R.M.S. "Monterey." First Liner in The New Canadian Mail Service. From a photograph by G. M. Roche, Esq., Dublin.R.M.S. "Monterey."First Liner in The New Canadian Mail Service.From a photograph by G. M. Roche, Esq., Dublin.
Subsequent steamers used for carrying on the mail service were theMontfort,Monteagle, andMontrose.
The arrangements for the new service worked very smoothly from the outset, thanks in no small measure to Mr. Flinn, the local general manager for Messrs. Elder, Dempster & Co., who facilitated in every way the Post Office and Customs operations. The trial so far has proved that the use of Avonmouth as a port for the Canadian mail traffic is attended with advantages on this side of the ocean, but greater facilities for embarking and disembarking the mails at Avonmouth are absolutely necessary.
In 1855 the Bristol Post Office staff consisted of a postmaster and fifteen clerks, with sixty-four letter carriers. Over 1,500 people of all grades, including sub-postmasters and their assistants, are now employed; and the annual bill for salaries, wages, and allowances of men, women, and boys amounts to little short of £100,000. It will thus be seen that the Post Office ranks as one of the largest employers of labour in the western city.
The head office is centrally situated both for the receipt and despatch of the letter correspondence. It is not very far from a point known as "Tramway Centre," upon which the tram services of the city converge. It plays an important part with regard to the Bristol postal system, as out of a total of 833,000 letters posted weekly in the citydelivery area—exclusive of 55,300 Clifton posted letters—221,000 letters are posted at the head office itself, and the total posted within a radius of a mile is 652,290, or more than three-fourths of the whole. In addition to the 888,000 letters posted weekly in Bristol city and Clifton, there are 108,000 letters posted in the suburban and rural districts. The posting every Sunday consists of 35,000 letters.
The greater extent to which the well-to-do classes in Bristol use the post than their less fortunate brethren may be gathered from the fact that the average yield of letters, newspapers, etc., per day per box in the Clifton district is 128 per cent. higher than in Redland and Cotham, and 179 per cent. higher than in Redcliffe; and in the Redland and Cotham district 22 per cent. higher than in Redcliffe.
The mails are chiefly conveyed between the head office and the principal railway station by horsed carts.
About 7,000,000 "forward" letters—that is, letters neither posted nor delivered locally, but passing through the Bristol Post Office—are dealt with annually.
The parcel post, started in 1883, has done well in Bristol. Nearly three-quarters of a million of parcels are posted in the district annually. The greater part of the parcel despatching duties is performed at a separate parcel office on the Temple Meads Railway Station premises. People often avail themselves of the parcel post for obtaining a regular weekly supply of produce. A joint of beef from Scotland, weighing just under eleven pounds, invariably reaches Bristol at the week end, and a package of butter from Dublin is observed every Friday in the Bristol parcel depôt on its way to Weston-super-Mare.
The London mail is, naturally, the most important mail which leaves Bristol. In the course of the day fifty-five mail bags are forwarded, containing about 20,000 letters; the trains used being those leaving at 3.10 a.m., 7.50 a.m., 9.35 a.m., 11.40 a.m., 12.13 p.m., 1.54 p.m., 3.0 p.m., 3.43 p.m., 4.45 p.m., 7.22 p.m., and 12.45 a.m. So numerous are the London and "London forward" letters in the evening, that three clerks are engaged from 5.0 p.m. to midnight in sorting them. In the opposite direction fifty mail bags are received from London daily, containingabout 30,000 letters. Birmingham comes next in the importance of exchange, thus: twelve mail bags go out daily, containing 5,500 letters, and ten bags come in, with 4,500 letters. The neighbouring city of Bath figures next, with ten outward mail bags daily, containing 4,200 letters, and ten inward bags, containing 2,700 letters. The same three cities also stand in the forefront in respect of the import and export of parcels, 870 parcels being received from London and 550 parcels sent thereto daily. Birmingham sends 190 parcels and takes a like number; whilst Bath sends 160 and takes in return 250 parcels daily.
The members of the permanent staff have fallen on better days than their predecessors of old times. They are granted holidays varying in periods according to rank, from the twelve working days allowed to the telegraph messengers to the month enjoyed by the superintending officers. Medical attendance is afforded gratuitously, and full pay is, as a rule, given during sick absence, and under special circumstances sick leave on full pay is allowed for six months, and a further six months on half-pay. After that time, if thereappears to be little or no chance of recovery, a pension or gratuity is given. The appointment of medical officer to the Post Office was in 1862 conferred upon Mr. F. Poole Lansdown, who has held the post ever since. For the last four years the average sick absence per year has been ten days for males and seventeen days for females per head; and during the last seven years the average mortality amongst the established officers of the Service has been two per annum.
Uniform and boots are provided by the Department for the postmen and telegraph messengers, at an annual cost of about £2,000.
