Her Majesty's Mails Part 18

8. Care should be used in securing newspapers and large packets.[187]

Newspapers, when not sent at first from the newspaper offices, should be addressed on the paper itself and tied with string, as great risk is run in the matter of covers becoming detached from the newspapers themselves. Book packets, in addition to being enclosed in covers, sealed with wax, gum, or other adhesive matter (but open at the ends or sides), may be tied round the ends with string, as additional security.

When the latter precaution is taken, there is less chance of letters getting within the folds of the packet, which may happen when it is not thoroughly secured.

9. Valuable packets or books, if they cannot be well secured, should scarcely be sent through the post. All such packets are liable to be roughly handled, and in the mail-bags exposed to pressure and friction.

When safely deposited in the mail-bags, valuable packets are still in danger, inasmuch as the bags in many cases are constantly being transferred from one kind of conveyance to another, and frequently despatched from railway trains by apparatus machinery whilst the train is in motion.

10. Books with valuable bindings, if it is necessary that they should be sent through the post, might be well secured in strong boards; valuable papers or prints should be enclosed in strong paper, linen, parchment, or other material which will not readily tear or break. Fragile articles of value (which should by all means be registered, as special care will then be taken of them in all respects) might best be enclosed in wooden boxes, and then wrapped in paper.

11. It is hardly necessary now to point out that the postage-stamp should be placed on the upper right-hand corner of the envelope, and the address written as much towards the left hand as possible; the address will then be removed from the stamp and the postmark of the office, which will be impressed upon the letter before it is despatched. Delay is caused to the Post-Office operations when the stamp is otherwise placed; and in cases which occasionally occur, where the stamp is placed at the _back_ of the letter, it frequently happens that it is sent away charged with the unpaid postage.

12. The penny receipt-stamp will not, under any circ.u.mstances, serve the purpose of the penny postage-stamp, though many people would seem to think differently; all letters bearing a receipt-stamp are, of course, charged as if unpaid. The two kinds of stamp might easily be a.s.similated, and there are rumours that this may soon be done; but they have their distinct duties at present, and the one cannot take the place of the other.

13. The Post-Office stamped envelopes (which may be obtained singly, in part packets, or entire packets, of two or three sizes, and embossed with either penny or twopenny stamps) are in every way the most secure; and if the paper were of better quality, would be quite as economical, as if the ordinary envelope and the ordinary stamp were used. All risk of the stamps becoming detached is, of course, avoided by the use of stamped envelopes.

14. In place of affixing penny postage-stamps according to the weight of a letter, however heavy it may be, application might be made for twopenny, fourpenny, sixpenny, or s.h.i.+lling labels, as the case may be.

15. In affixing stamps, care should be had lest by excess of moisture all the gum be washed off.[188] The practice of dipping the stamp in water is objectionable, except some absorbent be used immediately to remove any unnecessary moisture. It will be found to be a good plan to wet slightly the gummed side of the stamp, and also the right-hand corner of the envelope, and then to keep the finger gently on the stamp until it is firmly fixed. Highly glazed envelopes should be avoided.

16. Letters about which any doubt exists should be carefully weighed before posting. If the Post-Office weight be exceeded to the smallest extent, even to the turning of the scale, a letter becomes liable to, and is charged higher postage--viz. the difference in double or unpaid postage. So trained has the post-office clerk become of late years by a recent system of surcharges, that few letters can now pa.s.s with an insufficient number of stamps affixed. To provide against errors in scales, &c. it would be well in all cases to allow a little margin, or ask that the letter be weighed in the post-office scales.

In the case of newspapers and book-packets, the same remarks, as well as the same arrangements, apply. It should be particularly remembered that a newspaper when posted, say wet from the printing-office, will often weigh more than it does on delivery; hence surcharges for which the receiver sometimes cannot account.

