A Hundred Years by Post Part 1

A Hundred Years by Post.

by J. Wilson Hyde.

PREFACE.

The following pages give some particulars of the changes that have taken place in the Post Office service during the past hundred years; and the matter may prove interesting, not only on account of the changes themselves, but in respect of the influence which the growing usefulness of the Postal Service must necessarily have upon almost every relation of political, educational, social, and commercial life. More especially may the subject be found attractive at the close of the present year, when the country has been celebrating the Jubilee of the Penny Post.

EDINBURGH,

_December 1890._

A HUNDRED YEARS BY POST.

Were a former inhabitant of this country who had quitted the stage of life towards the close of last century to reappear in our midst, he could not fail to be struck with the wonderful changes which have taken place in the aspect of things; in the methods of performing the tasks of daily life; and in the character of our social system generally. Nor is it too much to say that he would see himself surrounded by a world full of enchantment, and that his senses of wonder and admiration would rival the feelings excited in youthful minds under the spell of books like Jules Verne's _Journey to the Moon_, or the ever-entertaining stories of the _Arabian Nights_. It is true that he would find the operations of nature going on as before. The dewdrop and the blade of gra.s.s, suns.h.i.+ne and shower, the movements of the tides, and the revolutions of the heavenly bodies; these would still appear to be the same. But almost everything to which man had been wont to put his hand would appear to bear the impress of some other hand; and a hundred avenues of thought opening to his bewildered sense would consign his inward man to the education of a second childhood.

So fruitful has been the nineteenth century in discovery and invention, and so astounding the advancement made, that it is only by stopping in our madding haste and looking back that we can realise how different the present is from the past. Yet to our imaginary friend's astonished perception, nothing, we venture to think, would come with greater force than the contrast between the means available for keeping up communications in his day and in our own. We are used to see trains coursing on the iron way at a speed of fifty or sixty miles an hour; steams.h.i.+ps moving on every sea, defiant of tide and wind, at the rate of fifteen or twenty miles an hour; and the electric telegraph outstripping all else, and practically annihilating time and s.p.a.ce.

But how different was the state of things at the close of the eighteenth century! The only means then available for home communications--that is for letters, etc.--were the Foot Messenger, the Horse Express, and the Mail Coach; and for communication with places beyond the sea, sailing-s.h.i.+ps.

The condition of things as then existing, and as reflected upon society, is thus summed up by Mackenzie in his _History of the Nineteenth Century_: "Men had scarcely the means to go from home beyond such trivial distance as they were able to accomplish on foot. Human society was composed of a mult.i.tude of little communities, dwelling apart, mutually ignorant, and therefore cheris.h.i.+ng mutual antipathies."

And when persons did venture away from home, in the capacity of travellers, the entertainment they received in the hostelries, even in some of the larger towns, seems now rather remarkable. If anything surprises the traveller of these latter days, in regard to hotel accommodation, when business or pleasure takes him from the bosom of his family, it is the sumptuous character of the palaces in all the princ.i.p.al towns of all civilised countries wherein he may be received, and where he may make his temporary abode. To persons used to such comforts, the accommodation of the last century would excite surprise in quite another direction. Here is a description of the inn accommodation of Edinburgh, furnished by Captain Topham, who visited Edinburgh in 1774: "On my first arrival, my companion and self, after the fatigue of a long day's journey, were landed at one of these stable-keepers (for they have modesty enough to give themselves no higher denomination) in a part of the town called the Pleasance; and, on entering the house, we were conducted by a poor devil of a girl, without shoes or stockings, and with only a single linsey-woolsey petticoat which just reached half-way to her ankles, into a room where about twenty Scotch drovers had been regaling themselves with whisky and potatoes. You may guess our amazement when we were informed that this was the best inn in the metropolis--that we could have no beds unless we had an inclination to sleep together, and in the same room with the company which a stage-coach had that moment discharged."

Before proceeding further, let us look at some of the circ.u.mstances which were characteristic of the period with which we are dealing.