Good-conduct stripes are the reward to all full-time postmen, established or unestablished, of unblemished conduct. A stripe is awarded after each five years' meritorious service, and each man is eligible for six stripes, each of which carry one shilling a week extra pay. The value of the stripes is taken into account in calculation of pensions.
Of the 1,500 persons of all grades alluded to there are in the postal department a superintendent, 24 superintending officers, and 154 male and 8 female clerks.
The selection of candidates for situations in the Bristol Post Office as sorting clerks and telegraphists, both male and female, was for many years vested entirely in the postmaster, and persons were given temporary employment without passing any educational test as to their special fitness for Post Office employment. It so happened that not infrequently a clerk would be employed in a temporary capacity for some years, and finally be rejected by the Civil Service Commissioners on educational or medical grounds. In 1892, however, a special preliminary educational examination was instituted. All candidates of respectable parentage, of good health and character, were allowed to sit at this examination, the successful ones being taken into the office and trained for appointment to the Establishment. The Civil Service Examination had, of course, to be undergone before an appointment could be obtained. In 1896 a new system was introduced, whereby a Civil Service certificate had to be obtained before a person was taken into the office. This obviated the necessity of holding the preliminary educational examination, but the postmaster still exercised the privilege ofnominating candidates to the situations. The open competitive system of examination was commenced last year, and the appointments are now open to general competition.
There is a term of probation in the Post Office, and details of the duties devolving on postal clerks may not be without interest to the Bristol public. The business, with its multitudinous ramifications, takes a long time to learn thoroughly. To become a perfect all-round postal clerk a man must possess intelligence, must be cool, fertile in expedient, have a retentive memory, and withal be quick and active. He must know how to primarily sort, sub-divide, and despatch letters. He must have a good knowledge of Post Office circulation and be able to bear in mind the names of the smallest places—hamlets, etc.—in the kingdom, the varying circulations for different periods of the day, and the rates of postage of all articles sent through the post. Be must be able to detect the short-paid letter, and to deal with the ordinary letter, the large letter, the unpaid, the registered, the foreign, the "dead," insufficiently addressed, the official, the fragile, the insured, the postcard (singleand reply), the letter card, the newspaper, the book-packet, and the circular (the definition of which is very difficult). He is responsible for the correct sortation of every letter that he deals with, and he has to be expert in tying letters in bundles. He has to cast the unpaid postage and enter the correct account on the letter bill; take charge of registered letter bags and loose registered letters, and advise them on the letter bill; see to the correct labelling, tying, and sealing of the mail bags he makes up; check the despatch of mails on the bag list; dispose of his letters by a given time, the hours of the despatch of mails being fixed. In consequence, he often has to work under great pressure in order to finish in time. The postal clerk has to surcharge unpaid and insufficiently prepaid correspondence; to see that all postage stamps are carefully obliterated, that the rules of the different posts are not infringed; to attend to the regulations relating to official correspondence. He has to decipher imperfectly and insufficiently addressed correspondence, search official and other directories to trace proper addresses. In addition to all this he has in turn to serve at the public counter, andthere attend to money order, savings bank, postal order, and other items of business of the kind.
As an illustration of the perspicacity of officers of the Post Office in the Western Division of the Kingdom and of the postmen of Bristol, may be cited the circulation through the post and prompt and safe delivery of a letter from Plymouth bearing as its only address the magic letters "W. G.," with cricket hat, stumps, and ball, so dear to the individual who bears the initials.
Delay in delivery of articles sent by post, however, not infrequently takes place in consequence of misdirection. A parcel was addressed to a reverend gentleman at "Publow Church, near Bristol," and as it could not be presented at the fine old structure itself, the postman took it to the adjoining vicarage, where, in the absence of the vicar, it was taken in by a servant upon the inference that it might be intended for some future visitor. It turned out, however, that the address was inaccurate, and that the parcel was actually intended for a village some miles from Bristol, on the other side, having for its name Pucklechurch.
Occasionally there is very slow transmission inthese speedy days. A rather remarkable case occurred here of a postcard having occupied nearly eight years in travelling between Horfield Barracks and the premises of a firm in Stokes Croft,—a distance of less than two miles. The missive was posted and stamped on the 10th July, 1890, and trace of it was lost until it turned up at Bournemouth and received the impression of the stamp of that office in April, 1898, whence it was sent to Bristol and delivered. There were no other marks to indicate its long detention.
Not infrequently the Post Office has to contend with difficulties arising from want of thought on the part of the trading community. Recently there was a somewhat unusual occurrence at the Bristol Post Office. A sack containing samples of biscuits in small tin boxes was received. Around the tins flimsy paper was tied, on which the addresses were written. The paper had become so frayed in transit that scarcely a single wrapper was complete, and when the tins were turned out of the sack there were showers of small pieces of paper like a snowstorm. In order that the samples might reach their destinations, the addresses were, as far aspracticable, re-copied, and the samples sent out. Nearly every one of the 500 packets received was then sent out for delivery without delay, no doubt to the astonishment of those who received the biscuits in envelopes from the Returned Letter Office.
