and represents six gentlemen bending over a table, whereon lie the contents of a " dangerous parcel" in the Returned Letter Office. In this case the "dan- THE CONVEESAZIONE AT THE GUILDHALL. 181 gerous parcel " appears to have contained nothing more perilous than a collection of forbiddino- lookino- crustaceans, which invite to biological and, possibly, to piscatory studies. Post-Office ojfficials, we may presume, are not above enjoying the pleasures of a lobster salad, even though the post is the fishing ground. Much more delectable, however, is the view given us in a small photograph of the " Returned Letter Office Larder " at Christmas time. Here is a display of game and poultry which would do credit to any poulterer's shop. What becomes of these returned delicacies ? and how comes it that those for whom they were intended have departed like an Arab who folds his tents in the night time and leaves no trace behind him ? The omissions, mistakes, and blunders of every soit, which make a large part of the business of the Returned Letter Office, are often amusing as well as perplexing. Large sums of money are frequently sent under cover, upon which the sender has failed to put any address whatever. Curious addresses are by no means uncommon, and the greatest ingenuity is often dis- played in deciphering some of the more remarkable specimens of ill-spelled and ignorantly-written addresses. Who, for ex- ample, but a trained hand at the business would have ever discovered that " 2, 3 Adne Edle Street," was really meant for "2 Threadneedle Street," or that "hat the ole oke Otchut, 10 Bury," stood for " The Old Oak Orchard, Tenbury " ? One gentleman — or could it have been a lady ? — who was in grave doubt as to an address, and was resolved not to be baulked by any lack of knowledge on the part of the Post-Office authori- ties, wrote the following instructions upon the envelope : — " For a gentleman residing in a street out of the Road, London. He is a shopkeeper, sells newspapers and periodicals to the trade, and supplies hawkers and others with cheap prints, some of which are sold by men in the street. He has for years bought the waste of the Illustrated , their prints printed in colours particularly. He is well-known in the locality— being wholesale. Postman will oblige if he can find this." The letter was delivered. These curiosities of the Office lead us by a natural connection 182 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. to those remarkable evidences of childlike confidence in the ability of the postal department to furnish all sorts of informa- tion, much as though it had the power of omniscience. Long- lost relatives appear to be, in the minds of some simple folk, always within the eye of the Postmaster-General and his subor- dinates, as witness the following naive requests : — " I write to ask you some information about persons that are missing. I want to find out my mother and sisters who are in Melbourne, in Australia, I believe —if you would find them out for me please let me know by return of post, and also your charge at the lowest." "We heard in the paper about 12 or 14 months back Mary Ann , the servant girl at London was dead. Please send it to the Printer's office by return of post, whether there was a small fortune left for " Others appear to have regarded the Post-Office as a general inquiry or detection de^Dartment. And among letters asking for information of this sort the following may be cited as a fair illustration : " I have just been hearing of 8 men that was drowned about 9 months ago. I hear there was one of the men went under the name of John . Could the manager of the office give any particulars about that man , what he was like, or if there was such a name, or if he had any friend. He just went amissing about that time. I here enclose a stamp and address to ," &c. Of the attempts made by the unscrupulous to defraud the Post-Office in one way or another volumes might be written, but the most curious of the attempts are those which seek to avoid the payment of proper charges for articles of value by concealing them in the folds of newspapers, books, and the like. Loose gold pieces are occasionally found thus enclosed in a news- paper, or a hole is cut in the leaves of a book, valuable jewellery inserted therein, and then sent for a small rate, in the hope of escaping the vigilance of the Office. Perhaps the most valuable open letter ever sent was a five-pound note, simply folded and stamped, with the address written on the back, and thus con- signed without cover to the care of the post. THE CONVERSAZIONE AT THE GUILDHALL. 183 No one outside the Department hears of the isolated com- plaints, threats, anathemas, which are hurled by private in- dividuals with real or fancied grievances. They are neither few nor always framed in very courteous form, however. One or two specimens of this class are worth giving as samples. One individual, who seems to have had a previous tussle with the authorities, wrote : — " I got no redress before, but I trust I shall ou this occasion, or else there must be something rotten in the State of Denmark. Judas Iscariot was a thief, and carried the bag, and it will be a pity and a great scandal if he has found a successor in some branch of the Post-Office." And another shows a very inflamed state of mind on the subject of a bullfinch : — "Not having received the live bullfinch mentioned by you as having arrived at the Returned Letter Office two days ago, having been posted as a letter contrary to the regulations of the postal system, I now write to ask you to have the bird fed, and forwarded at once to ; and to apply for all fines and expenses to . If this is not done, and I do not receive the bird by the end of the week, I shall write to the Postmaster- General, who is a very intimate friend of my father, and ask him to see that measures are taken against you for neglect. This is not an idle threat, so you will oblige by following tlie above instructions." Undoubtedly a very large proportion of the complaints which are addressed to the Post-Office authorities have no other genuine basis than in the fancies or vagrant humours of those who make them. A capital illustration of this truth is afforded in the account given by Mr. Anthony Trollope of a bit of his own experience. The complaint came from a gentleman in County Cavan, who conceived himself, to judge by his letters, most grievously injured by some postal arrangement. Trollope was sent to have a personal interview and appease the old gen- tleman's wrath, if possible. He arrived at the squire's country seat on a jaunting car, wet through and chilled to the bone. We will let Mr, Trollope describe his reception in his own words : 184 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. " I was admitted by a butler, but the gentleman himself hurried into the hall. I at once began to explain my business. ' God bless me ! ' he said, ' you are wet through. John, get Mr. Trol- lope some brandy and water — very hot ! ' I was beginning my story about the post again, when he himself took off my coat, and suggested that I should go up to my bedroom before I troubled myself with business. " ' Bed-room ! ' I exclaimed. Then he assured me that he would not turn a dog out on such a night as that, and into a bed-room I was shown, having first drank the brandy and water standing at the drawing-room fire. When I came down I was introduced to his daughter, and the three of us went in to dinner. I shall never forget his righteous indignation when I again brought up the postal question on the departure of the young lady. Was I such a Goth as to contaminate wine with business ! So I drank my wine and then heard the young lady sing, while her father slept in his arm-chair. I spent a very pleasant evening, but my host was too sleepy to hear anything about the Post-Office that night. It was absolutely necessary that I should go away the next morning after breakfast, and I explained that the matter must be discussed then. He shook his head and wrung his hands in unmistakable disgust — almost in despair. ' But what am I to say in my rej)ort ? ' I asked. ' Anything you please,' he said. ' Don't spare me if you want an excuse for yourself. Here I sit all day, with nothing to do, and I like writing letters ! ' I did report that he was now quite satisfied with tfce postal arrange- ments of the district ; and I felt a soft regret that I should have robbed my friend of his occupation," Scattered throughout the larger gallery and in the two small rooms reached by the stairs, are numerous models of mail steamers, some of great size, and all most beautifully made and finished. The largest of all the models is that of the Umbria, of the Cunard Line, which stands in the entrance lobby to the Guildhall, but scarcely inferior in size is the splendid model of the Oceana, of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, which stands in the centre of the THE CONVERSAZIONE AT THE GUILDHALL. 185 large Art Gallery. This ship is 465 feet long, 52 feet broad, and 34 feet deep, and contrasted with these proportions is a model close by of the packet William FcncceU, the first vessel employed in the Contract Mail Service to the Peninsular ports in 1837. She was a paddle-wheel steamer, and her dimensions were 74 feet 3 inches by 15 feet 1 inch by 8 feet 4 inches, with a tonnage of 206, and developing 60 horse-power ; whereas the Oceana has a tonnage of 6,362, and her engines a capacity of 7,000 horse- power. Other models of steamers are those of the Ireland, the City of Dublin Company's Royal Mail steamer, built by Messrs. Laird Brothers, and one of the Scotia, belonging to the British and North America Royal Mail Steam Packet Company. From the South Kensington Museum comes a working model of Crampton's engine and a beautiful model of the marine steam boiler. A very curious model is that of a Red Sea Dhow, from the same collection. Ascending now to the smaller galleries, south of the main picture gallery, we find some of the most interesting exhibits of the collection. The larger tent illustrates the Army Post-Office, and this tent, Avith most of its contents, is a true veteran, having seen actual service in the field in the last Egyptian campaign. Here are sorting boxes and all the appliances, though on a neces- sarily small scale, for carrying on j)ostal operations in the field. Besides this very modern development of the postal service, the room we are now in is almost entirely devoted to exempli- fying in models, pictures, and full-size structures, the highest advance in the direction of saving time in the distribution of postal matter. We mean the postal train service and its appliances. A drawing hanging upon the walls shows us the new postal train which runs every night from Euston to Glasgow and Aber- deen, starting at 8.30, distributing and collecting while en route, and Avithout stopping the mail bags from and for the several stations it is intended to serve. The train is made up of seven postal carriages, each forty-two feet long, and of two guards' vans. Communication is continuous throughout five of these seven carriages. Now let us turn to the model postal carriages on the other 186 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. side of the room. These models are constructed on a scale of three inches to the foot, and through the open doorways it is easy to see their internal construction. The sides are lined witli boxes labelled with the names of towns and postal districts, and here sorting goes on all the night long, while the train is rushing on its way to the north. The postal train is in itself a mar- vellous instrument for economizing time, and, even if stops had to be made to deliver the bags made up for different points and collect those which contained matter for points still further ahead, it would be esteemed an invaluable adjunct to the rapid working of the Department. But what is no doubt the most interesting feature has yet to be noticed. This is the apparatus for collecting and delivering the letter bags while the train is in motion. This apparatus is shown in full size, and a small work- ing model, constructed on a scale of one inch to the foot, is also displayed. Briefly, the appliances consist of a net and a hook, or support, for the bag to be caught. Beside the line is con- structed a stout framework of iron and Wood, and this supports a network of rope strengthened with chains. A wrought-iron frame attached to the side of the railway carriage supports a traductor and a delivery arm. The stout mail-bag, filled with its complement of letters, is hung upon the delivery arm, and, as the train flies past the network we have already described, the bag is unhooked by the contact, tumbles into the net whence it is removed, and taken to the local post-office. The delivery arm is then automatically returned to an upright position. The operation thus described is exactly reversed in the process of collecting the mail bags. An iron standard is erected by the side of the line. This is furnished with delivery arms, the counterpart of those used in the postal cars. Nets supported by iron frames stoutly secured to the side of the car- riage are thrown out as the delivery station is approached and the suspended bags are caught, detached by the concussion, and safely landed in the net, whence they are removed, opened, and their contents arranged, sorted, fresh mail bags made up, and so the operation continues until the journey's end is reached and the last bags despatched to their destination. This mechanical THE CONVERSAZIONE AT THE GUILDHALL. 