SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY • NUMBER 13 

The Consul General's 

Shanghai Postal Agencif 

1S67-1907 

Peter L. Koffsky 

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION PRESS 

City of Washington 

1972. 
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S. DILLON RIPLEY 

Secretary 

Smithsonian Institution 

COVER ILLUSTRATION: The United States Consulate General in Shanghai, 1880. Transmitted 

from Consul General David H. Bailey to Third Assistant Secretary of State Charles Payson, 

31 March. Courtesy of the National Archives. 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office 

Washington, D.C. 20402 - Price 80 cents 

Stock Number 4700-0144 
Foreword 

This paper is the result of eight weeks' research, largely in the materials 

at the National Archives, with the purpose of reconstructing the historical 

development of the United States postal service in China, 1867-1907. Most of 

the data was found in the diplomatic and consular records of the Department 

of State, and consisted of largely isolated pieces of data, making generalizations 

difficult. Further investigation of this service is highly desirable, should additional materials become available. 

This work was done as part of the Smithsonian Institution Undergraduate 

Research Assistantship Program during the summer of 1966, under the direct 

supervision of Mr. Carl H. Scheele, Associate Curator in Charge of the Division 

of Philately and Postal History. His suggestions and encouragement are gratefully acknowledged. Thanks are also owing to Mr. Arthur Hecht and Mr. Ralph 

Huss of the National Archives, for their inestimable help in locating the references needed. 

111 
Contents 

Page 

INTRODUCTION 1 

AMERICAN POSTAL SERVICES I N CHINA , 1867-1896 3 

The Development of Routes 3 

Administrative Difficulties 8 

T H E CHINESE IMPERIAL POST OFFICE, 1896-1907 13 

The Adjustment of Routes 13 

Proliferation of Disputes 21 

NOTES 28 

REFERENCES 34 

Appendix 1: Development of the Postal Services at Shanghai 35 

Appendix 2: Facilities and Equipment Available to the Postal 

Agency . 39 

Appendix 3: Chinese Currency and Accounting 45 
Introduction 

The Westerners who came to live in the Chinese treaty ports during the 

nineteenth century found in operation postal services which were ancient and 

extensive, but totally unsuited to their needs. A system for carrying government 

correspondence had been instituted during the Chou dynasty (1122-255 B.C.). 

Known as / Chan or "post-stages," these offices ultimately served vast areas by 

foot and horse couriers. By the time of Marco Polo's visit in the fourteenth 

century, there were 10,000 stations utilizing 200,000 horses. The Ch'ing dynasty 

(A.D. 1662-1911) maintained 15,000 stations for foot couriers carrying routine 

correspondence, and an additional 1600 stations, provided with horses or boats, 

for the transmission of urgent memorials, important officials, and so forth. The 

entire system was supervised by the Board of War at Peking, but the actual 

arrangements and responsibility were in the hands of the local officials at each 

station. The costs of the service were deducted on the local level from the taxes 

reported to the provincial Treasury, a method which, according to the Working Report for 1904, "is said to lead to many abuses." The Ch'ing went their 

traditional way, and the Westerners searched for a more acceptable means of 

communication. 

Postal services open for public use originated much later than the government posts, probably during the fifteenth century A.D. AS they finally developed, 

these min-hsin chu, or "people's letter offices," were managed by banks or 

merchant establishments which had set up postal routes in order to transmit 

their own business correspondence. The rates were always quite moderate and 

the management eager to provide special services where desired. These "letterhongs," however, could offer only a few routes to foreign countries; and the 

total lack of official control, while permitting the offices to give efficient and 

reliable service, also prevented the establishment of a truly national network 

of lines on both profitable and unprofitable routes. Similarly weak in this 

respect were the local posts in many of the treaty ports, which sometimes 

formed mutual agreements or branches for inter-city deliveries. The min-hsin 

chu were strongly entrenched and proved a difficult force to overcome when the 

national postal service was finally established. 