In the sorting office all through the twenty-four hours there is work going on. As one batch of officials goes off duty another comes on, and these relays never cease—not even on Sundays, Christmas Days, or Bank Holidays. The sorting office is at its busiest from 5.15 to 6.45 in the evening, and from 8.30 p.m. till midnight. Then postmen enter hastily, one after another, with bags from the branch offices and pillar-boxes, which are immediately taken charge of, opened, and the contents shot out. The postmen rapidly arrange the small letters face upwards, pack them in "trays" of 400, pass them over to the stamping department; the stampers obliterate Her Majesty's head, and record the hour, date, and place of departure, with one and the same stroke of the stamp, at the rate of a hundred a minute. The stamped letters are placed on sorting tables, where the first division takesplace. Those for Bristol and neighbourhood are assigned to a compartment for further sortation, and the outward correspondence is sorted out into the different "roads" by which it will travel. Letters for small places are sent to the mail trains, where they are sorted to their respective stations as the locomotive is whirling them along at the rate of fifty miles an hour. Many of the larger towns, such as Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Exeter, Plymouth, Reading, Bath and Swindon, have their own bags made up at Bristol. Newspapers, packages, and book packets are sorted separately, and subsequently put into their respective bags. By-and-by the country postbags come pouring in, and no sooner are they opened than the letters they contain are subjected to the same analytical treatment.
In a week 2,600 separate bags (or sacks containing several bags) are sent away from the Bristol Post Office over the Great Western and Midland Railway systems. The weight is 21 tons, or an average of over 18 lbs. per bag or sack. Of the total number, 500 of the bags, with an average weight of nearly 14 lbs. each, are for places withinthe Bristol district, and 300 of them are sent to London, with a total weight of 4 tons 33 lbs., or an average of 30 lbs. per bag or sack. The bags and sacks received in Bristol from all quarters are about equal in number and weight to those going outwards. Those from London weigh 6 tons 3 cwt. 44 lbs.—an average of 51 lbs each.
In order to simplify the disposal of the letters in London, they are not sent up unsorted from Bristol, but are divided into thirty-seven labelled bundles or separate bags, a bundle or bag being made up for each London district, for each great railway out of London, for several foreign divisions, for seventeen large provincial towns, and even in such detail as for Paternoster Row and Wood Street.
It is not often that ships of war appear in Bristol waters. Indeed, the old inhabitant saith that it is fifty years since a warship anchored in the vicinity. The recent visit of a squadron calls therefore for a passing mention. Such an event took place during the British Association Meeting in September, 1898. The ironclads composing the squadron were H.M.S.Nile,Thunderer,Trafalgar,Sans Pareil, and the gunboatSpanker. The vesselsanchored in Walton Bay, midway between Clevedon and Portishead. In these pages the interest attaching to them must necessarily be centred in their mail arrangements. Nearly a thousand letters a day were received at Clevedon for delivery to the fleet. The ships' postman from each ship came ashore by launch three times a day to fetch the letters. Launches were specially employed to fetch telegrams on signal being given by flag from the end of Clevedon Pier.
A first aid class in connection with the St. John's Ambulance Society was formed by members of the Bristol Post Office staff in 1894, and there was an average attendance of twenty members, under the skilled direction of Dr. Bertram Rogers, of Clifton. Of the members who presented themselves for examination at the termination of the course of lectures, eight were successful, and were presented with certificates at the Society's Annual Meeting, held at the Merchant Venturers' Technical College; and in the following year they qualified for the Society's much-prized medallion of efficiency. At the conclusion of the course, Dr. Bertram Rogers was presented with an ivory-handled and silver-mountedmalacca cane, subscribed for by members of the class. A writing-case was also presented to Mr. Blake for organising the class.
The want of a gymnasium in or near the Post Office premises is greatly felt, but the staff do not neglect opportunities of improving their health in other ways. Cycle Clubs have been in active operation; the Cricket Clubs come off victorious in many matches; and the Electric Swimming Club has been attended with great success.