187 collection and delivery can be safely made at any speed up to seventy-five miles an hour, and at a trial recently carried out with all the improved appliances a train was run four miles in three minutes thirty-seven seconds and collected four packages, each weighing fifty-five pounds. In fact it is rare that a bag is missed or dropped. Improvements are being made from time to time in the details of the mechanism employed, the latest being in the con- struction of the traductor which supports the delivery arm where the strain chiefly comes. The newest system is being gradually introduced on all lines in the United Kingdom. A small model is shown of the style of net used for many years before the adoption of the present one. It will be noticed that the net work of ropes was so arranged as to allow tlie bag to fall to the ground. In wet weather this was objectionable, and at all times the wear and tear of the bag was greatly increased by that cause. The modern net does not permit the bags to touch the ground. Such is, in brief, the travelling post-office and way-side delivery system of 1890, and we may very fitly conclude this review of the postal advance of fifty years by comparing the present mode of operations with that shown in one of the coloured prints hanging on the walls of the large gallery below. The mail-coach is represented as rattling through the deserted streets of a sleeping village. Dawn seems to be just breaking along the sky line in the distance, and one of the box passengers is stretching his arms and yawning after the broken slumbers of the night. The coach is just passing the village post-office, and the postmaster, in nightcap and robe, is handing out of an upper window a meagre-looking j)ost bag to the guard. THE GUILDHALL CONVERSAZIONE. (From Punch, May 31, 1890.) Everybody, from the Prince of Wales liisself, down to the werry 'umblest postman or sorter, left that nobel old Hall, estonished, and dilited, and 'appy. And no wunder, for, by the combined efforts of the hole Copperashun and its werry numerus staff, and the hole army of postmen, and tellacram men, and all manner of sorters and stampers, St. Martin's-le-Grand was removed boddily to Gildall, and everything that was ever done in the one place was dun in the other before the estonished eyes of sum two thousand of us, even inchidin' four-horse male coaches, with sacks of letters, and reelgards with reel horns, which they blowed most butifully. It was a gloreous Jewbelee ' I'm that bizzy I hardly noes wich way to turn first, so no more at pressant, from yores trewly, ROBEET. THE CONVERSAZIONE AT THE SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, JULY 2, 1890. R. C. Tombs, Esq. W. H. Preece, Esq.,':F.E.S. The Post Office Committee. CONVERSAZIONE AT THE SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM. Under the Most Gracious Patronage of HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN. Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh have graxiously intimated their intention of being liresent. President of the Conversazione — His Royal Highness The DUKE OF EDINBURGH, K.G. Vice-Presidents— The Right Hon. HENRY CECIL RAIKES, ALP. Her Majesty's Postmaster-General. The Most Hon. The MARQUIS OF SALISBURY, K.G. The Right Hon. W. H. SMITH, M.P. The Right Hon. G. J. GOSCHEN, M.P. v-Post7nasters-General — OF ARGYLL, E.G., And the following e His Grace The DUKE OF ARGYLL, E.G., K.T. His Grace The DUKE OF RUTLAND, G.C.B. The Right Hon. LORD EMLY. The Right Hon. The MARQUIS OF HARTINGTON, M.P. The Right Hon. G. J. SHAW-LEFEVRE, M.P. The Right Hon. Sir LYON PLAYFAIR, K.C.B., M.P. Also His Grace The Duke of Abercoun, C.B. His Grace The Duke of Marlborough. His Grace The Duke of Portland. His Grace The Duke of Wellington. The Marquis of Ripon, K. G. The Marquis of Breadalbane. The Earl of Ashburnham. The Earl of Bradford. The Earl of Clarendon. The Earl of Derby, K.G. The Eael of Gainsborough, The Earl Grey, K.G, The Earl of Jersey. The Earl Spencer, K.G. The Earl Stanhope. The Earl of Strafford. The Earl Waldegrave. The Earl of Winchelsea and Not- tingham. Sir James AYhitehead, Bart., D.L. Sir Arthur Blackwood, K.C.B. PeapvSon Hill, Esq. Programme. The doors of the Museum will be o-pen at 7 p.m. The usual Cloak Room accommodation ^vill be afforded at the entrance to the Museum in Cromwell Road. 192 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. Royal Mail Vans, horsed and the lamps alight, will be stationed at various points between the Museum and Cromwell Road. A Guard of Honour of the 24th Middlesex (Post-Office) Rifle Volunteers, with the band of the Regiment, will, with the kind permission of the Colonel commanding, be mounted. The sale of the Jubilee Envelope (price Is.) will take place at the General Post-Offices in the Architectural Court and Art Library ; and at the branch Post-Offices which will be found in various parts of the building. At the General Post-Offices, all kinds of business — postal and telegraphic — will be transacted. In the Architectural Court too will be established the sorting and stamping processes, and the stampers will be prepared to impress dated stamps of unicpie design on the special envelope, or on postal cards presented with that object. In the Textile Gallery there may possibly be met with a Telegraph Office of 1990, where special facilities for the transac- tion of new developments of Post-Office business will be provided, and where, by means of contrivances which are certainly not as yet publicly known, the expectation will be held out of instanta- neous communications passing between London and all parts of the world by sight and speech, and not by the old-world con- triva,nces of the nineteenth century, and its so-called Electric Telegraph. Moreover the greatest invention of the age — the Electrophonoscope — will be shown there for the first time. In the Science Library a variety of Post-Offices will be established. Those of 1790 and 1990, with a branch of 1890, will be conducted by a specially selected staff (the members of which have generously given their services), composed of: — Mrs. Dion Boucicault (the original " Colleen Bawn "), Miss Patrice Boucicault, Mrs. Charles Lamb Kenney, Miss Rose Kenney, Mrs. Conyers d'Arcy, Miss Grace Winall, Mr. Conyers d'Arcy, Mr. Edwin Gilbert, Mr. Egginton, and Master Conyers d'Arcy. A full Post-Office of 1890, with ample writing accommodation, will also be provided in the same Library. The bands of the Grenadier Guards (conducted by Lieut. Dan Godfrey), by permission of Colonel Trotter; and of the Walter G. Gates, Esq. Sydney Becklev, Esq. G. A. AiTKEN, Esq. S. AVilsos, Esq. The Hoxokary SEcr.ET.\RiEs to the Post Office Com.mittee CONVERSAZIONE AT SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM. 193 Royal Artillery (coaducted by Cavalier Zavertal), by peraiission of the Regimental Band Committee, will play during the evening. The Quadrangle will be lighted by the electric light. The Committee have the pleasure of announcing that with great liberality and kindness the following distinguished artistes have generously given their services for the occasion : — Madame Yalleria, Madame Annie Marriott, Miss Alice Gomez, Miss Nellie Levey, Mr. Sims Reeves, Mr. Percy Palmer, Mr. Fredk, King, Mr. Sydney Beckley, Mr. J. E. Payne (Violin), Mr. Leo Stern (Violoncello), Madame Frickenhaus (Piano), Mr. Alfred J. Caldicott (Mus. Bac), and Mr. Arthur Fagge. Part songs will be sung by the Post- Office choir, under the diz'ection of Mr. Sydney Beckley. The line of procession, and order generally, will be maintained by the Gentlemen Marshals, who will be distinguished by wands of office and rosettes. At 8.30 p.m. the Royal Parcel Mail Coach for Brighton will be despatched ; at 8.40 the coach for Watford and at 8.50 the coach for 0-xford. An extensive collection of British stamps, kindly lent by the Board of Inland Revenue, will be shown in the Cruikshank's Gallery. The collection belonging to the Government of New South Wales has also been kindly lent for the occasion ; and the Post-Office collection will likewise be shown. Telegraphic communication with the Continent will be main- tained, as at the Jubilee at the Guildhall, under the eyes of the visitors. Her Royal and Imperial Highness the Duchess of Edinburgh, accompanied by the President of the Conversazione, His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, will arrive at the Royal entrance. The Guard of Honour will give a Royal Salute, and the band will play the National Anthem. The Royal and distinguished party will be received by the Postmaster-General, the Vice-Presidents of the Conversazione, and by the Executive Committee. A bouquet will be presented to Her Royal and Imperial Highness by Miss Raikes. o 194 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. Some presentations will be made to Her Royal and Imperial Highness by His Royal Highness the President. A procession will then be formed : A Gentleman Usher, followed by Four City Trumpeters (by special permission) in scarlet uniforms, with silver trumpets, will lead the way. Her Royal and Imperial Highness the Duchess of Edinburgh will be conducted by the Postmaster-General, and Mrs. Raikes by His Royal Highness the President. On the signal being given for the procession to start, the Trumpeters will sound a Fanfare, and the procession will move slowly along the line of march indicated by a crimson carpet. On the Fanfare being concluded, the Band of the Guards will play. The trumpets, on the procession entering the South Court, will again sound a Fanfare. On the procession reaching the Southern Arch of the Italian Court, the Band of the Royal Artillery will play the National Anthem. On reaching the dais at the end of the main avenue, the Postmaster-General and the Secretary of the Post-Office will take up a position right and left of the dais ; the remaining gentlemen ranging themselves right and left of the open space. Their Royal Highnesses being seated, a letter will be delivered to Her Royal and Imperial Highness, containing a respectful welcome and appreciation of Her Royal and Imperial Highness's kindness, signed by old officers of the Post-Office — the first ■signature being that of Mr. Frederic Hill, the sole surviving brother of the late Sir Rowland Hill, K.C.B. An officer of the Post-Office \yill then deliver a letter. This letter is from present servants of the Post-Office, expressing their thanks to Her Royal and Imperial Highness ; signed on their behalf by the Postmaster-General and the Secretary of the Post-Office. A telegraph-wire and apparatus will then be brought on to the dais, and on Her Royal and Imperial Highness touching the key, an electric signal will be sent inviling Post-Office officials in various parts of the British Isles to unite with their colleagues assembled at South Kensington in giving simultaneously three cheers for Her Majesty The Queen. CONVERSAZIONE AT SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM. 195 Her Royal and Imperial Highness will probably visit the 3Iusic Room and then proceed to the Quadrangle. The Guards' Band will play a selection of airs. There will be a Reception from 7 to 9 p.m., and carriages may be ordered for 12 o'clock. Light Refreshments will be provided. Uniform, Levee, or Evening dress will be worn. The South Kensington Museum. Few people who have not visited South Kensington Museum can be a^vare of the beautiful spectacle its interior presents, Avhen lighted up by the electric light, and rilled with company. The building, which contains many splendid collections illus- trative of .science and art, stands on twelve acres of land. The rirst portion of the building was opened in June, 18.57, and during the thirty-three years which have since elapsed vast numbers of rare and valuable objects have been added to the collections. The Architectural Court, where the Chief Postal Sortinof Office will be established, is the largest of the three principal courts. It is 133 feet long, and sixty feet wide. The height from floor to ceiling is eighty-three feet. The width of the central passage, along a portion of which the royal procession will be conducted, is .seventeen feet ; so affording ample space for spectacular effect. In this court are full-sized reproductions of many remarkable and beautiful architectural works, the most magnificent of all perhaps being a carved chimney-piece, .