Although it is not our intention to treat of mail-coaches otherwise than as vehicles for the transmission of letters, it may perhaps be permitted to us to pause here a moment and inquire where, at the end of the last century, the passengers' luggage can have been stowed. Of the boot a part, as we have seen, was given up to the mail-box; and the roof, upon which, within our own recollection, the luggage would be piled to nearly half the height of the coach itself, was forbidden, or almost forbidden, ground. "To load the roof of the coach," writes Hasker, "with large heavy baskets would not only be setting a bad example to other coaches, but in a very short time no passenger would travel with it." "Such a thing," he adds, "as a turtle tied on the roof directed to any gentleman once or twice a year might pass unnoticed, but for a constancy cannot be suffered." Thisobjection to a load on the roof appears to have been common to the Sovereign and the subject. In 1796 the Court proceeded to Weymouth; and, as usual, a royal mail was in attendance. The King, who took the liveliest interest in the performances of this coach, and examined the way-bill daily, discountenanced roof-loads. The royal injunctions on this head Hasker, who was a plain-spoken man and no courtier, conveyed to, his subordinates thus: "Take care not to load the royal mail too high, and when any of His Majesty's servants travel by it do not load the roof upward, as you know he ordered that no luggage should be put on the top when his servants rode, and, indeed, at all times. Now upwards [i.e.on return from Weymouth to Windsor] there can be no occasion, for there are waggons and other conveyances to bring the luggage up." The possible use of waggons and other conveyances notwithstanding, we cannot help thinking that the traveller by coach of a hundred years ago must have been content with a far smaller quantity of luggage than would satisfy the traveller of to-day.
That the roof of the coach, whether loaded or not, had its drawbacks for travellers is sufficiently evident from Hasker's correspondence. "The York coachman and guard," he writes after a spell of bad weather which had rotted the roads, "were both chucked from their seats going down to Huntingdon last journey, and coming up the guard is lost this morning, supposed from the same cause, as the passengers say he was blowing his horn just before they missed him."
The King's interest in his mail-coach was not confined to the inspection of the way-bill. It was usual, before the Court repaired to Weymouth, for the coach to make a certain number of trial trips, and the King would go to the castle gates to see it pass. "His Majesty," writes Hasker, under date the 12th of August 1794, "came down to the park gate to see the mail-coach the first and second day, and told me he was much pleased to see it so well done and regular, and that he was glad Mr. White did not work it." Mr. White had worked it on a previous occasion, and had not given satisfaction. At the end of each season the King gavestill more practical proof of the interest he took in his coach by sending thirty guineas for distribution among the mail guards and coachmen.
But, gratified as Hasker must have been by these marks of royal condescension, there was one thing which, with his concurrence, even the King should not do, and that was, detain the mail. Owing to the letters from the Court being late, the coach, on several successive days, had not started from Weymouth until after the appointed hour. Chesterfield was the minister in attendance, and Hasker addressed to him a letter of respectful remonstrance. Of course he did not know, he said, whether the mail had been detained by His Majesty or by His Majesty's postmaster-general; but in either case he prayed it might be considered how bad an example it was, and what disorder was being introduced into the service. According to present arrangements, the coach should leave Weymouth at four in the afternoon. It might be appointed to leave at five or even six if desired, and yet reach London on the following day in time for the last delivery; but whatever hour might be fixed, he adjured his Lordship that it might be observed.
How completely the mail-coach had by this time extinguished the express may be judged from the following instruction to the packet agent at Yarmouth:[71]"You will observe the reason why you keep the mail to send by the mail-coach is that, tho' you detain it four or five hours, it arrives as soon at the General Post Office as if sent by express, for the coach travels in sixteen or seventeen hours, and the express in not less than twenty or twenty-one, sometimes more." Nor is it less interesting to note the change of sentiment which had recently taken place as to the importance of despatch. Only a few years before, as we have seen, the inhabitants of Shrewsbury had been informed that it could be of no consequence whether their letters arrived four or five hours sooner or later. Now, in order to accelerate the letters contained in a single bag, no expenseis to be spared. "If," the same instruction continues, "any mail arrives within an hour after the mail-coach is gone, perhaps a post-chaise and four might catch it at Ipswich."
But, to quit details, the broad results were these. Palmer, when introducing his plan, had promised security and despatch; but not economy. On the contrary, he had made no secret of his opinion that the use of mail-coaches would involve a considerable increase of expense. The result was a surprise even to himself. Before 1784 the annual allowance for carrying the mails ranged from £4 to £8 a mile, £8 being paid where the mails were heavy—as, for instance, on the Great North Road from London as far as Tuxford. In 1792 the terms on which the mails were carried were exemption from tolls and 1d. a mile each way, or an annual allowance of a little more than £3 a mile. Palmer had estimated the total cost of his plan at £30,000 a year. The actual cost only slightly exceeded £12,000.
Hardly less reason had he to congratulate himself on the score of security and despatch. Before 1784 scarcely a week passed without the mails on one road or another being robbed. So great had the scandal become that the Post Office built a model cart—a cart wholly constructed of iron and reputed to be robber-proof. This cart had not long begun to run before it was stopped by highwaymen and rifled of its contents. In 1792 eight years had passed since the introduction of Palmer's plan; and during this period not a single mail-coach had been either stopped or robbed. This immunity from robbery was in more ways than one equivalent to a further saving. Before 1784 heavy expenses were incurred annually for prosecutions. One trial alone, a trial which made no little noise at the time, namely that of the brothers Weston, cost no less than £4000. This source of expense had now, of course, disappeared. As regards despatch, before 1784 the post travelled between five and six miles an hour. In 1792 the mail-coaches were travelling about seven miles an hour. Telford had not yet levelled the hills nor Macadam pavedthe roads; and rollers were unknown. A speed of seven miles an hour at the end of the last century was probably far more trying to horses than a speed of ten miles an hour later on.