Still another Chinese mail system was that managed by the Imperial 

Maritime Customs, developing after 1858. By the Treaty of Tientsin of that 

year, the Chinese government agreed to carry foreign legation mails to and 

from Peking. The introduction of new, more efficient methods gained this 

customs service the support of Viceroy Li Hung Chang and the opportunity 
2 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 

to increase its coverage of the port cities by slow, experimental stages. The idea 

of a national postal system under the Customs service was first officially supported by Inspector General Sir Robert Hart in 1876, during the negotiations 

with Britain for the Chefoo Convention on Sino-foreign relations. As the body 

of this paper will show, however, it was not until 1896 that the promise of a 

centralized national system was realized. 

Under these circumstances, many foreign countries chose to set up their 

own postal systems in China, usually based in Shanghai with branches in the 

cities where consulates were maintained. The British system was the first 

established, developing after Hong Kong was acquired as a central base in 

1839. In the case of the United States, true involvement in China may be dated 

from 1844, when the Treaty of Amity, Peace, and Commerce signed at Wanghia 

granted to it a "most-favored-nation" clause—a guarantee that America would 

receive the same privileges as were granted to any other country. American 

trade soon became centered in the International Settlement at Shanghai. For 

many years, however, United States citizens in China could communicate with 

their homeland only through the various foreign mail services via Europe or 

through the irregular channel of private sailing vessels crossing the Pacific 

Ocean. Events in the United States, however, were leading toward the establishment of a regular mail steamship line to the West Coast. During 1848-1849, 

at the time of the California gold rush, regular New York-to-San Francisco 

service was established by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. The transcontinental telegraph was completed, and the Central Pacific Railroad incorporated in 1861. With communications to the west obviously greatly improved, 

President Lincoln authorized a mail steamship service to China on 17 February 1865. The Pacific Mail Steamship Company received a contract to provide 

this service the following year; in 1867 the first mail delivery to Shanghai was 

effected, and the operation of the Shanghai Postal Agency began. It remained 

under die direction of the consul general in Shanghai until 1907, at which 

time an independent postmaster was appointed. The Shanghai office was only 

abolished as a result of the Washington Conference of 1921-1922, under which 

many special rights in China were renounced. During its years of operation, 

however, the Shanghai Postal Agency did much to secure communications 

between China and the United States. 
American Postal Services in China, 1867-1896 

The Development of Routes 

On 2 May 1866 Shanghai Consul General George F. Seward wrote tr 

S. Ledyard Phelps, the Agent in China for both the newly authorized mai 

steamship line between San Francisco and China and for the United States Post 

Office Department, regarding the most efficient manner of organizing the new 

postal service.1 He advocated that preliminary distribution of the mails from 

the United States be made through the ports of Hong Kong and Shanghai, 

the latter to be served either by a branch line of the Pacific Mail Steamship 

Company, or by a closed-mail agreement with the British semi-monthly and 

the French monthly steamers out of Hong Kong. All mails for the southern 

ports (Foochow, Amoy, Swatow, Canton, and the British, Dutch, Spanish, 

French, and Portuguese possessions in the East Indies) would be sent via Hong 

Kong, while Shanghai would handle those for the northern ports (Peking, 

CHINESE EMPIRE 

FIGURE I.—Map of the Far East showing important cities. Adapted from Steiger, Beyer, 

and Benitez, A History of the Orient (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1926). 
4 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 

Newchwang, Tientsin, Chefoo, Hankow, Kiukiang, Chinkiang, and Ningpo). 

In each of these cities, the United States consul was to act as postal agent, in 

return for a "reasonable allowance" to be determined later and for the right 

to pay for necessary expenses out of postal receipts. A copy of Seward's memorandum was transmitted to the Secretary of State under the same date. 

When the American postal system in China was formed in 1867, its 

procedures were basically those suggested by Consul General Seward, with 

certain modifications. Mails for the southern ports were indeed sent through 

Hong Kong, but a postal convention signed with the British colonial government there and ratified by the United States on 12 November 1867 provided that 

all mail be turned over directly to the colonial post office, for transmission to 

the British branch offices in the treaty ports.2 Thus, no United States Postal 

Agent for Hong Kong was needed,3 although the consuls at the various Chinese 

ports did continue to serve in the dispatching of official mails to Shanghai,4 

where correspondence to the State Department was supposed to be read and 

noted for informational purposes.5 

In the North, however, the United States was obliged to make its own 

arrangements for the forwarding of mails to the various treaty ports. The 

first American mails reached Shanghai on 20 May 1867 after transfer outside the 

Yangtze estuary to a British steamer, and the first U.S. delivery direct to the 

harbor occurred on 3 August.6 The Pacific Mail branch line between Yokohama 

and Shanghai, touching at Hiogo and Nagasaki, thus began operations to meet 

the trans-Pacific boats in Japan. It was the duty of the consul general at 

Shanghai to receive this mail and to arrange for its carriage to the addressee. 