A century ago the Christmas card was unthought of; whether it will be a thing of the past in the year 2000 cannot be foretold. The preparations made to meet the annually recurring pressure involve much forethought and considerable labour, and have to be in progress for a long time prior to Christmas. The time occupied in getting the instructions ready for the staff and making all arrangements incidental to the season is equivalent to more than the entire duty of a clerk for a whole year. Nothing whatever is left to chance; for unless the arrangements are organised in full detail, the work could not go on with the clock-like smoothness which is necessary to ensure a successful issue. At Christmas many people find a difficulty in deciding what to give their friends. The difficulty in the Post Office is how to convey Christmas gifts from friend to friend, from relativeto relative, and the solution is found in the extensive preparations alluded to. They consist of many and various ways of affording means of rapid circulation and facilitating the traffic. Thus arrangements are made as regards London for direct bags to be made up at Bristol for each of the eight principal district offices, and separate bags for the inclusion of all the London sub-district letters throughout the day. At normal times such bags are made up only for the night mail and heaviest despatches. All foreign letters are sent in separate bags, so as to keep them apart on arrival in London from the inland Christmas missives. Then, in the reverse direction, London relieves the Bristol office by making a direct bag for the tributary office of Clifton by every mail, instead of by two mails only. To further facilitate matters, the parcels and letters for the environs of Bristol are kept separate from those for town delivery at all the large offices sending parcel baskets and mail bags here, and Bristol reciprocates by adopting the same plan for towns with which it exchanges mails. Even the expedient of putting specially-lettered neck-labels on the bagsto indicate their contents is adopted. Where, ordinarily, bundles of letters are made up for particular towns, direct bags take their places, and where, ordinarily, letters are sent in bulk from many towns separate bundles are made up for each town: thus, letters from Bristol for Brighton, which are usually dealt with in London, are forwarded in a direct bag to pass through the metropolis unopened. The individual attendances of the ordinary staff are increased from eight hours to twelve, fourteen, and sixteen hours per day. All holidays are suspended for the time being, which enables some telegraphists to undertake postal duty; clerical labour is stopped, outside help is obtained, and altogether additional labour provided for to the extent of 50 per cent. over the normal staff. Although there is such a large augmentation numerically, the value of it cannot be judged in that way, as it takes a long time to make a really efficient postal officer, and the novices who are engaged, although willing enough, can do little more than undertake manual labour. Many army reserve men and army and navy pensioners are engaged to assist on the occasion. The weather isalways a potent factor. The ordinary types of mail vehicles, contracted for by the Bristol Tramways Company, and always well turned out by Mr. G. Matthews, have to be supplemented at the Christmas season by the employment of large pair-horse trolleys, which, are used not only for the conveyance of mails between office and railway station, but are also sent round the town to pick up the heavy parcel collections from the numerous sub-offices.
The great unpunctuality of the mail trains which invariably sets in early in the Christmas week causes no little inconvenience, particularly as regards the mails from the North of England, and the merchants are therefore not slow to avail themselves of the Post Office new system, under which, for a small fee, they can get their letters brought by delayed trains delivered by special messenger promptly on their arrival at the Head Post Office. The extra posting of letters and parcels for places abroad, intended for delivery about Christmas Day, begins to manifest itself early in November.
A great number of people appear to think that Christmas cards and other printed matter may besent by book-post in covers which are entirely closed, except for small slits cut at the sides. These packets are liable to charge at letter postage rates unless they are made up in such a manner as will admit of the contents being easily withdrawn for examination. To educate the public in the matter of full prepayment, it has become necessary for the Department to be particularly vigilant in surcharging the Christmas missives which contravene the regulations, and the Bristol clerks have the unpleasant task of raising an impost on letters during the Christmas season which infringe the Postmaster-General's not severe regulations. The custom of sending Christmas cards in open envelopes is increasing.
With regard to telegrams, the public have recently received at the hands of His Grace the Duke of Norfolk the great benefit of being allowed to have their telegraphic messages delivered up to distances of three miles without payment of any charge whatever for porterage. In this neighbourhood, the concession has resulted in an increase in the number of messages for delivery over a mile, especially at Christmas. During the Christmasseason there is always a decrease in the number of business telegrams, but that is in some measure made up for by a large number of telegrams being sent by the public who are travelling to keep holiday, and in this connection more use is made of the telegraph than the telephone service. The decrease in the volume of work admits of telegraphists aiding their brother officers on the postal side.
The inflow of Christmas cards is pretty evenly dispersed over the earlier days of the season, but the great rush comes on the night of the 23rd and the morning of the 24th of the month. Letters up to four ounces in weight are now conveyed at the small cost to the public of a penny. So far as this city is concerned, letters and book-packets over two ounces in weight, which are now blended in one post, are quadrupled in number at the Christmas season. This increase in the letter packets has the effect of retarding the postmen in effecting their deliveries, inasmuch as they have to search in their bags for the packages which they cannot carry tied up in consecutive order. The trouble arising therefrom is somewhat mitigated, however, by the circumstancethat the charged letters are less numerous than heretofore, owing to the large increase in the weight which is now carried for a penny. The Christmas season is departmentally regarded as consisting of the days from the 20th of the month to Christmas Day, the 25th, inclusive. From the most reliable calculations that the officials are capable of making, it would appear that during the Christmas period no fewer than 2,000,000 letters are dropped by the residents into the 500 receptacles dotted here and there over Bristol's large postal area. The letters distributed by Bristol's regular postmen, with their 250 followers, are a million and a half, in each case about an extra week's work to be got through in three days.
Some 20,000 letters and parcels find their way to the Bristol Returned Letter Office as the flotsam and jetsam of the Christmas postings. They consist of letters without addresses, letters addressed in undecipherable caligraphy, letters for people dead, gone away, and not known; parcels of poultry and game without name of sender or addressee. Certainly handwriting does not improve, hence all these failures and embarrassments to the Post Office.