It would be beyond our province to inquire—interesting as the inquiry would be—to what extent the exchange of commodities between town and town dates from the introduction of mail-coaches; and whether it was not at this period that, with some noted exceptions, the local repute which certain towns enjoyed for the manufacture of particular articles began to spread. Ours is a humbler purpose; or we might be tempted even to contend that Palmer's plan, by the facilities it afforded for intercourse, exercised an influence—slow it may be, but none the less sure—upon the habits and condition of the people.
We will illustrate our meaning. Before the introduction of mail-coaches in 1784 the town of Penzance in Cornwall was not indeed without a post; but the post it possessed was hardly worthy of the name. In 1790 letters were conveyed there by cart from Falmouth regularly six days a week. Now, of the condition of Penzance not many years before the earlier of these two dates we are informed on unimpeachable authority. "I have heard my mother relate," writes Sir Humphry Davy's brother and biographer, "that when she was a girl[72]there was only one cart in the town of Penzance, and that if a carriage occasionally appeared in the streets it attracted universal attention. Pack-horses were then in general use for conveying merchandise, and the prevailing manner of travelling was on horseback. At that period the luxuries of furniture and living enjoyed by people of the middle class at the present time were confined almost entirely to the great and wealthy; in the same town, where the population was about 2000 persons, there was only one carpet, the floors of rooms were sprinkled with sea-sand, and there was not a single silver fork. The only newspaper which then circulated in the west of England was theSherborne Mercury, and it wascarried through the country not by the post but by a man on horseback specially employed in distributing it." Penzance can never be otherwise than a most interesting town; but one finds it difficult to believe that, after being brought into communication with the outside world on six days of the week, it can long have retained its pristine charm and simplicity.
Let us now see what, at the time of Palmer's retirement, was the condition of the country Post Offices. Bristol, after long ranking next to London in wealth and population, had yielded place to other towns. Foremost among these stood Manchester. Manchester, following suit to the capital, had recently numbered its streets; it was publishing local directories; and it enjoyed the reputation of being, the capital itself not excepted, the dearest town in the kingdom. At the present time the Post Office at Manchester gives employment to about 1400 persons. In 1792, with the exception of a single letter-carrier, the whole of the Post Office business there was conducted by an aged widow assisted by her daughter. Dame Willatt had recently achieved some little local notoriety. She had, as an inducement to persons to post early, imposed a late-letter fee. For this proceeding, not at that time uncommon and not disapproved at headquarters, she had been summoned to the Court of the Lord of the Manor, and had been cast in damages.
Bath enjoyed a double distinction, a distinction due less probably to its population as compared with that of other towns than to the fact that, being Palmer's native place, it was constantly under his eye as it had been under the eye of Ralph Allen before. This highly-favoured town was, outside London, the only one in the kingdom which could boast of what, with any regard to the meaning of words, could be dignified by the name of a Post Office Establishment; and the postmaster's salary was in excess of that which any other postmaster received. This salary was £150 a year, and the establishment, over which Ralph Allen's successor presided, consisted of one clerk and three letter-carriers.
No other town had more than one letter-carrier; and many towns had not even this. Whether the accommodation was provided or not appears to have depended less upon the necessities of the place than upon the disposition of the inhabitants. Thus, the little towns of Sandwich in Kent and Hungerford in Berkshire, in recognition of the gallant conflict they had waged with the authorities, had each a letter-carrier of its own, while Norwich, York, Derby, Newcastle, and Plymouth had none. Besides Bath only four towns received an allowance for a clerk or assistant, namely Manchester, Norwich, York, and Leeds. Elsewhere the postmaster and a letter-carrier, if letter-carrier there was, were the sole Post Office representatives.
At Bristol the postmaster's salary was £140,—the next highest after that given at Bath. At Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and Chester the salary was £100; at Exeter, York, Newcastle, Leeds, and Plymouth £80; at Sheffield £60, to which amount it had been recently raised from £50; at Derby, Carlisle, and Gloucester £40; at Brighton and Nottingham £30; at Leicester £25; and at Southampton £20. At Tunbridge the postmaster, in addition to a salary of £20, received an allowance of equal amount for keeping an office at Tunbridge Wells. Ripon, despite the rebuke it had received in 1713 for its audacity in asking for a Post Office, had now been accommodated with one. At Chepstow pence were still being paid on the delivery of letters, not because the inhabitants had not discovered their rights but out of consideration to the aged postmistress, whose emoluments they were unwilling to diminish. Birkenhead, Torquay, and Bournemouth,[73]of course, did not exist. Eastbourne existed indeed, but not as we know it now. Hither the letters were carried three times a week from Lewes. At Ramsgate, then a village served from the neighbouring post-town of Sandwich, an office for the receipt of letters was kept at acost of £6 a year. The whole of the Isle of Wight had but one postmaster and one letter-carrier. To the Channel Islands there was no post.
On Palmer's retirement the office of chief adviser to the postmasters-general devolved almost naturally upon Francis Freeling, the surveyor located at headquarters. Todd still held the appointment of secretary, but after a service of more than fifty years he was unequal to the exertion which the exigencies of the time required. Between Todd and Walsingham, moreover, there was little in common. Their relations, indeed, had always been most friendly; but the views they entertained on Post Office questions were more often than not at variance. "It is a matter of great entertainment to me," wrote Walsingham, as early as October 1788, "to see how totally we differ in all our official opinions." From this time Todd took less and less part in the duties of his office, and confined himself almost exclusively to its social amenities. This was a sphere in which he excelled. At his table in Lombard Street the postmasters-general themselves and such as they might choose to meet them were frequent guests, and "his old hock in his old parlour" passed into a by-word.