17. In posting letters, care should be taken to see that they fall into the box, and do not stick in the pa.s.sage. The pillar-boxes of our towns, whatever may be said to the contrary, are completely safe as a rule, though the same care should be exercised in depositing the letters.[189]

18. The earlier a letter is posted the better in all cases: towards the time for the closing of the letter-box, great haste is indispensably necessary in the manipulations which a town's correspondence must undergo, whilst earlier on it gets carefully disposed of in proper box and bag. When letters or newspapers are posted in great numbers, as in the case of circulars, they should be posted as early as practicable, and should be tied up in bundles with the addresses all in one direction, or they may be delayed in the press of work.[190]

19. Every letter of consequence put into the post should contain the name of the sender and also his address, in order that, if it cannot be delivered as addressed, it may be promptly returned to the writer.

20. All business letters, at any rate, might have the sender's name and address embossed on the back of the envelope. On failure to deliver such letters, they would then be returned to the writers without being opened. Care should be taken, however, not to use envelopes with another person's name embossed in this way, as the letter will be forwarded back to the address thus given, though it should not happen to be the sender's own.

21. Coin is prohibited to be sent in ordinary letters pa.s.sing between one part of the United Kingdom and another.[191] If a letter be posted containing coin, it will be registered and charged a double registration fee. Coins or any other articles of value, if properly secured, will be certain of careful treatment under the registration system.[192]

22. Letters meant to be registered must never be dropped into the letter-box as in the case of ordinary letters, but should be given to the clerk in charge of the post-office counter or window to be dealt with, who will in each case give his receipt for it. The receipt is the sender's evidence that it has been posted in proper course.

23. Letters containing sharp instruments, liquids, &c. or any other articles which would be likely of themselves, or if they should escape, to do injury to the other contents of the mail-bag, should never be posted. Postmasters have instructions not to forward such letters according to their address, but, when observed, to send them to the Dead-Letter Office, from which place they will be returned to the writers. Valuable letters of this forbidden kind, therefore, run great risks of delay, while the articles are liable to be destroyed in their pa.s.sage through the post.[193]

24. Though the transmission of coin in letters is now absolutely forbidden, except under the registration scheme, arrangements are made for rendering it easy to send small sums by post in postage-stamps. When presented at any of the numerous money-order offices in the United Kingdom, they may be exchanged for money, at a charge of 2 per cent.

Any person wishful to send through the post a sum of money under five or six s.h.i.+llings will find it cheaper to buy stamps and enclose them, in place of a post-office order. One penny will be charged for buying forty stamps, a halfpenny for twenty stamps. 60,000_l._ worth of postage-stamps were bought from the public during the year 1862.

25. In sending postage-stamps in letters, care should be taken to use _thick_ envelopes, so that enclosures of this kind may neither be seen nor felt. It is easy to feel a quant.i.ty of postage-stamps in a letter sent in a thin and crisp envelope, and some official becoming aware of this may not be able to resist the temptation to appropriate them.

26. No enclosures whatever should be sent in newspapers impressed with the regular newspaper-stamp. Even an old address of such a newspaper should be carefully cut out. It is not enough that it be obliterated with the pen, as the rules forbid writing of any kind in addition to the mere address.[194]

With newspapers stamped by the ordinary postage-label the arrangements are quite different. Any printed paper or ma.n.u.script may be folded up with the newspaper on which an ordinary penny-stamp is placed, provided the total amount of the package does not exceed four ounces. The old address (supposing the newspaper has circulated through the post before) may be left on or not at the discretion of the sender, as this does not interfere with the regulation that nothing in the packet shall be of the nature of a letter. On the other hand, any sentence or message written in ink or pencil on any part of the paper makes the packet liable to the unpaid letter-rate of postage.

27. When any letter, book-packet, or newspaper is lost, miscarried, or delayed, inquiry should be made as soon as evidence has been obtained that the article in question was really posted. The postmaster of the town should be informed by the complainant of every particular relating to the missing letter, &c. the day and hour of its posting, the office at which and the person by whom this was done. In cases of delay or mis-sending, the covers ought to be produced in order that the office stamps on them may indicate the exact place where the delay has been occasioned. Correspondence on the subject of the complaints will subsequently be carried on between the applicant and the Secretary's department in England, Scotland, or Ireland, as the case may be.