The articles for transmission by parcel post handed in at the head Post Office, branch, offices, sub-offices in town, suburbs, and villages, reach the total of 40,000, being about four times as numerous as at ordinary periods. The rural districts alone produce 8,000 parcels. The parcels delivered number 35,000, being treble ordinary numbers. Ten thousand of these parcels are delivered in the villages. Nearly a thousand large hampers of parcels are exchanged between London and Bristol, and of these some forty contain foreign parcels alone.
Notwithstanding the vastly increased numbers, it becomes noticeable at Bristol, year by year, that there is a diminution of parcels conveyed by parcel post containing articles of good cheer: the geese, the fowls, and the game having decreased, plum pudding's, however, being as much in evidence as ever. The reduction in the parcel post rates which took place in 1897 has had a very marked effect upon the parcel post traffic, and the increase, particularly in the heavy weights, has been very great. On the other hand, the reduction in the rates of charge for the conveyance of post parcelshas had the effect of bringing about a decrease in the number of parcels weighing under 2 lb.
As showing that the postal deliveries at the Christmas season are arranged as well as the extraordinary circumstances will admit, and that the public on its part can appreciate the difficulties to be contended with, it may be worthy of mention that complaints of delay are rarely made.
The Postmaster-General is not unmindful of his duty in providing sustenance for his legions at the busy season, and refreshments are supplied for the permanent staff without stint. There are no trams running on Christmas Day, so that the postmen with their heavy loads are much worse off than on ordinary days, when, with lighter loads, they can ride to and fro on the tramcars. There are some pleasing social features which are worthy of record. For instance, the ladies of the Clifton Letter Mission have for some years past sent "A Christmas Letter" and Christmas card to each of the 150 telegraph messengers employed in the Bristol district. The ladies who manage the society known as the Postal and Telegraph Christian Association invariably send to every postman in the Bristol district a sympatheticand seasonable letter, accompanied by a pretty Christmas card and the best of all good wishes. The staff of the Bristol Post Office usually pay the compliments of the Christmas season to their postal friends elsewhere in the form of a prettily-designed card.
Christmas Day of 1898 is rendered memorable in postal annals from the circumstance that on that day the postage on letters to and from many of our colonies and foreign possessions was reduced from the modest sum of 2½d. per half-ounce to the still more modest sum of 1d. per half-ounce. Bristol has a not inconsiderable colonial and foreign correspondence. British India takes 550 letters, etc., on the average weekly; the Dominion of Canada, 450; Newfoundland, 110; and Gibraltar, 100; the other countries to which the reduced rate of postage has been applied take 500 in the week.
One of the many changes that have taken place in the manners and customs of the people as affecting the Post Office is very noticeable as regards the observance of St. Valentine's Day. Thirty years ago the votaries of the patron saint, in their thousands, vied with each other, year afteryear, to honour his memory, and make the Post Office the medium of sending to every close friend some kind of love token, ranging from the artistic production at one guinea, down to the humble penny fly-leaf which contained the simple but expressive pleading, at the bottom of a neat woodcut, "O come, true love, be mine." Only too often, however, the day was made the occasion to strike a blow at the fickle lover by means of some gross caricature. On the eve of St. Valentine the energies of the staff, which was limited as compared with now, were formerly greatly taxed to get rid of the enormous piles of packets which flooded the various receptacles in the city. All this is, however, changed; the occasion now passes by almost unnoticed in the sorting office and by the postmen.
The Public Hall, Bristol. From a photograph by Mr. Protheroe, Wine Street, Bristol.The Public Hall, Bristol.From a photograph by Mr. Protheroe, Wine Street, Bristol.
The public office of the Bristol Post Office is very commodious (50 ft. by 44 ft.), and affords ample counter accommodation to the citizens for properly conducting their Post Office business. It is markedly superior as regards size and fitting-up to almost any other provincial office, and indeed its equal in those respects is scarcely to be found in all London. In contrast to the spacious public hall of the Bristol Post Office and the civility of its clerks, the writer's first impressions of the postal service of his country were by no means of a pleasant character. When quite a small child, he was entrusted by his mother with the mission of conveying a small rose-coloured and delicately-perfumed letter to the Post Office in a world-famed Warwickshire town—an errand of which he was "no end" proud. Timidly he knocked at a little wicket in the window of the house to which hewas directed. Almost immediately the wicket was thrown open, and a very red visage appeared. "What do you want?" "Will you put a stamp on this letter, sir, please?" "No! What the devil do you mean by bringing letters like this? 'Tisn't big enough. It'll get lost in some hole or corner." Frightened at this "Giant Grim," a hasty retreat was made, and the irascible old postmaster was left to do as he liked with letter and penny.
The penny combined postage and Inland Revenue stamp was introduced in 1881. A new series of postage stamps was issued in 1884, and the present series in January, 1887.