Liberty of the subject and public opinion are inseparably wedded together, and this seems inevitable in every country whose government partakes largely of the representative system. For in such States, unlike the conditions which obtain under despotic governments, the laws are formulated and amended in accordance with the views held for the time being by _the people_, the Government merely acting as the agency through which the people's will is declared. And this being so, what is called the Liberty of the subject must be that limited and circ.u.mscribed freedom allowed by the people collectively, as expressed in the term "public opinion," to the individual man. In despotic States the circ.u.mstances are necessarily different, and such States may be excluded from the present consideration.

Wherever there is wanting a quick and universal exchange of thought there can be no sound public opinion. Where hindrances are placed upon the free exchange of views, either by heavy duties on newspapers, by dear postage, or by slow communications, public opinion must be a plant of low vitality and slow growth. Consequently, in the age preceding that of steam, so far as applied to locomotion, and to the telegraph, which age extended well into the present century, there was no rapid exchange of thought; new ideas were of slow propagation; there was little of that intellectual friction so productive of intellectual light among the ma.s.ses. In these circ.u.mstances it is not surprising to read of things existing within the last hundred years which to-day could have no place in our national existence. Lord c.o.c.kburn, in the _Memorials of his Time_, gives the following instance. "I knew a case, several years after 1800," says he, "where the seat-holders of a town church applied to Government, which was the patron, for the promotion of the second clergyman, who had been giving great satisfaction for many years, and now, on the death of the first minister, it was wished that he should get the vacant place. The answer, written by a Member of the Cabinet, was that the single fact of the people having interfered so far as to express a wish was conclusive against what they desired; and another appointment was instantly made." Going back a little more than a hundred years, the following are specimens of the abuses then in full vigour.

They are referred to in Trevelyan's _Early History of Charles James Fox_, the period in question being about 1750-60: "One n.o.bleman had eight thousand a year in sinecures, and the colonelcies of three regiments. Another, an Auditor of the Exchequer, inside which he never looked, had 8000 in years of peace, and 20,000 in years of war. A third, with nothing to recommend him except his outward graces, bowed and whispered himself into four great employments, from which thirteen to fourteen hundred British guineas flowed month by month into the lap of his Parisian mistress."... "George Selwyn, who returned two members, and had something to say in the election of a third, was at one and the same time Surveyor-General of Crown Lands, which he never surveyed, Registrar in Chancery at Barbadoes, which he never visited, and Surveyor of the Meltings and Clerk of the Irons in the Mint, where he showed himself once a week in order to eat a dinner which he ordered, but for which the nation paid."

The shameful waste of the public money in the shape of hereditary pensions was still in vigour within the period we are dealing with; one small party in the State "calling the tune," and the great ma.s.s of the people, practically unrepresented, being left "to pay the piper." During the reign of George III., who occupied the throne from 1760 to 1820, the following hereditary pensions were granted:--To Trustees for the use of William Penn, and his heirs and descendants for ever, in consideration of his meritorious services and family losses from the American war 4000. To Lord Rodney, and every the heirs-male to whom the t.i.tle of Lord Rodney shall descend, 2000. To Earl Morley and John Campbell, Esq., and their heirs and a.s.signees for ever, upon trust for the representatives of Jeffrey Earl Amherst, 3000. To Viscount Exmouth and the heirs-male to whom the t.i.tle shall descend 2000. To Earl Nelson and the heirs-male to whom the t.i.tle of Earl Nelson shall descend, with power of settling jointures out of the annuity, at no time exceeding 3000 a year, 5000. In addition to this pension of 5000, Parliament also granted to trustees on behalf of Earl Nelson a sum of 90,000 for the purchase of an estate and mansion-house to be settled and entailed to the same persons as the annuity of 5000.