In general the United States never maintained its own official mail routes 

within China, beyond the use of special couriers between Tientsin and Peking, 

and of messengers to deliver the mails in certain of the treaty ports once they 

had arrived—rather, the most efficient Chinese or foreign service available was 

utilized. 

Although the Shanghai Postal Agency was the only full-scale dispatching 

and receiving center maintained by the United States in China, several consulates in the North also maintained an office to conveniently process the 

American mails. 

As early as April 1868 the consul at Hankow wrote to the Shanghai agency 

regarding postal matters.7 Each of the subsidiary agencies seems to have been 

provided by Shanghai with a supply of United States postage stamps, which 

were then sold upon application to those who wished to send letters from their 

port.8 

This same system, with extensions, was continued throughout the period 

under consideration here. By 1889, when a list first appeared in the United 

States Official Postal Guide, mail could be sent from the United States via 

Shanghai to 20 Chinese cities (Chefoo, Chinkiang, Chungking, Hangchow, 

Hankow, Ichang, Kaiping, Kalgan, Kiukiang, Nanking, Newchwang, Ningpo, 
NUMBER 13 

Ourga, Peking, Shanghai, Taku, Tientsin, Wenchow, Wuchang, and Wuhu),6 

all served through the nearest United States consulate. For a brief period in 

1882, the U.S. Post Office at San Francisco, lacking knowledge of Chinese 

geography dispatched the mails for northern China via Hong Kong. The 

vice consul general in charge at Shanghai made the following observation: 

Hong-Kong is nearly 900 miles south of Shanghai, and about seven days' passage 

from Yokohama, the same distances to this port. Letters directed to Tientsin, the most 

northern treaty port of China, and to Hankow, over 600 miles from Shanghai, on the 

Yangtse River, have not reached their destination until two weeks after the mail has 

been delivered at this port.10 

This statement was enough to gain immediate instructions to San Francisco 

ordering resumption of the former routing system.11 

The growth of the Japanese postal service changed U.S.-Chinese postal 

arrangements. On 1 January 1875, as a result of the postal convention of 6 August 1873 between the United States and Japan,12

 the United States postal 

agencies in Japan were limited to the exchange of mail beween Hong Kong 

and Yokohama,13 and the Foreign Department of the Japanese Post was established. In March 1875 the Japanese Mitsubishi Mail Steamship Company 

purchased the Pacific Mail's Yokohama-Shanghai branch; and on 15 April 

1876 a Japanese post office was opened at Shanghai, with branches at eight other 

ports (Chefoo, Chinkiang, Newchwang, Kiukiang, Tientsin, Hankow, Ningpo, 

and Foochow).14 The subsidiary Japanese agencies closed for lack of business 

in 1881,15 leaving communication with these ports to the British Hong Kong 

postal system.16 The Japanese Shanghai office, however, quickly became a very 

popular means for dispatching mails overseas, as it offered a fast trans-Pacific 

route via Yokohama and thence by exchange on the American packets. The 

United States also arranged to have its mails carried on the same ships. The 

slowness of the American mail assembly procedure, however, caused by the 

fact that postal affairs had to take second place to regular consular business, 

kept the public use of its mails at a minimum. At the beginning of his administration in 1880, Consul General Owen N. Denny wrote, "all the labor of 

distributing the incoming mails fell to this office, while all of the revenue for 

outgoing mails went to the Japanese office."