In the year 1833 the value of the postage stamps obtained from London for distribution in the Bristol district was £33,844; in 1862 it had only grown to £35,720; but in 1898 it had reached the more prodigious proportions of £171,000, of which sum those stamps of the halfpenny denomination were of the value of £30,700, and in number 14,735,000; and the penny stamps in value £85,775 and in number 20,586,000. Stamps of other denominations were issuedthus:—1½d., 207,360; 2d., 205,920; 2½d., 207,000; 3d., 364,320; 4d., 277,680; 4½d., 16,000; 5d., 147,120; 6d., 534,600; 9d., 51,200; 10d., 27,840; 1s., 82,320; 2s. 6d., 2,800; 5s., 2,588; 10s., 688; 20s., 550 and £5, 4. Post-cards, embossed envelopes, newspaper wrappers, telegraph forms and other articles of the kind were of the value of £14,334. At the earlier period the postmaster of the day was allowed 1 per cent. on the value of the stamps sold, in addition to his salary. It is not so now!
Under the system inaugurated in 1880 the postal orders issued and paid at the Bristol public office counter number nearly half a million in the year. The money orders paid at the counter preponderate over those issued—the amounts respectively being £237,000 and £34,000. These sums include the amounts received in respect of telegraph money orders—the Department's new departure of 1890. The Government insurance and annuity business commenced by the Post Office in 1865 is making progress in Bristol, and the same may be said of the system started in 1880 of investments in Government stock through Post Office medium.
The first Post Office Savings Bank in the district was established at the Clifton Branch Post Office on the 16th September, 1861, the year in which savings bank business was commenced throughout the country generally. Several accounts were opened on that day, and the amount deposited was £35 4s. A similar institution was opened in the city in March, 1862, at the Money Order Office, then located in the corner shop in Albion Chambers, Small Street, opposite the present Head Post Office. From such small beginnings a vast savings bank business has grown up. The sum standing to the credit of depositors in the Post Office Savings Bank in the Bristol postal area at the end of 1895, when the last account was published, was nearly £2,000,000, deposited by some 100,000 separate individuals. The deposits made at the head office in Small Street reached close upon £400,000, and the other part of the amount is made up thus: Gloucestershire side—Town Post Offices, £659,085; rural Post Offices, £192,934. Somersetshire side—Town Post Offices, £215,295; rural Post Offices, £91,944. The estimated amount due to depositors in the Post Office Savings Banks throughout the whole country on the 21stDecember, 1898, was £123,155,000, and the amount due to trustees of Savings Banks on November 20th, 1898,—the latest date on which the figures were made up—was £50,634,655. The Bristol Savings Bank was closed in 1888, and its 12,814 accounts were transferred to the Post Office Savings Bank. The amount of money involved was a little over half a million.
During Mr. Fawcett's administration at the Post Office, thrift on the part of the nation was encouraged in every possible way. Then was inaugurated the now familiar system for facilitating the placing of small sums in the Post Office Savings Bank by means of postage stamps affixed to a Post Office form as penny after penny is saved until an amount of one shilling is reached, the minimum for a Post Office Savings Bank deposit.
A case occurred at a Bristol Post Office fifteen years since, in which a young servant girl, in her desire to be thrifty under the system alluded to, craftily obtained the key of the letter box from the secret place in which the sub-postmaster kept it, and abstracted a number of circular letters on School Board business, and took off the stamps forattachment to the Savings Bank slips. She was sentenced to a term of imprisonment, which, on account of her youth, was limited to six months.
Amusing incidents sometimes occur to break the monotony of counter work. For instance, a woman applied for a postal order, and when it was handed to her, the clerk, acting upon the official instructions, recommended the good lady to take the number before sending the order away. A few days afterwards she appeared at the Post Office with the order and complained that payment had been refused because the order had been mutilated. The clerk on examining the order found that the direction to "take the number of the order" had been acted on literally. The number had been carefully cut out, and retained in the possession of the applicant. It was some time before she could be made to realize her mistake. In another instance early one fine autumn morn a young couple presented themselves at the public office of the Bristol Post Office and begged in earnest language that they might be supplied with a marriage license. The request could not, of course, be complied with, but the applicants, much to their satisfaction, were informed where theycould obtain the needed document. On another occasion some money was observed on the counter, and on the very small child near it being asked what was required, "Two ounces of tea and a pound of sugar" were at once demanded. This mistake no doubt arose from the fact that the business carried on in the late Post Office building in Exchange Avenue is that of a tea dealer. It is a rule of the Service that letters should not be delivered from thePoste Restanteexcept to the actual addressees or to other persons bearing authority to receive the letters on behalf of the addressees. A request was made at the Bristol Head Post Office for the delivery of letters to a person other than the addressee, which person could not produce the necessary authority to act as recipient. The excuse given for non-production of authority was that the addressee was asleep. The enquirer having been advised to get authority when the addressee awoke, rather astonished the counter clerk by saying that such awaking would not take place until Saturday, the day of application being Tuesday. It transpired that the application was made in respect of letters for a person who wasundergoing a state of hypnotism at a Bristol music hall. The touching incident occurred at the Bristol Post Office of a poor woman—pressing want having come upon her at last—who had to withdraw a shilling which she had thirty years previously deposited in a trustee savings bank which was taken over by the Post Office. She had to receive one penny by way of interest for the use of her mite for thirty years. Some years since a collector of old issues of crown-pieces presented seventy of such coins, in a good state of preservation, at the Bristol Post Office counter as a Savings Bank deposit. The depositor, after taking the trouble to accumulate these old coins, had come to the conclusion that an annual interest of eight shillings and sixpence would be more useful to him than an occasional inspection of the coins. Few people know so little about Post Office matters as an individual from over the Severn who recently asked for a postage stamp. "Do you want a penny or a halfpenny stamp?" asked the clerk. "I want a South Wales stamp," was the reply of Taffy. Then the surprise of the counter officer must have been great when, on counting up his money, he found that on one of the shillingsthe legend "Baby" boldly appeared impressed where the Queen's head is usually found, the coin having evidently been used as a brooch.