Within the Post Office too very strange things happened in connection with money paid to certain persons supposed to be in its service. Here is a case, in the form of a remonstrance, referring to the period close upon the end of last century, which explains itself. "Mr. Bushe observes that the Government wished to reward his father, Gervas Parker Bushe (who was one of the Commissioners), for his services, and particularly for having increased the revenue 20,000 per annum; but that he preferred a place for his son to any emolument for himself, in consequence of which he was appointed Resident Surveyor. He expressed his astonishment to find in the Patent (which he never looked into before) that it is there mentioned 'during good behaviour,' and not for life, upon which condition alone his father would have accepted it. He adds that it was given to him as totally and absolutely a sinecure, and that his appointment took place at so early a period of life that it would be impossible for him to do any duty."

Again, the following evidence was given before a Commission on oath in 1791, by Mr. Johnson, a letter-carrier in London: "He receives at present a salary as a letter-carrier of 14s. per week, making 36, 19s.

per annum; he likewise receives certain perquisites, arising from such pence as are collected in the evening by letters delivered to him after the Receiving Houses are shut, amounting in 1784 to 38, 11s., also from acknowledgments from the public for sending letters by another letter-carrier not immediately within his walk, amounting in the same year to 5. He likewise receives in Christmas boxes 20,--the above sums, making together 100, was the whole of his receipts of every kind whatever by virtue of his office in 1784 (312 candles and a limited allowance of stationery excepted), out of which he pays a person for executing his duty as a letter-carrier, at the rate of 8s. a week, being 20, 16s. per annum, and retains the remainder for his own use entirely."

In a report made by a Commission which inquired into the state of the Post Office in 1788, the following statement appears respecting abuses existing in the department; and in reflecting upon that period the Post Office servants of to-day might almost entertain feelings of regret that they did not live in the happy days of feasts, coals, and candles. Here is the statement of the Commissioners: "The custom of giving certain annual feasts to the officers and clerks of this office (London) at the public expense ought to be abolished; as also what is called the feast and drink money; and, as the Inland Office now shuts at an early hour, the allowances of lodging money to some of the officers, and of apartments to others, ought to be discontinued." But of all allowances, those of coals and candles are the most enormous; for, besides those consumed in the official apartments, there are allowed to sundry officers for their private use in town or country above three hundred chaldrons of coals, and twenty thousand pounds of candles, which several of them commute with the tradesmen for money or other articles; the amount of the sums paid for these two articles in the year 1784 was 4418, 4s. 1d.

In the year 1792 a payment was being made of 26 a year to a Mrs.

Collier, who was servant to the Bye and Cross Road Office in the London Post Office; but she did not do the work herself. She employed a servant to whom she paid 6, putting 20 into her own pocket.

What a splendid field this would have been for the Comptroller and Auditor General, and for questioners in the Houses of Parliament!

An abuse that had its origin no doubt in the fact that the nation was not represented at large,[1] but by Members of Parliament who were returned by a very limited cla.s.s, and who could not understand or reflect the views of the ma.s.ses, was that of the franking privilege.

The privilege of franking letters enjoyed by Members of Parliament was a sad burden upon the Revenue of the Post Office, and it continued in vigour down to the establishment of the Penny Post. Some idea of the magnitude of this arrangement, which would now be called a gross abuse, will be gathered from the state of things existing in the first quarter of the present century. Looking at the regulations of 1823, we find that each Member of Parliament was permitted to receive as many as fifteen and to send as many as ten letters in each day, such letters not exceeding one ounce in weight. At the then rates of postage this was a most handsome privilege. In the year 1827 the Peers enjoying this extent of free postage numbered over four hundred, and the Commons over six hundred and fifty. In addition to these, certain Members of the Government and other high officials had the privilege of sending free any number of letters without restriction as to weight. These persons were, in 1828, nearly a hundred in number.

How the privilege was turned to commercial account is explained in Mackenzie's, _Reminiscences of Glasgow_. Referring to the s.h.i.+p Bank of that city, which had its existence in the first quarter of our century, and to one of the partners, Mr. John Buchanan of Ardoch, who was also Member of Parliament for Dumbartons.h.i.+re, the author makes the following statement: "From his position as Member of Parliament, he enjoyed the privilege of franking the letters of the bank to the extent of fourteen per diem. This was a great boon; it saved the bank some hundreds of pounds per annum for postages. It was, moreover, regarded as a mighty honour."