 17

 Japan kept pressing for complete control of the transpacific mails as far as Yokohama, asking that the 

United States Agency at Shanghai be delivered over to their control. The 

United States, however, felt that the Chinese should be given the same chance 

for an independent postal system as the removal of American agencies in Japan 

had given the Japanese. It was decided, therefore, that we would wait for the 

formation of a native post system among the treaty ports, then under consideration, before giving up the Shanghai office.18

 The most immediate result of 

the Japanese demands was a general reorganization by Denny of the methods 

used at Shanghai, which resulted in a vast increase in American overseas mails 
6 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 

leaving Shanghai,19 creating new problems for every one of the consuls involved 

in the system. 

Beyond Shanghai itself, the most important office in the American postal 

arrangement was that at Tientsin, the seat of the Chinese northern commissioner for foreign affairs.20

 As the gateway to the capital, the Tientsin office 

served as the United States' "only distributing postal centre for the north of 

China,"21 in charge of all the mails to the legation in Peking. During the warm 

months from the beginning of March through the middle of December, the 

American mails arrived in Tientsin via coastal steamer from Shanghai.22 

The locally addressed matter was then delivered by a messenger employed by 

the consulate, "as is done at other consulates," while the mails for Peking were 

forwarded via special courier.23 In 1887, following the improvement in 

Shanghai's service, consular official Smithers at Tientsin called attention to the 

new demands made upon his office, noting that "two and sometimes three large 

mail bags are received on the arrival of each U.S. Mail," and that "besides these 

mails there is an English mail for our citizens received from the English Postal 

Agency every week for delivery by this office."

 24

 Smithers requested that his 

office be provided with stamps on the same basis as the Shanghai office (i.e., as 

was a third-class post office, upon the filing of a bond to the Post Office 

Department),25 and that an allowance of $250 (probably per annum) be given 

his agency "as compensation for distributing and forwarding the mails, attending to the sale of stamps, and for expenses for carrying the mails from the 

steamers to the office."

 26

 This request, however, was not accepted by Consul 

General Kennedy at Shanghai,27 and nothing more seems to have been written 

on the matter. Finally, it should be noted that the Tientsin Consul also managed 

all mails to Shanghai28 from his area. The Tientsin office seems never to have 

attained the rank of a full postal agency, and its cancellations as such an agency 

remain a mystery.29 It was, however, an extremely important part of the 

American postal apparatus in China. 

During the months that Tientsin was open to communication by water, 

the Peking legation received its mail regularly by a courier from that city. 

Difficulties, however, sometimes arose over the messenger service. From 1875 

through 1880, the legation maintained its own official courier over this land 

route.30 Following this period, a messenger dispatched by the American missionaries in Tientsin carrying their own mail to Peking was utilized, although 

the legation disliked this policy since "as their messenger is at most an ordinary 

Chinese servant, traveling on his master's errand, there is no sufficient guarantee of the security of our dispatches."

 31

 In 1885, Tientsin was ordered by 

Peking to send all legation matter via the Customs mail.32 For the quarter 

concluded at the end of June 1894 this extra transportation of the mails cost 

the Tientsin consulate $27.83 in gold, which is described as "about the average 

amount paid quarterly for such service."33 
NUMBER 13 

During the winter period, when Tientsin was blocked by ice, it was 

necessary to carry the mails for Peking overland from Chinkiang, once they 

had arrived at Shanghai, "a twelve days' journey for a mounted courier through 

very unsafe country."34 By the Treaty of Tientsin of 1858, the Tsungli Yamen 

(Chinese office for general management of matters concerning the various 

countries, a crude foreign office)

 35

 was responsible for the protection of these 

mails, and it very early arranged for the entire system to be managed by the 

Head Office of the Imperial Maritime Customs.36 Starting on Tuesday, 13 December 1887, three dispatches of mail a week were sent from Shanghai to 

Chefoo, Tientsin, and Newchwang, as well as Peking, by the local customs 

authorities.37 United States legation official Charles Denby noted in 1887 that 

the trip from Chinkiang to Peking took about thirteen days, covering 800 miles, 

the mail having first traveled by water from Shanghai, a distance of 157 miles.38 

Despite the distances covered successfully under very difficult conditions, Denby 

terms the service "irregular, slow and insufficient," since "it takes nearly as 

long a time to bring mail matter from Shanghai as it does to transport it to 

Shanghai from Washington."