The Department, in communicating with the public, prescribes that its officers should subscribe themselves as the public's most obedient servants, and on some of the printed forms which have to be returned in answer to queries raised by the Department the same style is adopted for the public to use. One dignified gentleman returned his form, from which he had erased "Your obedient servant" and substituted "Yours respectfully," adding a marginal note to the effect that he was not the servant of the Department, but that the Department was his servant.
The postmaster of Bristol is addressed by the public in various ways, as for instance: "Postmaster General," "General Postmaster," "Bristol Postmaster," "H.M. Chief Postmaster," "To the Postmaster in State, Small Street, Bristol," "Head Post-Master and Surveyor of the Bristol District," "Head Master, Post Office," "Post Office Master," "Postmaster-in-General," "Master General, Post-Office," "Mr. ——, Esq., Post M.G.," "Mr. ——,Esq., Post Office General," "To the Reverend Sir Postmaster, Bristol, England."
It is astonishing how many Foreigners and Colonists apply to the Bristol Post Office respecting their relations, or for information as regards trading matters. The former questions are sometimes answered, but the latter are handed over to the courteous secretary of the Chamber of Commerce to deal with.
Very unusual was the circumstance of the receipt at the Bristol Post Office in 1895, anonymously, of a sum of ten shillings in postage stamps as conscience money, and, oddly enough, the next day threepence in stamps was received in the same anonymous manner and for the same purpose. These two instances were the first and the last.
The difference between romance and fact is exemplified by an article which appeared in a monthly magazine as follows, viz.:—
"A PUBLIC SERVANT."
"Her Majesty possesses one more faithful public servant than she is aware of, though its name does not transpire in the list of the Ministry. Everynight at the General Post Office, Bristol, a spirited mare attached to the red mail-cart is brought, at a quarter before midnight, to fetch the bags of letters, &c. She stands perfectly still, waiting while the mails are sealed and tossed one by one into the vehicle. At the five minutes before twelve, however, should all not be ready for departure, her driver sings out 'Any more for the down train?' by way of hurrying the officials. No sooner does the mare hear those words than she begins to dance and curvet, showing in every possible way her anxiety to start and her sense of the importance of her duties. But if by any chance the first stroke of midnight should sound before they are ready to proceed to the station, she takes matters into her own hands, and nothing will then hold her in. Those who have to do with this clever and beautiful creature are very proud of her, on account of the example she sets of punctuality and attention to the affairs of the nation."
The real facts on which this incident is founded were, that the horse (not mare) remained in the Post Office yard quietly from 11.10 p.m. untilmidnight on one particular night only, and not generally, and when the loading of the van commenced the horse became restive, the final slamming of the van doors causing it to start off for the street. In consequence of a repetition of this restlessness on another night, and "kicking-in" the front of the van, the horse was taken off the Royal Mail Service.
The Saxon King, Edmund I., doubtless never conceived, when he held court (A.D.940-946) at his palace in the village of Pucklechurch, seven miles from Bristol, that in generations to come there would exist, as there does now, a telegraph office within a few yards of the site of his castle, whence a question could be wired to the ends of the earth, and a reply obtained in the short space of a few hours. Probably at that remote period a journey from Pucklechurch to the north of Scotland would have been considered as great an achievement as that in recent days of Dr. Nansen in his endeavour to get to the North Pole.
The first actual working telegraph was erected in 1838 between Paddington and West Drayton on the Great Western Railway, and in the following year Wheatstone and Cook constructed a telegraph line from Paddington to Slough. Mr. Brunel thenwished to extend the line to this city, but the shareholders would not support him to that extent. In 1852, however, the Great Western Railway Board had the line constructed through to Bristol. By means of it messages could, at that later date, be forwarded to and from most parts of the kingdom from the office at the Bristol Railway Station. Arrangements were put in progress for extending the wires into the centre of the city, in order that greater facilities might be afforded to those parties who might wish to avail themselves of the means of inter-communication, and before the end of the year the wires were laid from the railway station to the Commercial Rooms, and subsequently three telegraph offices were opened in the city, viz.: the Electric and International, on the Exchange; the Magnetic, in Exchange Avenue; and the United Kingdom, in Corn Street. A telegraph line was laid to Shirehampton, and the committee of the Commercial Rooms subscribed £30 a year towards its maintenance.