Freeling, on the contrary, possessed advantages which not only pointed him out as Todd's successor when Todd should be pleased to retire, but peculiarly fitted him to deal with the circumstances of the moment. In the prime of life, of good address and prepossessing appearance, and with a knowledge of every detail of Post Office organisation such as only constant visits to different parts of the kingdom could give, he soon contrived to make himself not only useful but indispensable; and before any long period had expired the postmasters-general appointed him joint secretary with Todd, an arrangement by virtue of which one was to be the acting and the other the sleeping partner; one was to do the work and the other to draw the pay. It was new to the postmasters-general to have about them some one who was not only able but willing and anxious to impart informationon every official question as it arose, and they could ill conceal their glee at the altered state of affairs. "One of the complaints made by us of Mr. Palmer," they wrote about this time, "was that he did what he thought fit without making the least communication to the Board, or without there being a single record of anything which he did or objected to either before or after it was done"; ... but "Mr. Freeling reports distinctly to us upon every application that we refer to him, or that is made to the Board, amounting to above two hundred reports every quarter for the current business." Freeling was now exposed to a serious danger, a danger to which many a reputation has succumbed, namely, that of being transformed from a man of action into a mere scribe; but this was a temptation which he stoutly resisted. Without relaxing his efforts to maintain and improve upon Palmer's plan, he was careful not only to keep the postmasters-general informed of what he was doing, but to do nothing which had not first been duly authorised.
The period immediately following Palmer's retirement was one rather of honest endeavour than of solid achievement. The first and most pressing question to arise was that of insufficiency of accommodation at headquarters. The inland office, this being the office in which the mails were made up for despatch, was not only close and ill-ventilated, but altogether too small for its purpose. More post-towns were required in various parts of the kingdom; but it was impossible to add to the number of towns for which bags would have to be made up until more space should be provided. Some persons thought it would be best at once to take a step which in any case would probably have to be taken in the not remote future, and to build a new Post Office on other and more extensive premises. Such, however, was not the opinion of the postmasters-general. They were naturally unwilling to advocate the heavy expenditure which such a measure would involve except upon proof of its absolute necessity. Mainly on this ground, but also partly because premises in so central and convenient aposition as those which the present Post Office occupied were not to be had, authority was sought and obtained for nothing more than the erection of a new inland office.
But, as the postmasters-general found to their cost, it is one thing to obtain an authority and another thing to carry it into effect. On part of the ground on which the office was to be erected stood two houses, the lease of which had not long to run; and the Drapers' Company, to whom the property belonged, declined to extend the term. This difficulty was at length overcome, and the houses were in course of demolition, when projecting into the very centre of the space designed for the new office was found the wall of an old house belonging to Sir Charles Watson, and this house he refused to let the Post Office have unless it would also take seven other houses which he possessed in the immediate neighbourhood. At the present time houses in and about Abchurch Lane would probably fetch twenty-five years' purchase. Fifteen years' purchase was the sum then demanded, and it was considered a hard bargain. Eventually Watson consented to grant a ninety-nine years' lease; but it was a lease not only of the single house that the Post Office wanted, but of all eight houses, seven of which it did not want. What they called their mortifications and disappointments at an end, the postmasters-general proceeded to build.
Still more unsatisfactory was the result of an attempt that was made or intended to be made about this time to improve the post with the Continent. Communication with France was only twice a week, and Walsingham desired to treble it. In France, as in England, the post went to the water's edge on six days of the week, and he could see no reason why, except on two days, it should stop there. He entertained a strong opinion that between the two countries communication should be daily.
There was also another matter to be settled with our neighbours. During a period of sixty-six years, namely, from 1713 to 1779, the postage on a single letter between London and Paris had been 10d.; and, to avoidthe keeping of accounts, this sum had been collected and retained by the Post Office of the country in which the letter was delivered. In 1779, when owing to the war communication between Dover and Calais was stopped, letters from Paris reached England through Flanders, and on these letters when put into the post in Paris a charge of 4d. was made in addition to the 10d. to be paid on delivery in London. It had been thought that in 1783, on the termination of the war, this charge would be abandoned, and that the old postage of 10d. would be resumed. Such, however, was not the case. The Post Office authorities in France adhered to the 4d. charge and defended it. The old postage of 10d., they argued, was all very well when they had no packets of their own and England performed the sea service. But now France had her own packets, and the distance between Paris and Calais being far greater than between London and Dover, it could not in reason be expected that on a letter between the two capitals she would be content with no higher postage than that which England received. The charge of 4d. upon letters for London when put into the post in Paris must be maintained, even though they no longer went through Flanders. It was a matter of internal regulation with which England had no concern. Without contesting this view of the case, the home authorities regarded the 4d. charge as a most vexatious impost. Not only had it the effect of diminishing the correspondence, but many of the letters which still passed were carried by private hand from Paris to Dover and there posted, so that the British Post Office received upon them only 4d. apiece, this being the postage from Dover to London, instead of 10d., the postage from Paris. In 1787 Palmer had, by Pitt's direction, gone over to France in order to adjust the matter and to promote a six days' post between the two countries; but he returned without effecting either object.
Circumstances now appearing more favourable, Walsingham determined to make fresh overtures. An emissaryhad already been selected for the purpose, and was on the eve of departure when a new and unexpected difficulty arose; the merchants of London, to whom the intention to increase the frequency of communication with France had become known, met to protest against the project. A hundred years before they would have gone to the Post Office, talked the matter over with the postmasters-general, and, after an exchange of opinions, an agreement would have been come to as to what was best to be done. Now they assembled in their numbers at the London Tavern and resolved "that any addition to the present number of post days to France or to any other part of the Continent is unnecessary, and would be highly inconvenient and injurious to the merchants of London." The resolution was unanimous, and copies were sent to the postmasters-general and the minister. For the merchants of London Walsingham entertained a sincere respect; but in this particular matter, convinced that they did not know what was for their own good, he determined to proceed in their despite. Unhappily, however, at this conjuncture the resumption of hostilities with France extinguished for the time all hopes of improved communication with the Continent.
Another project, in which the Post Office and the merchants possessed a common interest and a common desire, was also doomed to failure. The practice of cutting bank notes into two parts and sending one part by one post and another by another had now become general. The expedient, though efficacious, was a costly one. A letter with an enclosure, however light, paid double postage; and double postage between two places no farther apart than London and Birmingham was 10d. To send two halves of a bank note each in a separate letter would, of course, cost twice that amount. This was a heavy insurance to pay. The Post Office, in its desire not to discourage a practice which diminished temptation to dishonesty, was hardly less anxious than the merchants themselves that the amount should be reduced. Accordingly Walsingham proposed thatin all cases where a bank note was sent by two separate posts the second letter, that is to say, the letter containing the second half, should, on proof being given of its contents, be charged with only single postage. A notice to the public announcing the change had already been prepared when he learnt to his chagrin that the proposed regulation would be illegal. In the case of a letter with an enclosure the law prescribed double postage, and it was no more in the power of the Post Office to reduce the amount than to forego it altogether.