Great abuses were perpetrated even upon the abuse itself. Franks were given away freely to other persons for their use, they were even sold, and, moreover, they were forged. Senex, in his notes on _Glasgow Past and Present_, describes how this was managed in Ireland. "I remember,"

says he, "about sixty years ago, an old Irish lady told me that she seldom paid any postage for letters, and that her correspondence never cost her friends anything. I inquired how she managed that. 'Oh,' said she, 'I just wrote "Free, J. Suttie," in the corner of the cover of the letter, and then, sure, nothing more was charged for it.' I said, 'Were you not afraid of being hanged for forgery?' 'Oh, dear me, no,' she replied; 'n.o.body ever heard of a lady being hanged in Ireland, and troth, I just did what everybody else did.'" But the spirit of inquiry was beginning to a.s.sert itself in the first half of the century, and the franking privilege disappeared with the dawn of cheap postage.

Public opinion had as yet no active existence throughout our Commonwealth, nor had the light spread so as to show up all the abuses.

And how true is Buckle's observation in his _History of Civilisation_ that all recent legislation is the undoing of bad laws made in the interest of certain cla.s.ses. How could there be an active public opinion in the conditions of the times? Everybody was shut off from everybody else. Hear further what Mackenzie says in his _History of the Nineteenth Century_, referring to the end of last century: "The seclusion resulting from the absence of roads rendered it necessary that every little community, in some measure every family, should produce all that it required to consume. The peasant raised his own food; he grew his own flax or wool; his wife or daughter spun it; and a neighbour wove it into cloth. He learned to extract dyes from plants which grew near his cottage. He required to be independent of the external world from which he was effectively shut out. Commerce was impossible until men could find the means of transferring commodities from the place where they were produced to the place where there were people willing to make use of them." So much for the difficulty of exchanging ordinary produce. The exchange of thought suffered in a like fas.h.i.+on.

In the first half of the present century severe restrictions were placed upon the spread of news, not only by the heavy postage for letter correspondence, but by the equally heavy newspaper tax. Referring to this latter hindrance to the spread of light Mackenzie says: "The newspaper is the natural enemy of despotic government, and was treated as such in England. Down to 1765 the duty imposed was only one penny, but as newspapers grew in influence the restraining tax was increased from time to time, until in 1815 it reached the maximum of fourpence."

At this figure the tax seems to have continued many years, for under the year 1836 Mackenzie refers to it as such, and remarks, "that this rendered the newspaper a very occasional luxury to the working man; that the annual circulation of newspapers in the United Kingdom was no more than thirty-six million copies, and that these had only three hundred thousand readers."

At the present time the combined annual circulation of a couple of the leading newspapers in Scotland would equal the entire newspaper circulation of the kingdom little more than fifty years ago. In the year 1799, which is less than a hundred years ago, the _Edinburgh Evening Courant_ and the _Glasgow Courier_, two very small newspapers, were sold at sixpence a copy, each bearing a Government stamp of the value of threehalf-pence. Is it surprising, under these conditions, that few newspapers should circulate, and that news should travel slowly throughout the country?

But the growth of newspapers to their present magnificent proportions is a thing of quite recent times, for even so lately as 1857 the _Scotsman_, then sold unstamped for a penny, weighed only about three-quarters of an ounce, while to-day the same paper, which continues to be sold for a penny, weighs fully four and a half ounces. And other newspapers throughout the country have no doubt swelled their columns to a somewhat similar degree.

A very good instance of the small amount of personal travelling indulged in by the people a century ago is given by Cleland in his _Annals of Glasgow_. Writing in the year 1816, he says: "It has been calculated that, previous to the erection of steamboats, not more than fifty persons pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed from Glasgow to Greenock in one day, whereas it is now supposed that there are from four to five hundred pa.s.ses and repa.s.ses in the same period." In the present day a single steamboat sailing from the Broomielaw, Glasgow, will often carry far more pa.s.sengers to Greenock, or beyond Greenock, than the whole pa.s.sengers travelling between the towns named in one day in 1816. For example, the tourist steamer _Columba_ is certificated to carry some 1800 pa.s.sengers.