 39

 Often delayed by the weather, the mail could 

take over twenty days to arrive at Peking.40 This was a strong advertisement 

of the need foi and potential direction of a more centrally organized national 

postal service, favored among the Americans by both Denby and the Secretary 

of State.41 

Another American consulate which received a good deal of mail, having 

for a time its own handstamp, was that at Ningpo, just south of Shanghai.42 

In 1886, Edwin Stevens, former consul at Ningpo, noted that the Americans 

living at that port were "widely scattered, some being five miles apart, and 

that a consul is the custodian of the United States mails and is expected to 

deliver them free of charge." Stevens had for four years maintained a mail 

messenger at his own expense, and he now asked the Department of State 

to reimburse him for the $180 so spent, at four dollars per month, pointing out 

that the English consul received the use of a messenger plus $25 a quarter for 

his work in this respect. The department agreed to seek the amount either 

from current funds or through a special appropriation from Congress.43 Early 

in 1887, the current consul, Thomas F. Pettus, wrote that he employed "a boy 

at eight dollars per month to receive and deliver mail daily to Shanghai steamers, also to receive and deliver the United States Mail on its arrival. He also 

delivers the mail when opened to the American and European citizenry at 

their homes"; the department was requested to aid in the payment of his 

wages.44 Although the Customs post office maintained a service between Ningpo 

and Shanghai and, probably, thence via the Japanese office to the United States, 

it could not be used for consular mails because all official mail had to pass 

through the U.S. consulate general at Shanghai.45 Ningpo ceased to have a 

separate consulate on 30 June 1896. As the postal services of the diplomatic 

officials were phased out, the mail was sent to a "reliable American," the 

Reverend J. R. Goddard, treasurer of the Baptist Mission at Ningpo.46 
8 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 

Still another major U.S. office was located at Hankow. In 1894, Consul 

Jacob Child requested "for a man to board the steamer and receive the mail, 

which is brought up the river by the kindness of the Captains of the boats, 

and after bringing it to the Consulate for distribution, deliver it to the various 

parties resident of the three cities Hankow, Wuchang, and Hanyang, seven 

dollars per month which is absolutely essential." He noted that from 100 to 

300 pounds of mail were received at or dispatched from his office twice weekly, 

including many packages and much registered material and items with shortpaid postage, and that it served a large part of the Yangtse Valley, at very 

little cost to the government.47 This office seems never to have applied its own 

postal markings, as did Ningpo and Tientsin. 

Thus, by 1896, the United States had built up a far-reaching group of 

consular post offices, connected to Shanghai by many different postal communication routes, for the carrying of official and public American mails. 

The American desire for a Chinese national postal service was evident, however, as seen in the legation's encouragement of the customs system and in letters 

quoted here. It was therefore a matter of high approbation for most of the 

American diplomats in China (with at least one notable exception) when, 

on 20 March 1896 an Imperial decree created the Imperial Post and named 

Sir Robert Hart to serve as the Inspector General of Customs and Posts.48 

Administrative Difficulties 

During this period the overall performance of the United States postal 

system in China was something less than satisfactory. Annoying delays between 

San Francisco and Shanghai, and a continual lack of sufficient manpower and 

funds at the latter port made it impossible to expedite the dispatch and distribution of the mails. The U.S. consuls frequently compared American efforts 

with those of other nations in a very unfavorable light, and requests from 

Shanghai to Washington that a special postmaster without consular duties be 

appointed were very common indeed. 

The most frequent complaints received in Shanghai were from resident 

merchants who strongly disliked the slowness of the trans-Pacific steamers. 

Consul General Seward noted in 1870 that although the Pacific Mail Steamship 

Company authorities had not been "acquainted with Eastern ways of doing 

business," and had sometimes run "counter to the ideas of the resident 

merchants," and although the mails had frequently been late and irregular 

during the first il/2 years of service, the deliveries had for the past year been 

perfectly on time. Seward's only complaints were that the Yokohama agency 

had not been set up in an efficient manner, and that the foreign mail rates 

charged for letters sent through the American system were too high in the case 

of matter that traveled only between China and Japan or between ports within 

one of those countries.49 By 1881, however, irregularity in the arrival of the 
NUMBER 13 

Pacific mails had once again become a problem for the merchants in China, 

much in contrast to the "prompt dispatch and receipt of the mails from Europe 

by the French and English Mail Steamers."