It is recorded that in 1859 the firm of Messrs. W. D. and H. O. Wills, tobacconists and snuffmanufacturers of this city, laid down an electric telegraph wire between their warehouse in Maryport Street and their manufactory in Redcliff Street, whereby the partners and employés, although engaged in different parts of the city, were enabled to converse with each other as readily as if occupying the same counting-house. The wire was used solely for their own business.
In 1862 a turnpike road telegraph was spoken of as being in course of construction between Bristol and Birmingham.
Mr. James Robertson, the senior assistant superintendent o£ the Bristol Telegraph Office, during his forty-two years' service, thirteen of which were passed in the employment of the Electric and International Telegraph Company, has had many experiences. He has culled from his "ancient history" the fact that the amount of telegraph business transacted by the E. and I. T. Co. at Falmouth, Plymouth, Bristol, and London (Lothbury, head office) on March 10th, 1858, at the respective times of day stated, was:—Falmouth, 8 messages, handed in by 10.20 a.m.; Plymouth at 10.36 had managed to transmit 7; Bristol, atnoon, 39; and Lothbury had received 116 by 12.17 p.m. Plymouth transmitted for Falmouth, and Bristol for Plymouth. Bain's chemical recorder was the system used on the Falmouth wire, the double needle on the Plymouth and Bristol, and "Bains" and needles on Bristol-London circuits. The average delay on messages at Plymouth was eighty-three minutes and at Bristol fourteen minutes. The charge at the time from Falmouth to London was four shillings for twenty words, addresses free. The present proprietor ofLloyd's Newspaper, Mr. Thomas Catling, records an incident in which Mr. Robertson was concerned. Mr. Catling was the only London newspaper reporter who visited Windsor on the eventful night when the deeply lamented Prince Consort breathed his last on 14th December, 1861. On reaching Windsor by the last train from London he learned that His Royal Highness had passed away about twenty minutes previously. Having obtained at the Castle particulars of the sad event, Mr. Catling hunted out the residence of the clerk of the Electric and International Telegraph Company. On ringing him up, the clerk pleaded that before going to bed hehad been taking gruel and hot water to get rid of a bad cold. He, however, got up and proceeded with Mr. Catling to the telegraph office in High Street, whence intelligence was wired to London. Mr. Catling preserved the receipt of that message as a souvenir of the occasion. Mr. Robertson was the telegraph clerk who arose from his bed to perform the service in the dead of night.
On the transfer of the telegraph business from the companies to the State early in 1870, the Post Office, Bristol, engaged sixteen clerks from the Electric and International Telegraph Company, five from the United Kingdom Company, and six from the Magnetic Company. Additional clerks were employed by the Post Office as soon as the volume of work could be gauged, but in the meantime the transferred clerks had to do practically double duty. The officials taken over from the companies were located in the Small Street Post Office, but it was not until January, 1872, that room could be found there for the entire staff, which had then grown to be ninety clerks and fifty messengers. The telegraphic system soon after the Government took to it was extended in this districtto twenty of the principal villages. In the first year of Post Office working there were 450,000 messages dealt with here, and now the yearly number is 3,500,000. The sixpenny telegram was introduced in 1885. The local telegraph service now has a staff consisting of a superintendent, 23 superintending officers, 140 male and 44 female telegraphists, eight telephonists, and 155 telegraph messengers. Telegrams are delivered from the head office, two branch offices, fifteen town sub-offices, forty rural sub-offices, and four railway stations. The head office has 600,000 messages delivered from it annually, the branch and town sub-offices 220,000, and the rural districts 74,000. Of the latter (74,000), about 8,000 are delivered at distances of from one to three miles, and 350 at distances over three miles. After 8.0 p.m. all the messages in the town area are delivered from the head office. The Duke of Norfolk's 1897 concession of free delivery of telegrams for all distances under three miles has been appreciated by all those concerned.
The telegraph gallery has direct telegraphic connection with the undermentioned towns: Bath, Birmingham, Bridgwater, Cardiff, Cheltenham,Chippenham, Clevedon, Cork, Exeter, Glasgow, Gloucester, Guernsey, Jersey, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newport (Mon.), Oxford, Plymouth, Reading, Southampton, Swansea, Swindon, Taunton, and Weston-super-Mare, and thirty-two smaller towns.
Bristol plays a not unimportant part in the Post Office telephone trunk line system, commenced in 1896. It has direct trunk lines to Bath, Birmingham, Cardiff, Exeter, Gloucester, London, Newport, Sharpness, Taunton, and Weston-super-Mare. The conversations held by the public through the medium of these lines number 4,000 weekly.