•\..D. 1529, which is probably one of the finest and large.st specimens of oak carving ever seen. Scarcely second to this, however, are the casts of two portions of Trajan's column ei'ected in Rome, A.D. 10(3 — 114. The base of the column is twenty-one feet square, and the total height must have been at least loU feet. Both portions stand in the Architectural Court, not far from the Reception chamber. The visitor will enter the Mu.seum through a .spacious cloak- o 2 196 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. room, constructed (with the permission of the Lords of the Committee of Privy Council for Education) by the Post-Office for the occasion, and which measures about 100 feet in width by forty-eight feet in depth. Turning to the right hand, he will pass through a collection of very beautiful specimens of textile fabrics — some hanging on the wall as tapestry, others protected in glass cases — and will enter the Ancient Sculpture Room. Here there will be a Reception from 7 p.m. until 9 p.m. The visitor will pass on to the Architectural Court alread}^ mentioned, and then into the South Court, which is divided into two parts by a gallery, known as the Prince Consort's Gallery. On the west side are ivory carvings, gold and silver work, and loan collections of a similar character. There are here innumerable articles of beauty and value. On the east side is a fine collection of bronzes and Chinese jjorcelain. To the east of the South Court are the Oriental Courts, where are shown examples of the art workmanship of China and Japan. The North Court is entered from the South Court under an archway, described in the jDrogramme as the Southern Arch, and which reproduces the form of an Italian music gallery. This spacious hall is specially appropriated to the exhibition of examples of Italian art workmanship. It is 107 feet long, 106 feet wide, and 83 feet high. The roof is of a single span, without pillars. Around the cornice is a broad band of blue and gold. The Saracenic and Persian Courts speak for tliemselves. In the galleries will be found the Keramic or pottery collection, which is of great variety and splendour. In the Prince Consort's Gallery are placed many of the most interesting and costly possessions of tlie Museum ; while in the Western Galleries, in five rooms, are the famous Dyce and Forster collections. In the North Gallery are the Raj^hael Cartoons, and in the Sheepshanks' Gallery the valuable collection of oil paintings, the gift of the late Mr. John Sheepshanks. Near at hand is the Jones collection, which is of great interest and variety ; and in the gallery which contains speci- mens of the water colours and drawings of the late Mr. George CONVERSAZIONE AT SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM. 197 Cruiksliank will be temporarily jDlaced the fine collection of postage stamps lent by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, another beautiful collection lent to the Post-Office by the Government of New South Wales, and a collection which the Post-Office itself exhibits. This account, however brief and imperfect, will give the reader some idea of the varied and costly collections which will be on view on the night of the Conversazione ; but it will fail to convey any idea of the beauty of the interior of the building, when it and its sparkling contents are lighted up by the electric light, and the galleries are crowded with a numerous and agreeable company. The Royal Procession will enter the building beneath a magnificent Rood Loft, erected in 1625 at Bois-le-Duc, in North Brabant. A full programme and plan of the building will be presented to each visitor who expresses a wish for one. It will include a programme of the songs which will be sung by some of the most eminent vocalists of the day, and by the Post-Office choir, which has already sung with great success before His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. The bands of the Grenadier Guards and the Royal Artillery are amongst the finest in the United Kinsdom. INSTRUCTIONS FOR POSTAL DUTY AT SOUTH KENSINfJTOK MUSEUM. Museum Yard. Royal Mail Vans, horsed and lamps lighted, will be stationed from 6.30 p.m. to 10 p.m. in the middle road usually serving as a carriage entrance, and near the Cloak Room at the side road in the direction of Exhibition Road. A Royal Mail Four-Horse Parcel Coach will leave the Yard at 8.30 p.m. for Brighton ; at 8.40 p.m. another will leave for Chelmsford and Ipswich ; and a third Coach for Oxford at 8.50 p.m. They will carry Parcel Mails made up in the Museum. A Mail Coach, to illustrate a Royal Mail Coach of the past, drawn by four grey horses, and carrying Mails, Passengers, an Luggage, will arrive with Sir A. Blackwood and party at 8 p.m., and another Coach, with a team of bays, at 9 p.m. with the Postmaster-General and party. The Coachmen and Guards of the Coaches, and the Post- Office Servants who look after the Vans which will be stationed in the Yard, must implicitly act upon the instructions they receive from the Police entrusted with the duty of regulating the traffic. Entrances. Eight Officers, in Scarlet Coats, will be on duty at the Royal or Turnstile Entrance ; at the Office Entrance ; at the General Entrance ; in the Textile Gallery, and Reception Room. At CONVERSAZIONE AT SOUTH KKNSINGTON MUSEUM. 199 J) p.m. all will reimir to the Italian Court to aid in keeping line, except two, Avho will remain at their posts. The Tickets of Admission will be taken by the Museum authorities. Six Boy Messengers will be stationed at the General Entrance to hand Catalogues to Visitors as they enter the Museum. " Hand " Notices indicating routes will be put up. A model of a Travelling Post-Office will be exhibited in a Gallery. The working of it will be explained by Mr. Supervisor Garrett. Public Post-Office Business. A General Post-Office will be established for the occasion. It will be situated in the Architectural Court, and will be designated the '■ South Kensington (Penny Postage Jubilee) Post-Office." In order to illustrate the postal system in operation at the present day, public business of all kinds will be transacted at this Jubilee Office, thus : — Special Jubilee Envelopes sold. Registered Letter Covers for enclosure of Jubilee Envelopes sold. Postage Stamps of all denominations sold. Inland and Foreign Post-Cards sold. Letters registered and insured. Parcels (Inland and Foreign) accepted and insured. Postal Orders and Money Orders issued and paid. Savings Bank Deposits received, Withdrawals cashed, and new Accounts opened. Licenses issued. Life Insurance and Annuities business transacted. Telegrams accepted for transmission, and received for delivery There will be a Poste-Restante at one corner of the Post- Office, where letters may be called for by the Addressees. Telegrams for Visitors should be placed on the Notice Board near the Post-Office. 200 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. Posting Boxes will be placed at the Post-Office Counter for the reception of letters and cards, which will be accepted and impressed with the Jubilee Marking Stamp. These boxes will be cleared every half hour up to midnight, and more frequently if necessary. A Pneumatic Tube Post will be established at the Post-Office, and letters and cards handed over the counter there will be stamped and forwarded by tube to a Poste-Restante in the Postal Sorting Office. It will thus be possible for visitors to see their letters or cards stamped and sent by Pneumatic Tube for delivery at another point of the Architectural Court, The charge will be Id. per letter or card. If replies are given the charge will be Sd. per letter or card. The cash should be kept apart from other moneys. The special envelopes, in commemoration of the Jubilee event, which will be sold in the Museum, will have a white grouml In the left-hand corner will appear a crown, with the letters " V.R." and a rose, shamrock, and thistle beneath. In the centre the words "Penny Postage Jubilee, 1890"; and in the right-hand corner an impression of a penny stamp similar to that used for foreign post-cards. The printing of the whole will be of blue colour. The Envelopes will be made up in packets of ten and one hundred. They can be sold singly or in larger quantities, at Is. per Envelope. They will each contain an appropriate correspondence card. Registered Letter official covers, with cards enclosed in them, for the safe transmission of the Jubilee Special Envelopes through the Post, will be on sale, price Sd. each, and ordinary covers with card, price Id. each. Ordinary covers for visitors to place the Jubilee Envelopes in to carry in the pocket can be given away. A stock of such covers will be supplied to the staff. The Public Office business will be conducted from 7.0 p.m. to midnight by Miss Parsons of the Regent Street B.O., who will be in charge ; Miss Seaton Brown, Broad Sanctuary B.O. ; Miss Turner of the North-Western District Office ; Miss Girton, CONVERSAZIOJSE AT SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM. 201 Regent Street B.O. ; and Miss Fletcher, Westbourne Grove B.O. The Telegraph business will be undertaken by Mr. Bolton, Inspecting Telegraphist of the Controller's Office, and the Pneumatic Tube work by Mr. Gilbert. A long table for writing purposes will be placed between the Public Office and Postal Sorting Office. Mr. Angell will arrange for six Telegraph Messengers to be in attendance near the Post-Office. Science Library Post-0 ffice. In the Science Library there will be a long counter at whicli full Post and Telegraph business will be transacted. The counter will be improvised out of the desks and tables ordinarily in use, which will be covered with red baize for the occasion. The reading tables in the Library will be used by the Public for addressing the Envelopes. This Office will be conducted by Miss Coombes, Lambeth B.O., in charge ; Mrs. Taplin, Broad Sanctuary B.O. ; Miss Martin, Blackheath ; Miss Townsend, Holloway ; and Miss Martin, Eastcheap. Four Telegraph Messengers from South Kensington B.O. will act as attendants. Two Letter Boxes, painted red, will be placed on the counter, from which special collections will be made quarter hourly, or more frequently if necessary. Two quick Boy Messengers will be engaged in carrying, at express speed, bags from the 1990 Post-Office to the Poste- Restante in Architectural Court. Branch Post-Offixes. A Stall will be opened in the Writing Room near Cruikshank Gallery, and will be conducted by Miss Adeney, Holloway, and Miss Bean, Queen Victoria Street. Another Stall will be con- ducted by Mrs. and Miss Blewitt at left of Royal Entrance where catalogues and photographs are usually sold. 202 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. A Posting Box will Le placed near each Sale Table, from which collections will be made at frequent intervals. Two Telegraph Messengers from the S. K. Branch Office will act as attendants, one at each Stall. Gruiksliank Gallery. The Curious Address Books of the Inland Branch, Albums of Christmas Cards, and a collection of Postage Stamps, &c., will be exhibited, in charge of Mr. W. Matthews, Inland Branch, assisted by Mr, Thomas, Controller's Office. Impression of Jubilee Stamp. The Special Jubilee Date and Obliterating Stamp can be impressed on letters and post-cards not intended for transmission by post at a charge of \d. per impression. This stamping can be undertaken at the two central Post-Offices, and at the Branch tables where the Jubilee Envelopes will be sold. The pence thus received should be kept in bowls apart from the Official and Jubilee Envelope cash. The Jubilee Envelopes can be impressed with the stamp free of charge, though not intended to be posted. The india-rubber Jubilee Stamps require inking before each impression. The lower part of the Stamp is indicated by the brass plate as a guide. Tables of Inland and Foreign Rates will be on sale ; price, impressed wath Jubilee Stamp, 2r/. each. Local Telegraph Circuit. There will be a Circuit between the Post-Office in the Architectural Court and that iu the Science Library whereby Public and Official Messages can be transmitted. The charge to the public will be Id. for the impression of the Jubilee Stamp on the Mes.sasre form. CONVERSAZIONE AT ^^OUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM. 20.