28. When any one has reason to believe that he has paid extra postage on a letter or packet improperly, or has been charged more than the case would warrant, he should apply to his postmaster, who will bring the case before the notice of the Secretary, when, if any mistake has been made, the money will be refunded by order. Postmasters cannot return postage paid improperly until instructed to do so from the chief offices.

29. When an unpaid letter is presented to a person who has not the means at disposal of paying the demand upon it (some foreign or colonial letter may be taxed heavily), it will be kept at the post-office a month, _if a request be made to that effect_, in order that efforts may be made to obtain the necessary money to release it.

30. Postmasters and their clerks are forbidden to be parties to the deceptions which used to be practised, and which are now sometimes attempted, as to the place of posting of a letter. If any communication should be forwarded, under cover, to the postmaster of a provincial town, with a request that it may be posted at his office, it will be sent to the Returned-Letter Branch in London, and from thence to the writer.

31. Advertis.e.m.e.nts are occasionally seen, and applications frequently made, for defaced postage-stamps. It is stated, in some cases, that a given number will gain certain individuals admission to different charitable inst.i.tutions. Whatever may be the purpose for which the old stamps are required, the Post-Office authorities have found, by inquiry, that the ostensible reason here given has uniformly been false. It is sometimes feared that attempts are made to clean and re-issue them, though this can be attended with but partial success. It is much more probable that they are sought to indulge some whim, such as papering boxes or even rooms.

32. With reference to money-orders, the public should be careful--

(_a_) Always to give particulars of any order required _in writing_.

When a number of orders are required, to write out a full list of them. Forms for single orders may be had gratuitously at all money-order offices. These forms, or other written papers, are invariably kept on files for a given time, so that reference may easily be made to them in the event of any mistake. Mistakes may, of course, be made either by the applicant or the clerk on duty. If, on production of the paper, the error is seen to have been the sender's, he must pay (generally a second commission) for the necessary alterations: if, however, it be proved to be caused by the clerk issuing the order, the Post-Office calls upon the latter to bear the expense himself.

(_b_) Never to present an order for payment on the day on which it is issued, nor, on the other hand, to allow two months to elapse before calling for payment.[195]

(_c_) When sending an order, either to send it to its destination singly, or in a letter signed only by initials. Money-orders pa.s.sing between friends need not be accompanied with information such as is sometimes required in business transactions.

FOOTNOTES:

[184] The irregularities and eccentricities in the numbering of streets and houses is a great difficulty. On one occasion a London inspector of letter-carriers, going round the districts, noticed a bra.s.s-plate with the number 95 between two houses numbered respectively 15 and 16. He made inquiry, when the old lady who tenanted the house said that the number had belonged to a former residence, and, thinking it a pity that it should be thrown away, she had transferred it to her new home, supposing that it would do as well as any other number!

[185] About two hundred letters pa.s.s through the General Post-Office every day unsealed.

[186] It is calculated that 91 per cent. of the letters circulating through the United Kingdom are enclosed in envelopes; the number of those sent abroad in envelopes is somewhat smaller, or about 65 per cent.

[187] The number of newspapers delivered in 1862 amounted to nearly 73,000,000, a considerable increase on the previous year. The number of book-packets exceeded 14,000,000, being an increase on the previous year of about 1,700,000, or nearly 14 per cent. Upwards of 400,000 newspapers, or about one in two hundred, were undelivered in the same year, about half of which failures arose from improper or incorrect addresses, while the remainder were owing to the newspapers becoming detached from their covers in transit through the post.

[188] It is calculated that every year nearly fifty thousand postage-stamps rub off letters and newspapers in their pa.s.sage through the Post-Office. At one time the quality of the adhesive matter was called in question, loud complaint, even ridicule, settling on the theme. Now, however, that the gum is better the number of stamps which "will not stick" is scarcely perceptibly smaller.