In 1792 the princ.i.p.al mails to and from London were carried by mail-coaches, which were then running between the Metropolis and some score of the chief towns in the country at the speed of seven or eight miles an hour; and so far as direct mails were concerned the towns in question kept up relations with London under the conditions of speed just described. But the cross post service--that is, the service between places not lying in the main routes out of London--was not yet developed, and these cross post towns were beyond the reach of anything like early information of what was going on, not, let us say, in the world at large, but in their own country. The people in these towns had to patiently await the laggard arrival of news from the greater centres of activity; and when it did arrive it probably came to hand in a very imperfect form, or so late as to be useless for any purpose of combined action or criticism.

Dr. James Russell, in his _Reminiscences of Yarrow_, describes how tardy and uncertain the mail service by post was in the early years of the present century; and what he says is a severe contrast to the service of the present time, which provides for the delivery of letters, generally daily, in every hamlet in the country. Dr. Russell writes:--

"Since I remember (unless there was a chance hand on a Wednesday) our letters reached us only once a week, along with our bread and butcher meat, by the weekly carrier, Robbie Hogg. His arrival used to be a great event, the letter-bag being turned out, and a rummage made for our own.

Afterwards the Moffat carriers gave more frequent opportunities of getting letters; but they were apt to carry them on to Moffat and bring them back the following week."

Another instance of the slow communications is given in a letter written from Brod.i.c.k Castle, Arran, by Lord Archibald Campbell, on the 25th September 1820.

The letter was addressed to a correspondent in Glasgow, and proceeds thus: "Your letter of the 18th did not reach me till this morning, as, in consequence of the rough state of the weather, there has been no postal communication with this island for several days." The time consumed in getting this letter forward from Glasgow to Brod.i.c.k was exactly a week, and when so much time was required in the case of an island lying in the Firth of Clyde, what time would be necessary to make communication with the Outer Hebrides?

Even between considerable towns, as representing important centres in the country, the amount of correspondence by letter was small. Thus the mail from Inverness to Edinburgh of the 5th October 1808 contained no more than 30 letters. The total postage on these was 2, 9s. 6d., the charges ranging from 11d. to 14s. 8d. per letter. At the present time the letters from Inverness to Edinburgh are probably nearly a thousand a day; but this is no fair comparison, because many letters that would formerly pa.s.s through Edinburgh now reach their destinations in direct bags--London itself being an instance.

[Ill.u.s.tration: a.n.a.lYSIS OF THE LONDON TO EDINBURGH MAIL OF THE 2D MARCH 1838. (_After a print lent by Lady Cole from the collection of the late Sir Henry Cole, K.C.B._)]

But coming down to a much later date, and looking at what was going on between London and Edinburgh, the capital towns of Great Britain, what do we find? An a.n.a.lysis of the London to Edinburgh mail of the 2d March 1838 gives the following figures; and let it not be forgotten that in these days the Edinburgh mail contained the correspondence for a large part of Scotland:--

2296 Newspapers, weighing 273 lbs., and going free.

484 Franked Letters, weighing 47 lbs., and going free.

Parcels of stamps going free.

1555 Letters, weighing 34 lbs., and bearing postage to the value of 93.

These figures represent the exchange of thought between the two capitals fifty years ago. These were truly the days of darkness, when abuses were kept out of sight and were rampant.

Down to much later times the bonds of privilege remained untied. In the Civil Service itself what changes have taken place! The doors have been thrown open to compet.i.tion and to capacity and worth, and probably they will never be closed again. The author of these lines had an experience in 1867--not very long ago--which may be worthy of note. He had been then several years in the Post Office service, and desired to obtain a nomination to compete for a higher position--a clerks.h.i.+p in the Secretary's office. He took the usual step through the good offices of a Member of Parliament, and the following rebuff emanated from headquarters. It shall be its own monument, and may form a shot in the historical web of our time:--