*^ Arrangements for the Performance of Postal Sorting Work. This branch of business will be carried on in the Architectural Court. Fittings as follows will be supplied from the Wimbledon Post-Office :— 1 Bag opening, facing, and stamping table. 1 Sorting table. 8 Roads for despatches, &c. 1 Rack for parcel duty. 1 Collapsible packet sorting table. A " Pearson Hill " stamping machine will be affixed to the stamping table, and hand stamps will also be available for use on packets, newspapers, &c. A supply of bags, string, sealing-wax, sealing-lamp, oil, and other necessaries for the conduct of the postal duty will be at hand. In the Postal Sorting Office will be placed two pillar letter- boxes for the reception of letters enclosed in the Jubilee Envelopes, cards, or any ordinary correspondence. The boxes will be cleared at intervals of half-an-hour, or more frequently if necessary. All letters, &c., posted in these boxes must be impressed with the special Jubilee Stamp. The letters, &c., posted in the boxes in the Museum itself must be stamped with the Jubilee Stamps separately from those brought in from outside boxes by the postmen, and a very careful account should be kept of the numbers. The letters, &c., from outside need not be counted. They should be impressed with the ordinary stamp — not with the Jubilee Stamp. The Jubilee Envelopes are to be selected from other letters. They must be very carefully stamped and counted by the officer deputed to undertake that part of tlie duty. On despatch they should, as far as may be found practicable, be tied up in the 204 JUBILEE Of PENNY POSTAGE. middle of the bundles of letters, so as to secure tliem against injury in transit. Particular care should be taken that ink of one kind only should be used for impressing the Jubilee dated stamp. The ink provided is black, and is supplied with special pads for use with india-rubber stamps. All concerned must exercise the utmost care in using the stamps, so that the impressions may be perfect, and placed in the proper position on the envelopes. Parcel Post Business. Mr. Hunt, Overseer, and Sorter Douglas from Mount Pleasant, will attend the Museum from 6.0 p.m. till the close of the special duty. Parcels for the places served by the Brighton and IjDswich Coaches should be selected at the Chelsea (Cale Street), West Brompton, and Earl's Court Sorting Offices at the 6.0 p.m. and 7.0 p.m. collections, and sent to the S.K. Sorting Office for transfer thence with S.K. Parcels to Museum in bag protectors. Parcels for despatch by the coaches should be forwarded from the S.W.D.O. to the Museum by special carts. The unloading must be smartly done, so that the entrance may not be blocked. The parcels on receipt at the Museum will be sorted at the rack provided for the purpose, and will be made up in receptacles for the S.W.D.O., Brighton, Brighton Coach (Unsorted), Colchester, and Ipswich Coach (Unsorted). The receptacles will be labelled " South Kensington Museum Jubilee Post-Office to ." Those for the S.W.D.O. will be conveyed by the carts mentioned above. The coach-borne receptacles will be forwarded by the re- spective coaches which will start from the Museum as under : — London to Brighton Parcel Coach at 8.80 p.m. London to Chelmsford Parcel Coach at 8.40 p.m. A properly ec^uipped coach marked specially " London to Oxford" will start from the Museum at 8.50 p.m. This coach CONVERSAZIONE AT SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM. 205 will carry dummy receptacles which must be made up for it, and after leaving the Museum will return to Mount Pleasant Depot to deliver its load of dummies. The Brighton and Chelmsford Coaches will proceed direct to the London Bridge and Mount Pleasant Depots respectively to take up the rest of the mails and to be despatched as usual. Special time bills and bag lists have been provided for use in the coaches. The guards must join the coaches at the contractors' yards (Brighton Coach — Messrs. McNamara and Co., Castle Street, Finsbury ; Chelmsford Coach — Mr. Webster, Laycock's Yard, Upper Street, Islington) at 7.0 p.m. The coaches must reach the Museum at the appointed times and be loaded at once, so as not to interfere with the traffic. The Brighton and Chelmsford Coach Guards must take with them, by cab, from the depots the baskets containing the coach- horns, weapons, &c., and place them in the coaches. Each guard must be in full uniform and wear the belt with revolver (unloaded) and sword bayonet attached. The horns should be placed in the baskets hung outside the coach, and the guards must blow the horns both on the arrival at and departure from the Museum. The Oxford Coach will call at Mount Pleasant Depot at 7.0 p.m. on the way to the Museum to be loaded with empty receptacles labelled for towns on the road between London and Oxford. Local Telegraph Circuit. The Local Telegraph Circuit, from the Science and Art Library to the Branch Office in the Architectural Court, should be worked as follows : — Visitors should be invited to address communications to them- selves or friends, to be telegraphed from the Office in the Architectural Court to the Office in the Science and Art Library, or vice versa. No charge is to be made for telegraphing, but each received copy must be impressed with the special Jubilee dated stamp, and for this impression one penny should be charged on each telegram on delivery. 206 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. Money received on account of local telegrams should be kept separate from any other moneys received, and should be handed to the Officer in charge of the Branch Office at the close of the duty. Visitors inquiring, should have the work of the circuit ex- plained to them, and be allowed to make verbal inquiries and receive replies over the circuit, free of charge. Local official inquiries and Service telegrams will pass over the wire, which will also be used for the transmission of ordinary public telegrams from the Science Library, the Branch Office acting as transmitting station. All telegrams must be written neatl}^ in a clear legible hand. There will be a message circuit from the Central Telegraph Office to the South Kensington Post-Office, over which public messages, and, in short, all messages sent by the public from South Kensington, or addressed to their Royal Highnesses, to the Postmaster-General, or to the public at the Museum, will be forwarded. Certain special messages from India, Canada, and the far North of Scotland will be received probably very early in the evening for delivery to their E-oyal Highnesses, and these messages must be carefully written out on the large foolscap Government Message Form, with envelopes to match. These telegrams must be held in reserve by the Officer in chai'ge of the telegraph duty until close upon 9.30 p.m., when he must take them to Mr. Bundy, who will be the Marshal in charge at the southern arch. Certain telegrams, original and duplicate, such as that alluded to as coming from Canada, must be exhibited on a Notice Board placed near the dais. Tube Post. Visitors should be invited to patronize this mode of postal communication, now brought into use for the first time. Cards, Jubilee Envelopes, communications written on the form specially provided for the purpose, or anything that can be CONVERSAZIONE AT SOUTH KENSINGTON ^[USEUM. 207 safely transmitted through the tube, will be accepted, stamped with the proper date stamp, tubed to the other end, and delivered to callers. The charge will be one penny for trans- mission in either direction. Visitors should also be invited to address questions either to the officials or to their friends, and prepay the reply. The charge for a reply card or letter will be M. The replies should be short, to the point, and facetious where the question admits. They will be written by Mr. Powell, of the Controller's Office, who will attend for the purpose. Money received on this account should be kept in a separate receptacle which will be provided for the purpose at either end, and handed to the Officer in charge of the Branch Office in the Architectural Court at the close, with a slip showing tlje amount. 1890 Postman.— The Postman W. Stewart of the S.W. district will act as 1890 Postman to deliver letter to Her Royal and Imperial Highness the Duchess of Edinburgh. Savings Bank Boohs. — It should be understood that frequent communication by local wire should be held between the two officers in charge of the Branch Post-Offices in the Museum as to the issue of new Savings Bank Books so that at the termina- tion of the duty the numbers of the books may run consecutively instead of there being any break. Amhdancc. — The ambulance, attended by Sergeants Hone, Carney, and Payne, will be located in the Cloak Room at the front entrance. Cards for Jnhilce Imjyressiovs. — A supply of plain blue cards will be distributed to each of the Post-Offices. These cards can be impressed with the Jubilee Stamp and be sold for a penny. Mr. Howson will make the necessary an-angements for the conveyance of the Counter Staff to their homes after the Conversazione. 208 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. Description of the Post-Office of 1990. Business on entirely new Principles. Letters of all hinds sent hy New Patent Electrotubidar Lightning Express. Write to any part of the world ; post here (fee 6f?. — the smallest coin of the realm) and you will find a reply from your correspondent awaiting you on applying at the " Poste Restante," Architectural Court. Thus a lady — say Miss Jones — who has posted a letter at the 1990 Post-Office will presently appear at the office marked " Poste Restante " in the Architectural Court and say, " Have you got a letter for me?" "What name, if you please?" " Jenny Jones." The Poste Restante officer will then look into the box of " J " letters and will find one addressed at the 1990 Office for Miss or Miss J. Jones, and this he will duly deliver. The 1990 and 1890 Delivery Stamps will be impressed on the letters before despatch to the Poste Restante. R. C. Tombs, London Postal Service, Controller. June 28th, 1890. SUBSEQUENT REPORT OF THE CONTROLLER OF THE LONDON POSTAL SERVICE. Conversazione at South Kensington. The work of preparation for the commemoration of Uniform Penny Postage in the United Kingdom by a grand Conversazione at South Kensington Museum was, so far as regards the Postal Section, of a somewhat difficult character, as the fittings to be used for the ilkistratiou of Postal work had to be brought from the new Wimbledon Post-Office (just about to be opened) to South Kensington by road, a distance of about seven miles. The fitting up of the Sorting Office and the two Post-Offices had to be done under most adverse circumstances. The time allowed to do the work was very limited, and great care had to be exercised in carrying the large sorting-tables and the long and cumbrous counter through the Museum, crowded as it is with glass cases and extremely fragile articles. Two plain desks in the Science Library were transformed into a bijou Post-Office, decorated with the colours for the day — blue and wliite — within two hours. The force employed had to be drawn partly from the city, partly from the Buckingham Gate Office, whilst the directino- arrangements had to be carried on from St. Martin's-le-Grand. As, however, on many other occasions, the Post-Office axe was able to clear a way through the whole forest of difficulties; but its edge would been considerably blunted but for the clearance of heavy exhibits effected by order of Mr. Thompson, the acting Director of the Museum, whose kindness, courtesy, p 210 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. and ready assistance evoked the admiration and gratitude of all concerned in the Postal part of the entertainment who came in contact with him. Outside the Museum it might have been supposed that St. Martin's-le-Grand had temporarily removed to the West end, for the jDostmen flitting to and fro, the stationary mai] vans and carts with lamps lighted, the mail coaches typical of a bygone time, and the parcel coaches starting for Brighton, for Ipswich, and for Oxford, lent a realistic character to the scene, and suggested the