[189] Only one instance is on record of any violent and wilful attempt to damage a pillar letter-box. This is the more wonderful as the temptation to lift the lid and contribute articles not contemplated by our postage-system must naturally be strong in the eyes of our City Arabs. A singular accident befell one of these letter-boxes (1862) in Montrose. A quant.i.ty of gas from the street pipes seems to have got into the box, and a night-watchman to have ignited it by striking a match on the top in order to light his pipe. The top was blown off and the pillar-box hopelessly damaged, although the watchman and the letters escaped without injury.

[190] The following announcement from the postmaster of Manchester, as given in a bill dated 1721, contrasts strangely with the lat.i.tude allowed now. "The post goes out to London," says he, "on Monday, Wednesday, and Sat.u.r.day, at nine o'clock in the morning. It will be best to bring the letters the _night before the going out of the post_, because the accounts and baggs are usually made up _over-night_." In these days, when we may post up to within five minutes of the despatch of a mail, and letters for America may be posted within ten minutes of the sailing of the packet, we cannot be too thankful for our privileges.

[191] This arrangement does not apply to foreign letters coming to or going out of this country.

[192] The number of registered letters last year was over two millions, or one registered letter to about three hundred ordinary letters.

[193] Most of our readers will have heard or read stories of curious articles pa.s.sing through the post, and without doubt the records of the Returned-Letter Branch of the London Office will present strange appearances in this respect. Sir Francis B. Head, who was permitted to peruse an extraordinary ledger in the General Post-Office where several notable letters and packets were registered, has strung together a catalogue of them, which reminds us of the articles pa.s.sing through the post before the revocation of the franking privilege. He tells us he found amongst the number--two canaries; a pork-pie from Devonport to London; a pair of piebald mice, which were kept at the office a month, and duly fed till they were called for by the owner; two rabbits; plum-pudding; leeches in bladders, "several of which having burst, many of the poor creatures were found crawling over the correspondence of the country." Further, there was a bottle of cream from Devons.h.i.+re; a pottle of strawberries; a sample bottle of cider; half a pound of soft soap wrapped in thin paper; a roast duck; a pistol, _loaded almost to the mouth with slugs and ball_; a live snake; a paper of fish-hooks; fish innumerable; and last of all, and most extraordinary of all, a human heart and stomach.--_Head's Essays._

[194] The annual return just published (February, 1864) shows to some extent how far the public prefers the stamped newspaper, which can be sent through the Post-Office, in fact, until it is fifteen days old. The number of stamps issued to the princ.i.p.al London newspapers from June, 1862, to June, 1863, are as follows:--

_Times_, 2,782,206; _Express_, 261,038; _Morning Post_, 260,000; _Daily News_, 124,888; _Morning Herald_, 103,256; _Globe_, 140,000; _s.h.i.+pping Gazette_, 261,000; _Evening Standard_, 80,020; _Evening Star_, 75,000; _Evening Mail_ (thrice a week), took 345,000; _St. James's Chronicle_, 89,000; _Record_, 423,500; _The Guardian_ (weekly), 219,300; _The Ill.u.s.trated London News_, 1,136,062; _Punch_, 129,500. Eleven English country newspapers took 100,000 each, the princ.i.p.al being the _Suss.e.x Express_, 336,000, and the _Stamford Mercury_, 334,276. Thirty country newspapers bought more than 50,000 stamps.

[195] Many orders are never claimed at all. In Ireland twice as many orders are allowed to "lapse" as in England or Scotland, though there are many more orders granted in the two latter countries than in Ireland. Perhaps the fact may be accounted for by the wretched addresses of most Irish letters, which make it impossible to deliver many of them and equally impossible to return them to the writers. Of ordinary money-orders, one in 837 are unclaimed within two months; whilst as a curious fact, instancing the pertinacity of a careless habit, it may be stated that when these very orders have been renewed on payment of a second commission, one in every thirty-nine are again overlooked, and allowed to lapse, many of them, in fact, becoming entirely cancelled, and the money forfeited.

CHAPTER VII.

CONCERNING SOME OF THE POPULAR MISCONCEPTIONS AND MISREPRESENTATIONS TO WHICH THE POST-OFFICE IS LIABLE.