But these were failures which it is only interesting to record as evidence that at the Post Office, after Palmer had left it, there was no want of directing energy or of a desire to study the interests of the public. It is pleasant to turn to matters in respect to which good intentions were not unattended with results. But before leaving 1792, the year in which these disappointments occurred, we must not omit to notice that it was at the end of this year that the letter-carriers were for the first time put into uniform. Palmer, who was now playing the part of the outside critic, condemned the innovation as a piece of unnecessary extravagance. But Palmer did not know the reasons for it. The letter-carriers when in private clothes were exposed to temptation from which the wearing of uniform would protect them; and more than one recent case had brought the fact into painful prominence. Nor can it be denied that, so long as there was no distinctive dress, letter-carriers in want of a holiday were a little apt to take one without permission, supplying their place by persons of whose character they knew little or nothing. It was in order to check irregularity of this kind and as a means of protection to themselves and the public that uniform was now introduced. The uniform consisted of a scarlet cloth coat with blue lapels and blue linings of padua; a blue cloth waistcoat, and a hat with gold band.
It should also be noticed that about this time the Post Office servants in London were in some measure relieved from the pecuniary cares by which they had long beenoppressed. The Commissioners of Inquiry in their Report of 1788 had recommended for the Post Office a new establishment; and now, after an interval of nearly five years, this establishment was approved by the King in Council. The new salaries were not high. At the present time they would be considered low; but such as they were, they were higher than the salaries they replaced. Jamineau's recent death, moreover, by relieving the clerks of the roads from payment of the commission[74]which this officer received on all newspapers with which they dealt, enabled them to reduce their price for franking, the result being an immediate extension of sale. On the whole, the Post Office servants in London were, at this time, in comparatively comfortable circumstances, or at all events above the reach of actual want. The starvation and bankruptcy with which they had at one time been threatened had been staved off by a grant, which Pitt renewed year after year while the Commissioners' Report was under consideration. This grant amounted to £3000, of which £2000 were for distribution in the sorting office, and £1000 in the other offices.
The year 1793 was signalised by a remarkable development of the penny post. This institution, which had as yet been established nowhere but in London and in Dublin, was now to be extended to Edinburgh, to Manchester, to Bristol, and to Birmingham. In Edinburgh the ground had been to some extent preoccupied. The keeper of a coffee-house in the hall of the Parliament House had sixteen years before set up an office from which letters were delivered throughout the city at 1d. apiece; and this office still remained open and prospered. To compare Williamson's undertaking with Dockwra's would be to compare a mouse with an elephant; and yet it may not be uninteresting to note the different treatment which the two men received. Dockwra was prosecuted, fined, and his undertaking confiscated. Williamson was granted a pension. "We havealso," write the postmasters-general under date the 19th of July 1793, "to beg your Lordship's permission to authorise us to allow to Mr. Williamson of Edinburgh £25 per annum, he having long had the profits of 1d. a letter on certain letters forwarded through his receiving house at Edinburgh, which he will lose by our having established a penny post there. We have made it a rule," they add, "always to propose that those who suffer in their incomes from regulations which are certainly beneficial to the public should receive compensation for the loss they sustain."
At Manchester the establishment of the penny post followed upon other and important alterations. The inhabitants of that town had long complained of the inadequacy of their postal arrangements; and measures had recently been taken, the very extent of which serves to shew how serious must have been the defects which they were designed to supply. The aged postmistress was granted a pension of £120, with the reversion of one-third of that amount to her daughter; and in her room an active postmaster was appointed at a salary of £300. Four clerks were at the same time appointed, at salaries ranging from £50 to £100, and five additional letter-carriers, making six altogether, at wages of 12s. a week. Thus, Manchester suddenly found itself in possession of a Post Office establishment with which, outside London, that of no other town in the kingdom could compare. As a sequel to this important extension of force a penny post was opened in July 1793; and no sooner had the boon been conferred upon Manchester than it was extended to Bristol and to Birmingham.
It is interesting to note what at these three towns was the financial effect of giving postal facilities. During the year 1794-95 the penny post brought a clear gain to the revenue—in Manchester, of £586; in Bristol, of £469; and in Birmingham, of £240. It is a curious fact that, with this experience to guide them and with an anxious desire to extend the system, the Post Office authorities, after sparing no pains to inform themselves on the subject,came to the conclusion that neither at Liverpool nor at Leeds nor at any other town in England would a penny post defray its own expenses.
But it was in London that the penny post attained its highest development. This branch of Post Office business had long been shamefully neglected. Of the officers concerned in it those above the rank of sorter were only three in number—a comptroller, an accountant, and a collector. Of these the collector attended only occasionally, and the accountant and comptroller not at all. This neglect had its natural effect upon the receipts. During the last twenty years and more, notwithstanding the increase which had during this period taken place in the population and trade of the metropolis, the revenue of the penny post had remained almost stationary. Up to 1789 the highest sum it had ever produced in one year was £5157 net. This was in 1784, and for the five following years the receipts went on decreasing until, attention having been called to the decline, there was a sudden rebound. In 1792 the revenue was—gross £10,825, and net £5561.
Palmer, who was well aware of the discreditable condition into which the Penny Post Office had fallen, proposed to take it in farm, and offered as a consideration to forego his salary and percentage; but this was a proposal the acceptance of which was strongly deprecated by the Commissioners of Inquiry who sat in 1788 no less than by the postmasters-general. It was their unanimous opinion that the penny post should be retained in the hands of the State. Palmer, still clinging to the hope that other counsels might prevail, put off effecting improvements which would afford the strongest arguments against the adoption of his own proposal; and in 1793, in spite of the changes which had been going on all around, the Penny Post Office remained much as it had been during the last twenty years.