 50

 In answer to the complaints of 

Consul General Denny, the United States Post Office Department explained that 

the delays arose between the East Coast and San Francisco, not during the 

Pacific passage; for example, the New York mails had missed the sailing of 

one steamer that left in the middle of March, due to "snowstorms in the 

mountains."

 51

 In 1882, the Ningpo consul complained that the mails from 

San Francisco were apparently just missing the Japanese steamers leaving from 

Yokohama, thus having to be held for the next trip. The Secretary of State 

suggested that an agreement be reached with Japan whereby special bags 

containing the correspondence destined for Shanghai could be transferred in 

Yokohama harbor if the two ships passed each other there.52 After an investigation, the Postmaster General replied that the trans-Pacific steamers had been 

causing the delays by failing to leave on the dates scheduled; problems also 

arose because the trip might take anywhere from 18 to 24 days. Far from 

leaving when they pleased, without any attempt to connect with the American 

mails, the Japanese steamers had often delayed their weekly sailing dates as 

long as 48 hours from the scheduled Wednesday departures. "As you can see," 

wrote the Postmaster General, "the special bag would do no good."

 : 

In an attempt to improve the service, the postal authorities arranged in 

1886 for mail to be carried on every trip of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company's boats.54

 This seems to have had little effect, however, for the next year 

Consul General Kennedy wrote of the Japanese steamers, that "as this line 

adheres to its own time-table, close connections with the Pacific lines are only 

'happenings.' Not infrequently, an American Mail will be delayed in Yokohama 

a week and, in the meantime, another mail may arrive and thus we receive a 

double mail at Shanghai—which is annoying to merchants."

 £ 5 The question 

came up still again in 1896, at which time the Postmaster General promised only 

to request the Japanese office to take "such remedial measures .. . as may be 

practicable."

 56 

The various consuls general also complained of their treatment by the State 

and Post Office Departments. The tone was set by Owen N. Denny in 1881, 

when he wrote that "there is saddled upon [this office] a lame [?] postal 

agency, which seems to receive comparatively little sympathy or support from 

any direction," and he asked that a salaried postmaster be appointed.57 The 

year before, Consul General David H. Bailey had refused to file a bond for 

$10,000 with the U.S. Post Office Department, noting that he was already 

under bond to the State Department for that amount. Bailey also noted that 

the salary of the postal agent was only $25 per month, "every cent of which 

is paid to the clerk for performing the postal duties," which would make such 

a large bond an undue hardship upon the consul general.58 He favored turning 

the agency over to the Japanese. Informed that he could not receive any postage 
10 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 

stamps until he had filed the required bond, Bailey stated that he had twice 

explained his refusal to make the bond on the grounds that the business done by 

the agency, as well as the salary attached to it, was much too small. He now 

noted that during the first three quarters of 1878, under Guilford Wiley Wells, 

the agency had shown an excess of expenditure over income of $72.08 on 

receipts of $589.62, while in his five quarters of administration there had been 

an increase in the income and a decrease in the expenditures, leaving a net 

profit of $645.12 on receipts of $1667.23. Even with this increase, and despite 

the fact that the income from postal box rents went to the U.S. government, not 

to the postal agent, the Post Office Department had refused to increase the $300 

per year salary. Bailey suggested to his successor Owen N. Denny that he might 

well feel the same dissatisfaction as he, in which case it would be necessary 

either to close down the agency or to place it in the charge of someone who 

would be willing to put up with the conditions involved in work "for which 

many postmasters in the United States receive from $1500 to $2400 per annum. 

I may be excused if I venture to observe that I do not think it possible to find 

such a person in Shanghai."