idea that perhaps fifty years hence it would be necessary to have in the immediate vicinity of the Museum a Post- Office equal in size to the old building at St. Martin's-le- Grand. The teams turned out on the occasion by Messrs. Birch, Webster, and McNamara and Co. were greatly admired by the lovers of horseflesh present. As reg-ards the interior of the buildins", I will begin mv narrative with the Postal Sorting Office, as that was the first object of interest which came under the notice of the Royal visitors in the line of procession. It was situated in the Architectural Court, and measured 27 feet by 22 feet. In this small space the letters, &c., faced, stamped, sorted, and despatched, consisted of collections from thirteen receiving houses, thirty-two pillar boxes, and three wall boxes outside the Museum. There were seven posting boxes within the Museum walls, and visitors during the Conversazione used them freely. Indeed, there could have been few persons present who did not consider their mailing arrangements one of the features of the evening. Altogether 23,200 Jubilee envelopes were posted in the Museum and dealt with at the Postal Sorting Office, and 5,700 ordinary letters, and 6,700 ordinary post-cards. Many persons retained the Jubilee envelopes and posted the inside corresponding cards, which in many instances were not prepaid, and had consequently to be surcharged 2d. each, the charges raised in this way amounting to over £5. P 2 212 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. Other of the correspondence cards bore halfpenny instead of penny stamps, and some had stamps of excessive value affixed to them on the front or back. Many letters, previously posted and bearing ancient dates, several of the year 1839, were, as at the Guildhall, posted again to obtain the impression of the special South Kensington Jubilee stamp. Some of the Guildhall Jubilee cards were used again in this way. Many rare stamps, both adhesive and embossed, were brought for the same purpose. Amongst them were six of the old black stamps, and two of the original Mulready envelopes. Many inquiries were made as to whether the Jubilee enve- lopes were available for foreign circulation. It was explained that by the addition of adhesive stamps to the necessary amount the envelopes could be sent to any part of the globe. From the queries put, it was evident that very many of the envelopes would find their way to the United States. Many of the Jubilee letters were stamped at the counters in the Museum where sold, and when posted such letters had to be carefully selected in order that they might not be spoiled by a second impression of the stamp. In the Postal Sorting Office, and under a full-sized model of a splendid pulpit, a post by pneumatic tube was carried on, and in connection with it a Poste Restante was established. Ordinary communications sent through the tube were charged at -the rate of Id. each. For replies, the questions being chietiy on Postal subjects, by tube letter, Sd. each was charged. The latest questions had reference to the Barrow election, which took place on the Conversazione day. Many persons, disappointed at the result, thought the reply dear at the charge of 2d. The revenue to the Rowland Hill Benevolent Fund accruinsf directly from the Tube Post was £7 4s. lie?. At the close of the evening £3 5s. 9d. had been taken at the Tube-Post table for impressions of the Jubilee stamp at Id. each. Next in order I come to the Public Post and Telegraph Office. At the Guildhall Conversazione the Public Office had for its 214 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. guardians the grim giants Gog and Magog, but at the South Kensington Museum the young ladies who presided at the Postal counter in the Architectural Court had above them a statue of a more noble kind — that of David. This office received a larger share of patronage than any other part of the exhibition, and for a time locomotion near it was almost impossible. The Telegraph duty was conducted under great disadvantages. It had been intended to use " Inker " instruments, but there was only space enough for " Sounders," and reading by sound was a difficult matter owing to distracting noises, especially when the band was playing. The difficulties were, however, surmounted. The Post-Office of 1890, in the Science Library, conducted by officers of the London Postal Service, Avas, owing to its remote position, not so well patronized as the office in the Architectural Covirt. The counter for the sale of Jubilee envelopes in the Archi- tectural Court South, under the management of Mrs. and Miss Blewitt, came in for a fair share of select patronage, but the counter in the Cruickshank Gallery, presided over by Miss Bean and Miss Adeney, was almost entirely overlooked. At the two Post-Offices and the two stalls 5,370 of the Jubilee envelopes were disposed of, and, in addition, 2,166 post-cards were sold. Of the latter 1,855 were inland cards, and 311 such as are used for the foreign service. Each visitor must on the average have bought two envelopes or post-cards, and that probably for the sake of getting im- pressions of the special South Kensington Jubilee obliterating and post-marking stamp, as the envelopes were procurable throughout the day at all I^ondon Post-Offices. Indeed, it is evident that the impression of the stamp was considered a desideratum, for nearly 20,000 more Jubilee envelopes were posted in the Museum than were actually sold in it. The number of postage stamps sold reached a total of 1,174, amongst them being one at £1 and one at £5. The demand for postal orders was not so great as at the CONVERSAZIONE AT SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM. 21J Guildhall, only twenty having been issued, and those were for small amounts only. It is probable these orders will be re- tained as souvenirs and never be cashed. Five orders only were paid. Tlie total number of money orders issued was 157, the majority being for Id. None were presented for payment. New Savings Bank accounts to the number of sixty-two were opened, and 137 deposits made. There were no withdrawals. Letters and post-cards registered numbered 276, as against thirty-eight at the Guildhall Conversazione. There were twenty parcels posted. As regards the sale of Uniform Penny Postage Jubilee envelopes in Loudon. It may be stated that these envelopes — sold at the rate of Is. each at the head district, branch, and receiving offices in London — numbered 148,830. Of these 21,200 were sold at the cuunter of this office (G.P.O., East), 6,000 of them being for the officers of the Department, 7,483 at Lombard Street, and 5,370 at the South Kensington Museum. At each of fifteen offices over 1,000 envelopes were disposed of, and between 500 and 1,000 were sold at each of fourteen offices. At 9 a.m., on July 2ud, the Public Office here (G.P.O., East) and Lombard Street Office w^ere filled by persons requiring Jubilee envelopes. The first stcck of 9,000 supplied to the officer in charge at this office was exhausted at 10.30 a.m. At 10 a.m. the Jubilee envelopes were seen to be in circula- tion in the sorting offices. Many people had resorted to the expedient of taking the correspondence cards out of the envelopes and using them as jDOstal communication cards, in some instances prepaying them by means of halfpenny stamps, and thus rendering the cards liable to surcharge. To end the account. There were eighty-one telegraph messages sent and fifty-three delivered, thirty-two of the telegrams handed in at the Science Library counter having to be trans- mitted a second time from the Architectural Court to the Cen- tral Telegraph Office. 216 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. The impressions of the Jubilee stamp given at the rate of Id. each, and the sale of Tables of Inland and Foreign Postal Kates and of cards for the protection of the Jubilee envelopes (passing through the post), realized the sum of £14 16.s. Od. The paper bands round the packets of envelopes were much sought after, and in many cases prized equally with the envelopes. I am very pleased indeed to be able to state that, notwith- standino- all the confusion, bustle, and turmoil which attended the transactions of the Postal public business at the chief Post- Office, the money account has been accurately balanced. Miss Parsons, of the Regent Street Post-Office, was in charge of the account, assisted by Miss Turner of the North-Western District Office, and Miss Coombes, of the Lambeth Branch Office, partly shared tlie responsibility. These officers where ably seconded by their zealous assistants, viz. : — Misses C. S. Brown, A. E. Bean, L. C. Grimes, A. E. Martin, E. C. Fletcher, A. O. Gurton, E. L. Townsend, E. A. Adeney, A. M. Martin, and L. M. Blewitt, and by Mrs. Blewitt and Mrs. Taplin. Few people found their way to the Cruickshank Gallery, but considerable interest was taken in the curious address books and the splendid show of foreign postage stamps, which took very many days to prepare. Some of the designs in which the postage stamps had been arranged were mucli admired by the visitors. The designs (fifty-eight) for the Jubilee date stamp, which were prepared in response to an invitation issued to the Post- masters and staff of the London Postal Service, were exhibited. I think the designs Avere all so good as to reflect credit on the officers who submitted them. The models of the Travelling Post- Offices, which were one ot the special features at the Guildhall and gave immense satisfac- tion there, were almost neglected owing to having been placed upstairs. Mr. Hone, the ambulance sergeant, reported several cases of faintness and giddiness. Fortunately there was no accident whatever. CONVERSAZIONE AT SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM. 217 I may perhaps add to my report that several country postmen were noticed taking particular interest in everything that was to be seen and heard. One man, who had been in the service of the department thirty-eight years, travelled all the way from Cornwall to be present, and others came from far-off places such as Morpeth and Durham, bringing their wives with them. An officer travelled to London from a point even so far distant as Lerwick in the Shetland Islands. Perhaps the most strange visitors were several babies in arms, who were being carried about the Museum. The fond parents hoped that at the Centenary of the Uniform Penny Postage System their children would be able to say they were present at its Jubilee. It is a somewhat invidious task to laud any of the officers of my Department who were engaged in connection with the Conversazione when all worked so well. I should, however, be wanting in proper appreciation of excellent services rendered if I were not particularly to name Miss Parsons, Miss Turner, and Miss Brown, upon whose shoulders fell the brunt of the business at the Chief Post-Office, — Miss Coombes, who most efficiently managed the Branch Office in the Science Library, — Mr. Eynon, who supervised the Telegraph business of the Public Post-Office, • — Mr. Kerans, who managed the Counter and Staff arrange- ments, and attended to stocks,— Mr. Supervisor Cooper, who was indefatigable in the outside department, in arranging the coaches, mail vans, &c., and seeing to their departure and arrival, — and especially Mr. Bray, who was my chief director from first to last. The fitting up and taking down of the Post-Offices were processes of a far from light character, and it is most gratifying to record the great kindness and assistance rendered spon- taneously by gentlemen attached to the South Kensington Museum. As I have already mentioned, Mr. R. Thompson, the Assistant- Director of the Museum, was urbanity and kindness itself. We are also greatly indebted to Mr. W. E. Streatfield for the 218 JUBILEE OF PENNY POSTAGE. shifting of euormous pieces of statuary and for the supply of various fittings in order to enable us to erect our Post-Offiees, and for other most valuable aid. Inspector Rowlands, of the Police, was also most useful. Mr. Jones, Mr. Clark, and Mi*. How, Clerks of Works under the Office of Works, were exceedingly obliging, and supplied not only the necessary fittings, including the 1790 and 1990 Post-Offices, but also furnished a sufficient force of carpenters and labourers for the rapid erection of the fittings upon the selected site of the Museum. In my report on the City Jubilee Celebration I ventured to suggest that a Grand Post-Office Exhibition of all nations held in London would probably be a success. The only suggestion I have now to make is that the conversaziones and city