The man who now took the reform of the penny post in hand was Edward Johnson. Johnson was a letter-carrier. Hehad been appointed by Palmer or on Palmer's recommendation; and he soon gave proof of more than ordinary ability. Palmer not infrequently exposed him to a severe ordeal. When unable or unwilling to attend the postmasters-general himself, he would send Johnson in his stead, a substitution which they resented as unseemly; and thus some little prejudice had been excited against him. This prejudice, however, had disappeared with the cause of it, and Johnson now stood high, deservedly high, in the postmaster-generals' favour.
In 1793, in addition to the numerous receiving houses where letters for the penny post might be taken in, there were in London five principal offices—one known as the chief Penny Post Office, and situated in Throgmorton Street, opposite Bartholomew Lane; another called the Westminster Penny Post Office, and situated in Coventry Street, Haymarket; a third, the Hermitage Office in Queen Street, Little Tower Hill; a fourth, the Southwark Office in St. Saviour's Churchyard, Borough; and a fifth, the St. Clement's Office, in Blackmore Street. Between these five offices there was little or no connection; at no two of them were the number of collections or deliveries the same or the hours at which they were made; the letter-carriers were altogether too few for the ground which they had to cover, so that punctuality and despatch were impossible; and even those whose walks lay near the ten-mile limit, before proceeding to deliver their letters, had to come to London to fetch them.
Johnson proposed to change all this. He proposed to reduce the number of principal offices from five to two, retaining only the chief office and the office in Coventry Street; to increase the number of collections and deliveries; to give the same number to all parts served by the penny post, namely, six in the town and three in the suburbs, or, as the suburbs were then called, "the country," and everywhere, as far as possible, to observe the same hours; to post these hours up in every receiving house, so that the public might be made acquainted with them and act as a check upon their being observed; and, instead of requiringthe letter-carriers in the remoter parts to come to London for their letters, to send their letters to them by mounted messengers.
Johnson's last proposal, though following almost naturally from what had gone before, well-nigh staggered the postmasters-general. It was that, in order to carry his plan into effect, the number of penny post letter-carriers should be more than doubled. The existing number was eighty-two, and the number which Johnson proposed was 181. This, even at the present time—large as are the numbers with which the Post Office has been accustomed to deal—would be considered a heavy, an exceptionally heavy, increase. In 1793 it was regarded as portentous, and the postmasters-general anxiously sought means to reduce it; but Johnson, besides being perfect master of his subject, possessed two faculties which by no means always go together. He possessed the faculty of devising a good scheme and the faculty of explaining it; and the lucid explanation he now gave convinced the postmasters-general that they could not do better than adopt his plan in its entirety. Contrasting the time which a letter took to pass between various parts of London with the time which it would take if his suggestions were adopted, Johnson had no difficulty in shewing that from his plan the public would derive facilities for intercourse to which they had hitherto been strangers.
There were, perhaps, no two places between which the course of post was more difficult to manage than Marylebone and Limehouse. Under the existing plan a letter from one of these two places, however early it might be posted, might not reach the other on the same day, and, even if it did so, an answer could not be received before the afternoon of the following day. Under Johnson's plan a letter might be received, an answer returned, and the answer answered, all on the same day. Places less inconveniently situated in relation to each other were to receive a still larger measure of benefit. Between persons residing in Lombard Street and the Haymarket, for instance, five letters might pass to andfro between the hours of eight in the morning and seven in the evening. This was within the town limits. Within the country limits the general effect of Johnson's plan may be stated thus: that to letters from London answers might be returned sooner by two posts if the letters were for places not more than five miles distant, and, if for places distant between five and ten miles, sooner by a period ranging from one to three days. The last-mentioned places, moreover, were to have three posts a day instead of one post.
Pitt was no less favourably impressed with Johnson's plan than the postmasters-general were; but before sanctioning it he resolved to await the passing of an Act for the redress of certain anomalies, or what were considered to be anomalies, in the practice of the penny post. This Act was passed in 1794; and immediate steps were taken for carrying the plan into effect. A proud day for Johnson must have been the 8th of September. On that day a public notice appeared announcing the changes that were about to take place; and this notice bore his signature. Only the other day he had been a letter-carrier, and now, by reason of a promotion which did hardly more honour to himself than to the postmasters-general who made it, he signed as deputy-comptroller of the Penny Post Office.
The financial results of Johnson's plan exceeded all expectation. For the last year of the old system the gross revenue of the penny post was £11,000. For the first year of the new system it was £28,560; and for the second year £29,623. Johnson had proceeded on the principle—a principle which from the first establishment of the Post Office has never yet been known to fail—increase facilities for correspondence and correspondence itself increases.
Johnson had made one mistake, a mistake which he frankly acknowledged and did his best to repair. He had fixed the wages of the letter-carriers too low. It was not that he had been indifferent to the interests of the class from which he had recently emerged, but that he had feared to overweight a measure which, even as it stood, he had almost despaired of carrying. The wages, as fixed on hisrecommendation, ranged from 9s. to 16s. a week. Then came that terrible winter—the winter of 1794-95. We have ourselves been witness to an excessive absence from duty on the part of Post Office servants during the epidemic of influenza in 1890. But the number that were absent then, relatively to the whole force, were not to be compared to the number that were absent in the spring of 1795; neither was their absence due to so grievous a cause.
In the spring of 1795 the penny post letter-carriers, unlike the letter-carriers of the general post, had not yet been supplied with uniform, and, through sheer inability to supply themselves with such articles of clothing and of food as the severity of the weather required, nearly one-half of the whole number were unable to follow their employment. Johnson took great blame to himself for what he had done; nor did he rest until he had procured for the letter-carriers a substantial increase all round. This increase ranged from about 2s. to 6s. a week for each man, and involved a total cost of £1600 a year. Also in matters of detail Johnson effected several improvements, of which we will mention only one. The receptacle for letters at the receiving houses in London had hitherto been an open and movable box. The box was now, on his recommendation, to be fixed and provided with a key. The key was to be kept by the receiver, and he alone was to have access to the letters.