exhibition brought together so many articles of great interest in connection with the postal service of the country, that it would be a fitting opportunity to commence the establishment of a permanent Post-Office Museum. R. C. Tombs. LoxDOX, Juhj 2bth, 1890. fAC-SIMILE OF DATE STAMPS USED AT GUILDHALL AND AT SOUTH KENSINGTON. Bt* tralia {via Italy) ) Venezuela Gold Coast, Natal, Singapore, Transvaal . . . . Argentine Republic Brazil Cape Colony, Ceylon. India (Bombay), Sierra Leone Zanzibar Bermudas, British Columbia, Cuba, United States (San Francisco) Mexico St. Helena, West Indies Aden, Beyrout, C'yprus Canary Islands Gambia Canada, United States (Now York) Egypt Madeira, Malta Gibraltar 30 Oct. 7 Nov. 7 Nov 13 Nov 13 Nov. 21 Nov 14 Nov. „ 21 Nov. 5 Dec. 28 Nov 26 Nov. 10 Dec 28 Nov. 5 Dec 29 Nov. 4 Dec 4 Dec. 5 Dec, 12 Dec j> 5 Dec 6 Dec. 13 Dec 10 Dec, 17 Dec J J 10 Dec 12 Dec. 19 Dec 23 Dec 12 Dec 13 Dec. 20 Dec. 19 Dec. 2.5 Dec jj 26 Dec. 20 Dec. 27 Dec The notices directing the public when to post for the foreign and colonial Christmas and New Year's letter and parcel mails were exhibited and widely distributed early in October, and, judging from comments in the newspapers, these notices, acting as reminders not to forget kith and kin beyond the seas at the festive season, were much ajipreciated. The notices probaldy prompted tradesmen not to be behindhand in meeting the demand for cards to be sent abroad, for soon after they were issued the inscription "Christmas Cards for Foreign Mails " appeared in stationers' windows. Post Early Notices. Notwithstanding that large posters were exhibited early in October on the mail vans and carts and at the principal Post-Offices in Loudon warning the public as to foreign posting dates, it was observed that a great many letters and parcels, evidently intended for dcdivery either at Christmas or the New Year, were posted too late to catch the proiter mails, causing no doubt much disappoint- ment both to the senders and to the addressees, and it is desirable that another 322 APPENDIX. year notices should be issued week by week, as more striking reminders than a general list issued in October. Very many puddings, pies, and other goodly fare of the kind would reach their destination too late for consumption on Christmas Day. Scarcely had Christmas Day dawned before the "Post Early" notices, then no longer necessary, were removed from the mail vans and carts, and those relating to "Reduction in Postage" on letters for India and the Colonies substituted, thus dismissing Christmas and directing the public mind to the important change about to take place. Australasian Colonies. The first outgoing Christmas letter mails were those for the colony of New Zealand. The two fortnightly mails atiected took nine percent, more letters, &c., between them than were despatched by the corresponding mails in the previous year. The increase over two ordinary mails was thirty-five per cent. The next principal mails to be despatched were those for the Australian colonies. Those sent by the all-sea route were not appreciably atiected by the Christmas cards, but by the overland route, via, Brindisi, there was a considerable increase. The postal articles sent by the four weekly Australian mails which took the Cliristmas and New Year's cards rose by ten per cent, over the previous year's figiu'es, and the increase over an ordinary period was thirty-six per cent. The heaviest mail was carried by the Peninsular and Oriental Comjiany's steamer Massilia, which took 622 mail bags, containing about double the usual number of letters, &c. India and China. The Christmas and New Year's correspondence caused a very considerable addition to the mails for India, China, and the East. The four mails aff'ected thereby consisted of 2,633 bags as against 2,060 by four ordinary mails, and 2,395 by the four corresponding mails of last year. Cape of Good Hope. The letters, &c., sent by the three Cape mails which carried the bulk of the Christmas and New Year's cards were fifty per cent, in excess of the letters, &c., sent by three ordinary mails. One mail alone consisted of 280 bags, whereas 257 was the largest number sent by a single mail at the previous Christmas season. West Indies. Nearly 100 additional bags were despatched by the Christmas mails to the West Indies as against about seventy at the previous Christmas season. Canada and United States. The splendid steamers of the Cunard, White Star, and Allan lines, which are constantly crossing the waters which divide the old from the new world, carried heavier mails than usual. The posting of Christmas and New Year's cards for the United States and Canada was spread over three weeks, and the mail bags despatched to the United States during that jjeriod were 2,739, and to Canada 797. This exceeds the number of bags despatched during three ordinary weeks by 1,164 and 317 respectively. During the week ended the 13th December 1,455 bags in all were sent from London to the North American continent, being an increase of 259 on any previous record. The Christmas mail for BiiiTLSH Columbia was despatched from London on the 6th December, and took nearly twice as many letters, &c., as an ordinary mail. Since the extension of the Canadian Pacific Railway to Vancouver in June, 1886, the transmission of the mails for APPENDIX. 323 British Columbia has been greatly accelerated. The journey of 6,000 miles by sea and land is accomplished at the rate of 430 miles a day, so that the Christmas cards posted in London on the 6th December would be at their destination four or five days before the Christmas festival. The Bermudas. It may be worthy of remark that the Christmas mail for the Bermudas carried 1,000 more letters than in the previous year, the comparatively large increase being no doubt attributable to a regiment of Her Majesty's Guards being stationed there. Madeira, West Africa, &c. The Island of Madeira, the celebrated winter resort, received nearly 2,000 additional letters by the Christmas mail, a striking contrast to the very few missives of the kind which were sent to the fever- stricken British Possessions on the West Coast of Africa. About 8,000 more letters than usual were sent to the British Military and Naval Stations — Gibraltar and Malta — in the Mediterranean. As much l^ublic attention is now directed to the Congo Free State, the fact that to this vast region only about 260 letters are sent per mail, and that the Christmas mail took 329, and the New Year's Mail 340, may be interesting. Attention was recently called in the daily newspapers to the entry of the East African Company into the Universal Postal Union, and public curiosity was aroused by the fact being men- tioned that new postage stamps had been specially prepared for sale by the Company, to prepay correspondence from East Africa to other parts of the world. The letters from this country are sent to Mombassa and Lamoo. By an ordinary mail the letters, &c. , for Mombassa number 240, but by the mail of the 5th December, whicii fitted into the Christmas delivery, 550 letters, &c., were for- warded, and to Lamoo 120 letters, &c. , instead of the usual number of about fifty by an ordinary mail. The inward Christmas mails received from these places con- tained comparatively few letters, about 130 coming from Mombassa, and twelve only from Lamoo. The Christmas cards despatched this year to the Colonies and foreign countries were rather smaller in size than those sent in previous years. Inward Mails. The mails from India, China, and the East, which arrived on the 15th Decem- ber, consisted of fifty-si.x bags more than usual. The excess letters were 23,000, and the newspapers 12,250, whilst the registered letters rose from 2,800, the normal number, to 4,200. The succeeding mail which arrived four days before Christmas was correspondingly heavy. By the mail from Australia, which arrived on the 23rd December, ninety extra bags, and 40,000 additional letters, &c., came to hand ; about 600 extra mail bags containing 176,000 letters, &c., were re- ceived from the United States during the week ended the 27th December. The heaviest mail ever received from that country arrived by the North German ss. Trave on the 26th December. It consisted of 718 bags as against 716 received by the same vessel on the same date in the previous year. Continental Letter Mails. During the season 600 extra hags, and nearly 400,000 additional letters, &c., were despatched from this country to the Continent. The inward mails showed an in- crease of 900 bags, and over 600,000 letters. Foreign Parcel Mails. The five mails for New Zealand which were more or less affected bj' Christ- mas postings took out 3,839 parcels, being an increase of 1,424 over an ordinary period, but only twenty-four over the corresponding season in the previous year. The heaviest mail consisted of 1,106 parcels, or nearly three times as many as the 324 APPENDIX. iisual number. As regards the parcels for the Australian Colonies, tlie results are very satisfactory. The nuuiber of mails taken into account was eight, and the total number of parcels des])atched by them was 9,532, as against 7,815 at the previous Christmas season, and 5,232 at ordinary times, being an increase of 22 per cent, and 82 per cent, respectively. The heaviest mail of the eight left the Tilbury Docks by the Orient steamer Cuzeo, on the 20th November, and consisted of fifty-eight boxes containing nearly 2,000 parcels, or over three times the normal number. This is the largest parcel mail to the Australian Colonies yet on record. It must be remarked, however, that it was too late for the Christmas and New Year's deliveries in most cases. The parcel mails for the Augentink Republic are despatched to Buenos Ayres fortnightly, and are usually contained in two boxes, the average number of parcels being about fifty. The Christmas mail which w^ent out on the 20th November by the Royal Mail steamer Magdalena from Southampton, consisted of five boxes containing 107 parcels, and the New Year's mail, which left by the La Plata a fortnight later, of five boxes and 105 parcels, or more than double the normal numbers in each case. The parcels for Cape Colony, Natal, the Orange Free State, and other places in South Africa usually number 580 per mail. The four imiils which were aftected by the Christmas and New Year's season took out in the aggregate 6,047 parcels, against 5,041 sent by the corresponding mails in the previous year. This gives an in- crease of over 1,000 parcels, or 20 per cent. The largest mail of the four — v.'hich was also the heaviest mail ever despatched to the Cape — was that made up on the 38th November for conveyance by the Union Company's steamer Tartar from Southampton. It consisted of 1,592 parcels. The parcel mails for some of the smaller British Possessions also showed a large increase. For instance, ninety-six parcels were sent to Mauritius, thirty-seven to Ascension, and sixty-nine to St. Helena, for delivery at Christmas, as against forty-two, twenty-nine, and forty- five respectively at an ordinary period. The Christmas mail for Zanzibar was twice as heavy as an ordinary mail. The aggregate number of parcels sent to China and the Straits Settlements by the three fortnightly mails, which included the Christmas and New Year parcels, was 2,852, as against 1,554 by three ordinary mails, and 2,224 by the corresponding mails of the previous year, being an increase of 83 per cent, and 28 per cent, resi^ectively. The mail despatched on the 26th November was the heaviest, the number of parcels being 150 per cent, in excess of the ordinary numbers. The sailors on board Her Majesty's ships on the China Station were not forgotten, as seventy-five parcels for the fleet were sent out by the mail of the 26th November, as against about thirty at ordinary times. The most important parcel mail despatched from this country is that for India. The Foreign and Colonial Parcel Post system was inaugurated witli this post, and it has always retained the first place in point of numbers. The parcels forwarded by the weekly mail to Bombay number 1,261. The Christmas mail which went out on the 26th November by the P. & 0. steamer Carthage took 2,882 parcels, and the New Year's mail despatched the follow- ing week 2,899 parcels. There was a still greater increase as regards the mail despatched on the 10th December, which consisted of no less than 3,361 parcels, being nearly three times the normal number. It was the heaviest mail to India yet on record. Of the parcels included in the mail, 444 contained Christmas cards, 588 Christmas books, and fifty-nine Christmas pjuddings, &c. All other outward foreign parcel mails were far heavier than usual. Homeward Mails. There was a marked difference in the contents of the outward and inward colonial parcels. Those going out contained a great many Christmas cards, puddings, and other articles incidental to the season ; but very few parcels of the kind Avere imported. Out of 1,142 jiarcels received from Bombay for the Christmas delivery in this country only twenty-nine contained Christmas cards. The incoming parcels, however, consisted for the most part of miscellaneous {irticles suitable for Christmas presents. APPENDIX. 