The Act of 1794 contained provisions which it is impossible to pass unnoticed. The penny post from its first establishment in 1681 had differed from the general post in this—that letters sent by it had to be prepaid. By the general post prepayment had not indeed been prohibited, but it had been discouraged; by the penny post it had been compulsory. This was now altered, and it was left to the option of persons using the penny post whether they would prepay their letters or not. It is difficult to repress a pang at the disappearance of a provision to which Dockwra, the founder of the penny post, attached the highest importance; and yet it must be admitted that the change was not made without a reason. Messengers and servants entrusted withletters to post would destroy the letters for the sake of the pence which had been given them to pay the postage; and to such an extent had the abuse been carried that some persons made it a rule not to use the penny post at all unless they could post their own letters.
Another provision of the Act of 1794 was to relax a restriction imposed by the Act of Anne. Before 1711 the penny post had been so extended as to include many places distant from London as much as eighteen and twenty miles. Then came the Act of Anne, restricting the penny post to a circuit of ten miles. And now the ten-mile limit was abolished, and the postmasters-general were empowered, not in London alone but also in country towns wherever the penny post might be established, to extend it at their discretion.
A third provision of the Act of 1794 was designed to correct what was considered a flaw in a previous Act. It is interesting to note what this flaw was. When Dockwra established his post, he insisted that on letters going by it the postage should be 1d. and no more. This penny, however, in the case of letters for places situated beyond the bills of mortality, was to carry only to the receiving house; for delivery at a private house was to be paid a second penny, commonly called the delivery-penny. The Act of Anne merely provided that letters by the penny post should be charged 1d., and was silent on the subject of the second or delivery-penny; and a subsequent Act, passed in 1731, made the delivery-penny legal.
Now what was the consequence of all this? The consequence was that as between two letters, the one passing from London to a place outside the bills of mortality and the other passing from a place outside the bills of mortality to London, there was a difference of postage. In the one direction the postage was 2d. and in the other 1d. The Act of 1794 imposed a postage of 2d. in both directions; and here we see not indeed the origin of the twopenny post but the twopenny post fully established.
The reform of the penny post was soon followed by that of the dead letter office. This office was establishedin 1784. How, before that year, dead letters were treated is perhaps one of the obscurest points of Post Office practice. We know that letters which could not be delivered and letters which had been missent were always treated together. We know that in 1716 these letters had become so numerous that an officer was specially appointed to check them. We know that to Ralph Allen, fertile as he was in resources, how to deal with this class of letters was a constant source of perplexity. We know that Todd, writing to Foxcroft, the deputy postmaster-general of America, in February 1775, says: "Amongst other regulations made here of late the dead, refused, and unknown letters returned to this office have been opened by the proper officers, and returned to the writers"; but without adding who "the proper officers" were. And we know that as late as 1783 there was in London a letter-carrier whose special duty it was to "take care of the unknown and uncertain letters."
But when we have stated this, we have stated all. Whether there was any recognised mode of dealing with dead letters, or whether any one into whose hands these letters came dealt with them as he judged best, according to circumstances, are questions upon which we have absolutely no information. In 1784 only a part of the dead letters and letters that had been missent went to the newly-created dead letter office. Another and larger part, consisting of bye-letters or letters that in the ordinary course would not reach London, were dealt with in the bye-letter office. No letter was returned to the writer until after the expiration of six months, and on its return no postage was charged. In 1790 Palmer reduced from six months to two the period before which letters were returned, and on his own motion, without reference to the postmasters-general, charged them with postage. Grave doubts were entertained as to the legality of this charge, and Pitt, as soon as he heard of it, ordered it to be discontinued.
In 1793 Barlow, a clerk in the secretary's office, who had charge of the dead letter office, introduced twochanges of practice which, obvious as they may now appear, were then regarded as evidence of no little merit. He arranged that missent letters, instead of being sent to London to be dealt with in the dead letter office, should be forwarded to their destination from the place where the missending was discovered; and also—a change which gave great satisfaction in naval and military circles—that letters for the army and navy should be sent where the army and navy were known to be, and not to stations and quarters which they were known to have left simply because the letters were addressed there.
About the same time the dead letter office received most valuable help in the discharge of its duties from the publication of what was, virtually, the first County Directory. For some years past three Post Office servants had been engaged in compiling a list of all the names and addresses they could collect throughout the different counties of England. This list, though still far from complete, now filled six large folio volumes. The venture which had been undertaken with a view to profit was financially a failure; but as a means of helping to forward letters with imperfect addresses it proved an unqualified success.
Thus matters stood in 1795, when Barlow proposed a further reform. The inspector of the "bye, dead, and missent letters," as they were called, had neglected his duties. These letters were not sent to London until they had lain for three months in the country offices, and after their arrival he had suffered a still longer period to elapse before proceeding to dispose of them. Barlow now proposed that these letters also should be placed under his control, and the proposal being approved, the dead letter office began to assume the shape in which, though under another name, we know it to-day. To the general practice one exception was made. On the first opening of penny post offices in country towns many letters could not be delivered on account of their imperfect addresses. The novelty and cheapness of the post, it may well be believed, induced persons to use it who possessed little skill inwriting, and no knowledge of the mode in which superscriptions should be prepared. It was a duty imposed on the surveyor who was engaged in establishing the post to open these letters and return them to the writers on the spot.
Another office was established about this time, an office for dealing with the American and West Indian letters. The merchants had recently complained that these letters were continually missent, letters for one of the West India Islands being sent to another, and letters for places served from Halifax being sent to Quebec andvice versâ. The truth is that until lately some profit had been derived from the sorting of these letters; and the most experienced officers, who knew the circulation abroad almost as well as they knew the circulation at home, had been glad to sort them. The comptroller of the inland department—for, curiously enough, it was there and not in the foreign department that the letters were dealt with—had received one guinea a night and the clerks 5s. a night for dealing with them; but these unauthorised additions to salaries had now been stopped, and the West Indian and American mails were left to be sorted, just as any other mails were sorted, by seniors and juniors in common.