325 Insured Fokeign Parcels, The system of insurance of i)arcels for places abroad obtains with India and Aden only. The ordinary parcels despatched to India are more numerous than those received ; but in the case of insured parcels the proportions are reversed, the average number of such parcels exported at ordinary times being forty-five, and tliose imported 177. This is no doubt owing to the fact tliat insurance of parcels was established in India long before it was commenced in this country, and the system is more familiar there than it is here. The insured parcels sent by tlie Christmas mails in both directions showed a very considerable increase. The average number despatched by four mails in November and December was 122, or nearly three times as many as usual. The greatest number sent by any one mail was 137. The homeward mail arriving on the 16th December brought 270 insured parcels, and that arriving on the 24th December 359, being an increase of ninety-three and 182 respectively on the ordinary mails. Of the 359 insured parcels received on the 24th December 165 contained jewellery. Very marked indeed was the increase in the continental parcel traffic. During the Chri.stmus week the parcels despatched from London numbered 20,230, that being an increase of 11,713 on a like number of dnys at an ordinary period. The inward continental parcels rose from the usual weekly number of 4,970 to 11,800 for the Christmas week. The greatest number despatched was on Sunday the 21st December, when 3,585 parcels were forwarded, as against 1,420 on an average day. On Saturday the 27th instant 2,816 parcels were received from the continent, or 2,000 in excess of an ordinary day's arrival. Of this number 1,800 were imported from Germany via Hamburg. The excess number of parcels forwarded from London to places abroad dui'ing the whole season was not far short of 60,000, and about 28,000 extra parcels \vere imported. Contraband Foreign Parcels. Only thirteen parcels were seized by the Customs Officers for false declaration of contents in order to avoid payment of duty. In former years very many more parcels, the contents of which were declared by the senders as sweetmeats, toys, fancy aiticlcs, &c. , and found to be contraband goods, such as cigars, cigarettes, tobacco, and silver plate, were confiscated. This fact speaks well for the vigilance displayed by the Custom House Officers on former occasions, which has no doubt taught smugglers a salutary lesson, and they have now become honest peo2)le as evidenced by the fact that 175 more parcels declared to contain tobacco, &c., were received on this Christmas than at the iirevious season. The parcels detained under the Merchandise Marks Act numljered only eleven, as against fifty at the preceding Christmas. Inland Letter Services. In the week preceding the Christmas season the fog, frost, and snow gave rise to the gloomiest apprehensions. The mail trains arrived from one to three hours behind time, and the services throughout London were dislocated in consequence. The driveis of the mail vans and carts were in a benumbed condition. The horses were jaded and worn out, owing to the slippery state of the streets, and to the great strain caused by the heavy fall of snow. Altogether it was difficult to look forwaixl to the Christmas week with any degree of equanimity. The usual difficulties of the season were intensified from the fact tliat Monday the 22nd December, when it was expected there would be considerable activity in the post- ing, was the bhickest day of all the year, and private, and indeed business, posting was only carried on where absolutely unavoidable. Truly that day will be marked in Post-Office annals as "darkest ilonday." The fog, the frost, and the snow combined had the effect of putting all the mail-van arrangements out of gear. The horses, not recovered from the fatigue of the previous week, were not up to the mark to encounter the Christmas heavy work, and the contractors were at their wits' ends. So slippery were the roads tliat iu the hilly districts of Highgate and Hampstead the postmen liad to meet 326 APPENDIX. the carts and carry the bags to the sub-district sorting-office on their backs. The officers were much tried by the fog. Indeed one poor fellow suffering from bronchitis was so much affected by it tliat, after being seen by the medical officer, he was obliged to be taken home in a cab. The night mail trains from the .several London termini were despatched veiy late, some of them starting nearly two hours behind the proper time. Brighter Outlook and Heavy Mailing. Matters considerably brightened on Tuesday morning, the 23rd December, when the fog lifted ; the thoroughfares became passable, and by about three o'clock in the day something like a restoration of ordinary working was achieved. The Christmas correspondence now poured into the chief office in St. Martin's-le-Grand, there seeming no limit to the postings, and from that time it Avas a continuous struggle for the mastery. The work went on therefrom by night and day without intermission, and it was not until seven o'clock in the morning of Christmas Day that the primary sorting of the letters, &c., was finished. "Clear-up" at St. Martin's. The large accumulation of letters which had taken place in the Eailway Division Rooms began to be overcome at about eight o'clock, and soon after that time some of the supernumeraries, who had been on for a very lengthened spell, were permitted to leave. A general clear-up was made at about 9 a.m., when the bulk of the staff was allowed to go home. The despatching officers had, however, to stop till noon to make up the bags for despatch by the night mails. The letters, although not more numerous tlian last year, were received equally late, but on the whole very satisfactory despatches were effected. The letters, which were included in the bags for the night mails, bore no earlier date of provincial l)osting than the 24th December. It was noticeable that about nine out of every ten letters in circulation on the 24th December contained Christmas cai'ds. The cards on the whole were considered to be rather smaller in size than in previous years. At the General Post-Office the brunt of the battle has always to be encountered, as, being the large forwarding office of the world, it becomes, at times, congested with its " through" work. This year was no exception to the rule ; but it can safely be said that the circulation branches were never more than about six hours behind the work, and that is borne out by the fact of the absence of complaints of delay. Vast as the preparations have been, and large as was the extra force employed throughout London, not a single penny was expended unnecessarily. In order to keep important letters from bankers, merchants, &c., unmixed with the mass of Christmas correspondence, and thus ensure their due despatch, arrangements were made for such letters to be specially collected or handed in over the counter at the General Post-Office or at Lombard Street Branch Office. Altogether 80,000 important letters were thus saved the risk of delay, and satisfaction was given to City bankers and merchants. This year's record of numbers does not exceed that of last year, and it may be assumed, therefore, that the excess cards, letters, circulars, &c., dealt with in London during the season amounted to about 50,000,000, — that is about treble the normal numbers for one week, or nearly four letters at Christmas for one at an ordinary period. That through the channel of the General Post- Office in St. Martin's-le-Grand alone close upon 25,000,000 more letters than usual passed during the Christmas week, shows the vast capabilities of Post- Office head-quarters. Heavy as the correspondence was, no difficulty was experienced in rapidly transmitting it from one point of London to another, or from railway station to station, as about 1,000 vehicles and drivers, 1,500 horses, and 300 hand-carts were available for the purpose. The Electric Light, only recently installed at the General Post-Office, was used on the first and second floors, with excellent results, the atmosphere in the sorting-offices having APPENDIX. 327 been much puver than on previous occasions, and the large staff massed in the several offices were enabled to work in far greater comfort than heretofore. The superintending officers and men were alike loud in its praises. The men certainly- performed their duty far better this year than they have ever done before, and that is attributed to the improved atmospliere. There was an absence of that languor which has been so perceptible amongst the officers at the close of the duty in previous years. The duty was completed an hour earlier than it would have been if the men had been compelled to work again in a vitiated air. The benefit of the electric light was especially felt on the outside platforms and in the yards at the General Post-Office where the mail vans are loaded and unloaded. The brilliant light shed by the large arc lamps admitted of tlie labelling of the bags being easily read. It also materially assisted the work of marshalling vans and in preventing congestion of traffic. As a consec[ueuce the mails were placed in and taken out of the vans — even at the busiest times — without confusion, and with great celerity. The letter duties in all the main line Travelling Post-Offices, which are affiliated to the London Postal Service, were successfully completed throughout the recent Christmas season. On Christmas Eve the quantity of season work sent into the respective mails was enormous, but, aided by the special arrangements in force, under which direct bags had been established between all points where the amount of correspondence was sufficient to justify such a step, it was found possible to complete each duty. In the up night mails the failures at junctions, and the additional time for sortation which was secured through the slow running of the trains, admitted of the letters being all sorted and duly disposed of. The mails from the General Post-Office were forwarded to the trains with gi'eat promptitude. This was specially so as regards the night mail despatches from Euston. On Christmas Eve the last bag for the special mail was actually in the train half a minute before the appointed time of departure. Reference must be made to the apparatus for despatching and receiving letter bags from the mail trains when in motion, as this is tried to its utmost capacity at the Christmas season. The number of exchanges of mails daily from the station standards into the carriage nets is 516, and from the carriages to the stationary nets it is 530. The total number of mail bags included in these exchanges is about 2,000. On an average about 110,000 letters, &c., a day are exchanged by the apparatus at a normal period, of which about 85,000 or nearly four-fifths are sorted in the Travelling Post-Offices, the remainder being sent direct in bags from one town to another through the Travelling Post- Offices unopened. At the Christmas season the number of letters, &c., exchanged by the apparatus was increased by about 60 per cent. Inland Parcel Duty. From the busy duties at the General Post-Office and District Letter Offices thoughts had to be turned from time to time towards the parcel offices. It might be supposed that, from the bold display of "post early" notices, people •would take care to post their parcels sufficiently early to admit of delivery at latest on the morning of Christmas Day, but the)' have yet to become alive to the fact that bulky parcels cannot be handled so easily and with such rapidity as letters ; and while such is the case it is out of the question for them to expect that the one should be dealt with in as little time as the other at the Christmas season. It is evident that the public now place great confidence in the parcel arrangements of the Post-Office, for although there is free-trade in parcel- carrying, yet the increase in the parcel traffic of the Christmas season shows nearly as great an ex])ansion as the letter service. The troubles caused by the Adverse Elements to the letter service affected the parcel service even in a more marked degree. 328 APPENDIX. The fog in the East End was so dense that the mail cart drivers could not see their horses' heads. And the guard who accompanied the Indian and Australian parcel mails to the docks had the utmost difficulty in finding the ship. The mail van arrangements were entirely upset by the late arrival of trains, the vehicles being kept waiting at stations for hours, and having in many cases to be driven off to perform other services. The same thing happened with the force. Men were up all night at the stations with little to do, and when they had gone home to rest and the trains arrived, the platfonns were crowded with baskets for a time with scarcelj'^ any one to touch them, and with few vans to caiTy them away. Then a jaded force had quickly to be got together again. Reserve vans had been placed at each station, but even these wei-e drawn away. At the IVfount Pleasant Parcel Office, which is the chief depot in London, from the 23rd December was A Most Remarkable Scene. The very large premises and the temporarj' sheds erected for the occasion were literally choked with parcels of all shapes and sizes. The baskets, bag pro- tectors, barrels, and other receptacles were opened as rapidly as possible, but, notwithstanding this, there was scarcely room to move in any part of the build- ing. The vans were unloaded immediately they arrived, so that there was no detention of them, and consequently no dislocation of the vehicular service. Inside the building the receptacles were opened and the parcels carefully packed in heaps against the walls, in order to confine the bulk within the narrowest possible limits. At 5 p.m. on the 24th December, so numerous were the parcels, that it seemed as though it would be a matter of impossibilitj' to clear the oftico for many days. As parcels disappeared others came in. Never before had so many parcels under 11 lbs. in weight been aggregated in one depot. On Christmas morning it was evident that the Vast Accumulation of Parcels could not be cleared off by the tired and jaded men who had been on duty for about twenty-four hours, and there was nothing for it but to dispei'se the staff, which was done at noon. When the order was given for all the men to break off and to resume their labours at midnight there was a cheer, showing that the men were animated with British pluck, and would be ready and willing to recommence the struggle after a little rest. By noon on the 26th December (Boxing Day) the accumulation was disposed of, but there were heavy and late arrivals from the provinces on that morning, and on the following morning also. The business transacted at The Public Counters was far in excess of any previous year. Taking the three days immediately pre- ceding Christmas Day the number of transactions, excluding the sale of stamp.s, was D8 per cent, more than last year, and aljout 66 per cent, more than in ordinary. A similar comparison shows an increase of 60 per cent, over the usual sale of stamps. But even this large increase in transactions and sales does not fully indicate the extra work involved. The stamp sales were largely made up of very small purchases, and these involve as much work individually as large ones. Thousands of demands were made for single stamps, and the number of inquiries and requests to weigh letters was much higher proportionately than at ordinary times. At many offices on the busiest days the parcels handed in were seven or eight times, and jiostal orders and registered letters from four to five times more numerous than usual. There was a constant stream of people at the counters from early morning till late at night, and many offices were crowded to the doors for hours together. At many of the more important of these offices the business is conducted b}^ a female staff, which coped with the extra work in a most satisfactory and creditable manner. APPENDIX. 329 Posting of Pakcels, At the chief office on the 23r(l December, 6,000 parcels were handed in over the connter, the ordinary daily number being about 2,500. The largest number handed in on any one day last year was 4,600. At the Putney Branch Post-Office the average day's posting of parcels is about 100. On the 2.3rd December this number rose to 800. At the High Street, Hampstead Branch Office, the number of parcels posted on the same date were twelve times as many as on an ordinary day. A considerable increase took place even in Telegraph Bttsixess. There were 27,000 more messages handed in, and 29,000 more sent out for delivery from the telegraph offices in London than ordinary. Fortunately this very important branch of the service was not afiected by adverse elements, and the other services, crippled as they were, derived much assistance from its powerful agency. Death of a Superintesdekt. Sad to relate, Mr. G. W. Martin, who for the many years the Christmas card has been in vogue, ever took a prominent part as assistant superintendent, or superintendent, in the annual struggle at the Chief Office, died at 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve, usually his busiest hour in the whole year. Notwithstanding the slippery state of the roads, yards, slopes, &c., very few men met with Accidents. At midnight, when the work was at its height in St. Martin's-le-Grand, there was an accident to one of the three lifts which are used in carrying the bags and correspondence from floor to floor. A man carrying bags dropped a STuall bundle on one of the trays of the lift, and this bundle became firmly jammed into the ironwork, the effect being that one of the chains snapped. Fortunately no one was injured, but the loss of the use of the lift at such a time was seriously felt. The first unpleasant incident of the Christmas period was the loss of four insured parcels from a bo.x forming part of a homeward Indian parcel mail. The robbery was discovered immediately the mail was opened and occasioned much anxiety, which however was allayed by a letter received from the Com- mander who was in charge of the mail steamer, from which it transpired that the theft was found out on board, and is said to have been committed by the Arabs, who were discharging cargo day and night from the hold when the ship was aground in the Suez Canal. Another incident of the season was that the Finsbury Park Branch Office was in imminent danger of being burnt down on tlie morning of the 24th instant. The adjoining shop took fire and was soon burnt out. It was feared that the Branch Office would suff'er the same fate, but happily this was averted by the eS'orts of the Fire Brigade. On the morning of Bo.xing Day at the ^Mount Pleasant Refreshment Room the bread supply was exhausted, and the neighbourhood was scoured to find a baker's shop open in order to get bread for breakfast. After a long search a baker was discovered in the act of drawing his bread from the oven, and his whole stock was secured. The work of the Post-Office was splendidly accomplished throughout the season of pressure by The Willing Efforts of the Whole Staff, notwithstanding that the men had to battle not only with Christmas cards and parcels, but with adverse elements. Great as was the strain upon the staff" dealing with letters, it was still gi-eater and more trying as regards the men engaged upon parcel work, as the latter is performed under more adv<^rse circumstances. The men going off duty on the 24th December could not be 330 APPENDIX. allowed thuir piY-viously allotted twelve hours' rest, and had to resume duty at 7 P.M. Three of these persons, mere lads, who lived at long distances from the Office, were found to have improvised beds for themselves in the booths erected for refreshment purposes. They had no soft couches, but had made cribs of large parcel-baskets, which they had filled with straw from the floor, and mail-bags had to serve as sheets, blankets, and counterpanes. Their Controller was sorry that his entrance deprived them for a few minutes of the sleep which they so much needed and had so well earned. The Ourro.sT Dity was probably the most unpleasant, viz., that performed by officers who were at the railway stations throughout the night attending to the arrivals and despatches. The platform of a large railway station is not the most pleasant place in the world to spend a night on, and they always appear to be colder places than are to be found anywhere else. The Postmasters, upon whom devolve the responsibility of carrying on the Post- Office administration in the districts of London, were most energetic, from senior to junior, in leading their forces on to meet the vast influx of work. Their frequent telegiams were indicative of the business being carried on with spirit throughout, and the Department is much indebted to them for their gi-eat exertions, and for their methodical organization. The staff' officers at Head- Quarters greatly distinguished themselves, and each one has added another to the many obligations already received by the Department at their hands. The Controller can give them no better guerdon than a good word, but that good word he heartily accords to all, from the highest to the lowest, in the London postal service. In order that an idea may be gained of what took place Away from Head Quarter.s, a report made by the Postmaster wlio presides over the district embracing Pad- dington. Netting Hill, Kensington, Hammersmitli and adjoining suburbs is here given : — "It is safe to say that there never was a Christmas season when the postal service was thrown into such disorganization by the weather as it has been this year. Trains were delayed by the fogs, and carts by the snow. The regular flow of work was prevented all through the week. The staff' thus had to do their work under great disadvantages, and the outdoor work was rendered exceptionally fatiguing. In spite of all hindrances, however, the pressure was met satisfactorily in all branches of the duty, especially in the letter department. The collections and deliveries of letters went on promptly and without interruption. There was not the slightest hitch or accumulation of work from the beginning of the pressure, on Sunday the 21st December, to the close on Christmas morning. The parcel duty was less satisfactory, as it is bound to be at all times of pressure. The one great difficulty is its bulk, wliich causes a block to be inevitable, unless tliere are great facilities for storing the baskets, and an unstinted van service. The temporary depot in Edgware Koad, used for collecting purposes, was not pressed on Monday the 22nd Deceml)er, as the fog and snow prevented local posting. On the 23rd, and for a great part of the 24th December, the collections into that depot were enormous, and the work was done at high pressure. From the afternoon of the 24th to that of the 25th — Clu'istmas Day — it rendered invaluable helj^ in despatching duties to the Paddington Station depijt. The Soitth Wharf Road temporary depot dealt satisfactorily with the town and some of the subur- ban deliveries. The Hammersmith "booth" for parcel duty was threatened with failure, as tlie weather was so inclement, and the Gas Company could not lay on the gas (which was relied upon for both light and warmth), because the pipes could not be interfered with during the frost. The Office of Works, how- ever, promptly supplied oil lamps and coal stoves, with which the staff' made shift. APPENDIX. 331 '•It was at the Paddington Station depijt where most of the difficulty of the season pressure lay. All went well till the 24tli, when the little depot was over- whelmed with railway and inter-depot work. The state of affairs would have been most embarrassing if baskets had not been stackeil on the vacant site at Francis Street. The small triangular space in front of the depot was piled up to its fullest extent with hundreds of baskets which there was no possibilitj- of arranging suitably. Under these trying circumstances it redounds to the credit of the inspector and his staff that early on the morning of Christmas Day the depot was absolutely clear — though abundance of work came in afterwards from Mount Pleasant and other districts, which necessitated the staff remaining on duty till 1 P.M., and resuming work at 11 P.M. on Christmas Day. " All the casuals have worked admirably, the policemen having again given valuable help ; and the commissionaires have beha%'ed satisfactorily. In telegraph work the pressure was exceptionally great this Christmas." KICUARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITEIi, UJSDON AND BL'NGAV.