It was impossible that mistakes should not occur. To assist in the disposal of inland mails there were what were called circulation lists, lists shewing to what towns letters for particular places were to be sent; but in the case of the American and West Indian mails there were no such aids to inexperience, and the letters were to a large extent sent haphazard. Freeling now altered this. He procured from abroad circulation lists corrected to the latest date. Four experienced officers were selected, who were made specially responsible for the West Indian and American correspondence; they were to devote to it two hours a night over and above their ordinary hours; and for this extra attendance they were each to receive a special allowance of £30 a year.
Freeling's last safeguard is interesting as shewing what may be done with a limited correspondence. Two bookswere to be kept, of which one was to be reserved for Government letters. In this book were to be entered the date on which each individual letter was posted, the date on which it was forwarded to Falmouth, and the name of the packet by which it was despatched. The second book was, in Freeling's own words, "to contain observations of different kinds to enable the clerks the better to satisfy the merchants applying for information" respecting the letters they had posted. It would perhaps be hardly an exaggeration to say that between England on the one hand and America and the West Indies on the other there are at the present time more sackfuls of letters passing than there were single letters one hundred years ago.
About the same time, but a little later, an important change took place in the treatment of letters arriving from the East Indies in the ships of the East India Company. These letters came to the India House in boxes addressed to the directors, and so escaped all but the inland postage. Some of them indeed did not pay even that, for if addressed to persons in or near London they were delivered by the Company's servants, who charged and retained as their own perquisite a fee varying from 2s. 6d. to 10s. 6d. on each letter. The practice was of old date, as old probably as the East India Company itself, and was held to be not illegal. It is true that a vessel was forbidden under a penalty of £20 to break bulk or to make entry into port until all letters brought by the master or his company should be delivered to some agent of the postmasters-general; but both the captain and the directors were held to be exempt from liability under this provision, the captain because he was presumably ignorant of what the boxes contained, and the directors because the penalty attached to the captain and not to them.
The legality of the practice not being contested, nothing remained but to make overtures to the directors; and, on this being done, they readily consented that for the future all letters arriving by their ships, except such as were for themselves and their friends, should be forthwith sent tothe Post Office to be dealt with as ship letters. The public derived no little advantage from the change. The postage from India was actually less than what the company's servants had been accustomed to exact as fees; and the letters were now delivered at once, whereas the company's servants would seldom deliver them under three or four days after their arrival at the India House, and sometimes not for a whole month.
Contemporaneously with the Act of Parliament regulating the penny post was passed another establishing a post to the Channel Islands. This was essentially a war post, a post which, except for the war between England and France, might have been postponed far into the present century. Hitherto letters for the Channel Islands had been charged with postage only as far as Southampton, and from Southampton they had been carried to their destination by private boat. Again and again had the Post Office been urged by those who wanted employment for their vessels to establish a line of packets to the islands; but to all such overtures the postmasters-general turned a deaf ear. Boats were passing to and fro regularly four or five times a week, and the owners of these boats were ready and glad to carry the letters for the ship-letter postage of 1d. a letter. Why then, it was asked, should the Post Office be at the expense of maintaining a line of packets which, unless it were put on a footing out of all proportion to the importance of the service, would give absolutely less accommodation than that which existed already?
Thus matters stood when war broke out and all communication with the islands was stopped. Even now the postmasters-general had grave doubts as to the propriety of establishing a line of packets. It was true that the correspondence with the Channel Islands was considerable. During the year 1792 the number of letters on which ship-letter postage had been paid was 21,570, namely, 20,070 at Southampton and 1500 at Dartmouth and other ports on the south coast—making, on the assumption that the letters were as many in the opposite direction, a total correspondence for the year of about 43,000 letters.
And yet there were serious considerations on the other side. Unless an Act of Parliament were passed providing a packet rate of postage between the mainland and the islands, the Post Office would have no exclusive right of carrying the letters, and the moment the war ceased the packets might be deserted in favour of the private boats. If, on the other hand, such an Act were passed, popular as the measure might be while the war lasted, it could not fail to be unpopular as soon as the war ceased. Private boats would then be an illegal means of conveyance, and correspondence would be restricted to the packets, however few these might be in number, and however wide the intervals between the despatches.
Another expedient remained, but this was one which had been tried during the last war, and the postmasters-general were not prepared to repeat it. TheExpresspacket, Captain Sampson, belonging to the Dover station, had been temporarily detached to Southampton to keep communication with the Channel Islands open. As some set-off against the cost, the Post Office had counted upon saving the ship-letter pence; but here again the want of an authorised packet postage made itself felt. Sampson, though in receipt of a salary and at no expense for the boat he commanded, claimed and received the ship-letter pence, the postmasters-general regarding themselves apparently as legally incompetent to resist the demand. Without denying that a line of packets might be necessary for purposes of State, the postmasters-general now declined to promote one on Post Office grounds. Of the necessities of the State they were not the judges, and, if the State required the adoption of such a measure, it was for others to take the initiative.
The decision at which the Government arrived appears in the Act of 1794, which established a line of packets between England and the Channel Islands. The packet station was to be at Weymouth, the passage from Weymouth being shorter than from Southampton, and Southampton Water being difficult to leave when the wind wascontrary. For a single letter the postage, over and above all other rates, was fixed at 2d., and for a double and treble letter in proportion. Thus the cost of a single letter from London to the Channel Islands would remain the same as before. Hitherto there had been paid 4d. for postage from London to Southampton, 1d. to a factor at Southampton, 1d. for conveyance across, and 1d. to the island post office—for the islands had a post office, although it was a private one, and not under the control of the postmasters-general—making 7d. altogether. Now the charge would be the same, namely, postage to Weymouth 5d., and 2d. for the packet postage. By the same Act of Parliament rates of postage were imposed within the islands similar to those which existed in England.
The abuses of franking now came under notice again. Ten years had elapsed since the passing of the Act which provided that a letter, to be exempt from postage, must bear on the outside, as part of its superscription, its full date written in the member's own handwriting, and be posted on the date which the superscription bore. Of course, the object of the provision was to confine the privilege to members themselves, and to prevent them from obliging their friends at a distance with franks; but this object was almost universally defeated by the simple expedient of sending to their friends franks that were post-dated. It was a common occurrence for franks dated on the same day and by the same member to be sent from places three or four hundred miles apart.
The bankers who sat in Parliament were the chief offenders. Little did they think that an exact account was being kept of every frank that passed through the London Post Office, or assuredly they would hardly have ventured to keep their friends and customers supplied, as it was their practice to do, with the means of evading postage. How many bankers sat in Parliament in 1794 we are not informed; but whatever the number was, we know that during the three months ending the 10th of October in that year there passed through the London Post Office no lessthan 103,805 letters franked by them, a number larger by one-fifth than the letters of the Court and all the public offices of the State combined.[75]During the same period those members of Parliament who were merchants and not bankers contented themselves with the comparatively modest number of 27,111. Two or three years before it had leaked out that the Government were considering whether a strenuous effort should not be made to abolish the franking privilege altogether, and it was no secret to the Post Office that in anticipation of such an event the banking houses which had a partner in Parliament had concerted arrangements for sending their letters by the coaches in boxes.
The Government were now resolved that, if the abuses of franking could not be stopped, they should at all events be restricted, and with this object a bill was brought in which passed into law in 1795. Under this statute the weight which a member could frank was reduced from two ounces to one ounce; no letter was to be considered as franked unless the member whose name and superscription it bore was within twenty miles of the town at which it was posted either on the day of posting or on the day before; and in the course of one day no member was to send free more than ten letters or to receive free more than fifteen.
The same statute which restrained the abuses of franking made a not unimportant concession. In an Act passed in 1753 a clause had been inserted providing that a letter containing patterns or samples, if it did not weigh as much as one ounce, was to be charged as a double letter and no more. This was now improved upon. Under the Act of 1795 a packet of patterns or samples might, on certain conditions, pass as a single letter. These conditions were that it did not exceed one ounce in weight, that it was open at the sides, and that it contained no writing other than the name and address of the sender and the prices of the articles of which he sent specimens.
A few months later another advance was made. At Lombard Street great inconvenience had been caused by the late arrival of the letters from the West End. The sorting began at five o'clock in the evening, and the mails were despatched at eight; but it was not until nearly seven that the bulk of the letters from the West End were brought in by the runners. Thus, while the first two hours of the evening were hours of comparative idleness, the last hour was one of extreme pressure. Occasionally, we are told, there would at a quarter before seven o'clock be lying on the sorting table as many as 14,000 letters, all of which had to be disposed of by eight. At the present day 14,000 letters would be regarded as a mere handful. In 1796 it was a number which it taxed the utmost resources of the Post Office to dispose of within the allotted time.
How to relieve the pressure between the hours of seven and eight was now the question to be solved; and the presidents who had succeeded to Bonnor's place when this person was got rid of suggested that the object might be attained if, instead of the letters from the West End being brought to the General Post Office by runners, light carts were employed to bring them. Two carts would be enough for the purpose. One might start from Charing Cross and the other from Duke Street, Oxford Street, picking up bags at the different offices on their way. Thus the letters would reach Lombard Street earlier by some thirty minutes than heretofore, and there would be more time to sort and charge them. The drivers should, of course, be armed. The plan was adopted, and answered well; and this was the origin of what is called the London Mail-Cart and Van Service, a service in which are now employed daily as many as 550 vehicles.
Since the introduction of mail-coaches the robbery of mails on the main roads of the kingdom had entirely ceased. Now and then, but very rarely, there had been pilfering from a mail-coach as, through the default of those in charge, it stood at an inn door unguarded; and there had, no doubt, been one serious case of theft. On the 24th ofOctober 1794 a man, giving the name of Thomas Thomas, went down by the mail-coach from London to Bristol, and returned on the following day. This journey he repeated on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th of November, and on the last-mentioned date, when the guard's back was turned, he took advantage of the mail-box being left unlocked to steal the mails. But this was a case of theft, and not of robbery.
During the twelve years which had elapsed since Palmer's plan was established there had not been one single instance in which a mail-coach had been molested by highwaymen. Far otherwise was it with the horse and cross-post mails. In 1796 the distance over which these mails travelled was, in England, about 3800 miles, and hardly a week passed without intelligence reaching headquarters that in some part or other of their course they had been stopped and robbed. Some roads enjoyed an unenviable notoriety in this respect, as, for instance, the road between Barton Mills and Lynn in Norfolk, the road between Bristol and Portsmouth, and, above all, the road between Chester and Warrington. Between these two places, indeed, the mail had only recently been robbed on four different occasions.
Manchester and other towns now took the matter up, and urged that mail-coaches might be established on the roads where the robberies took place, not because coaches were necessary to carry the letters, but on account of the security which they afforded. Freeling proposed as an alternative that the horse and cross-post mails should be guarded. To supply the existing post-boys, or riders, as they were then termed, with firearms would have been worse than useless. They were mere boys—many of them not yet fourteen years of age—and with firearms in their possession they would have been more likely to shoot themselves than their assailants. Accordingly, Freeling proposed that no riders should be employed who, besides being of approved character, were not between the ages of eighteen and forty-five; that they should each be furnished with a brace of pistols, a cutlass, and a strong cap for the defence of the head; and that, in considerationof an increased allowance to be made by the Post Office, the postmasters whose servants the riders were should be required to provide them with better horses than those hitherto in use.
Of all the plans which, through a long course of years, were submitted to Pitt for the improvement of the posts this was the only one to which he demurred. He did not, indeed, deny its efficacy; but it would involve a cost of at least £6000 a year, and, pressed as he was for money, he declined to say more than that the plan might be carried out if the persons interested were willing to bear the additional expense, but not otherwise. For us with our present knowledge it is easy enough to see that the surest and most popular way of transferring the expense to the public would have been to cheapen the postage. In 1796 no other way appeared feasible than to make the postage dearer. To this object the postmasters-general now devoted themselves, and before many months were over they had prepared a bill which, with some modifications, was adopted by the Government and passed into law.
In the new Act, which came into operation on the 5th of January 1797, the ambiguous term "stage" was dropped, and the whole of the rates were fixed according to distance, thus—