 59 

Denny became Consul General at Shanghai in 1880 and filed his bond on 

12 July

 60

 assured by the Post Office Department that as soon as the volume 

of business was large enough, he would be granted permission to employ a 

clerk for $100 per month, paid out of the revenue from the sale of postage 

stamps. The bond demanded was now only $5000. The consul general 

improved the service of the agency, and was able to increase "the revenue 

from about . . . $235 . . . per quarter to about . . $735"; however, he was 

denied the help of a clerk, a situation which brought him to refuse extra work 

pressed upon him in 1881, relating to the making up of the mails for New York.61 

The additional work would, he stated, interfere with the work of the consulate 

general itself. The arrival of the mail necessitated the closing of the office for 

the remainder of the day, since the entire staff was needed to distribute it to 

Shanghai and to the outports. He was "quite at a loss to understand why the 

Post Office Department persists in dealing so parsimoniously with this Agency, 

when its liberality with its funds in other directions amounts in some instances, 

almost to prodigality." He complained once more about the delays caused to 

the mails in Yokohama. Denny regarded Japan as too unimportant a country 

in China to take full charge of U.S. mails, but he favored giving them over 

to the Chinese on their own territory as soon as possible.62 Denny finally did 

receive authorization to spend $1200 per annum for a postal clerk, the full 

amount of which was given to the clerk. The latter could keep all of it, hire 

help with it, or otherwise expend the money so as to enable himself to "expedite 

the opening and delivery of the mails . . . ."63 None of the other consulates 

seems to have been given special office help for postal affairs. 

In 1885, the temporary head of the consulate general noted in a report 

that he was writing his dispatch at 11:30 p.m., while the deputy consul general 
NUMBER 13 11 

and the marshal were engaged in making up the mails to San Francisco, which 

were to leave early the next morning, expending as they did so lighting gas 

that would have to be paid for out of the writer's own pocket, since there was 

no appropriation for it.64 In the following year another temporary head complained that postage stamps, from which the expenses of the agency were paid, 

had not been sent, and recommended that a postmaster be appointed who 

would have sole responsibility for postal matters, for which he would receive 

"an adequate salary."

 65

 Consul General Thomas R. Jernigan agreed with this 

attitude when, in 1897, he asked to be relieved of the responsibility for the 

agency, only slightly mitigated by the presence of the vice consul general, 

then acting as postal clerk.66 

This was also a period replete with scandals and accusations within the 

consulate general itself. The first occurred in 1877, when the vice consul general 

in charge, Mr. Oliver Bradford, was charged with having made fictitious 

vouchers among the expenses to be paid by the Post Office Department, having kept his postal agency books so as to gain an advantage from the exchange 

between silver and gold, and having opened and copied a letter passing through 

the agency from the surgeon of the consular jail to General W. Myers of the 

United States Army, in San Francisco.67 Bradford was tried and convicted on 

the latter charge. Testimony revealed that the former Consul General John C. 

Myers had mistrusted Bradford when, as vice consul general, the latter had 

been responsible for the postal agency. Myers, however, had been suspended 

by Minister Seward before he could act against Bradford. It was also learned 

that Bradford had lived alone in the consular building, and that a number of 

letters had been received by the addressees marked "opened by mistake, 

O. B. B."

 68

 The ultimate disposition of this remarkable case is not made clear 

in the consular records. 

A second accusation arose in 1880, when a Mr. L. B. Ring of Neillsville, 

Wisconsin, charged that mail sent between himself and Minister George F. 

Seward had been tampered with at Shanghai. Consul General Denny, beginning his improvement of the postal service, replied that "the complainant has 

been a little reckless in his statement," and that complaints made by Ring 

against Consuls General Myers and Wells, who had served during the 1870s, 

should have been made at that time. He further noted that the people currently 

working in the office, all appointed since Denny took office, were "so prompt 

and efficient . . . that the 'North China Daily News' paid them a handsome 

compliment in its issue of this morning for the prompt and careful distribution 

of the United States mails." 69 

Lastly, although it includes a small part of the period of the Imperial 

Chinese Post, there was the case of Consul General Jernigan versus his successor, John Goodnow. When he left office in 1897, after a term of three years, 

Jernigan found, according to his own dispatch in the matter, that there was 

due to his account as postal agent the sum of $259. This sum would be paid 

by the Post Office Department once the accounts had been passed, a question 

426-780 0-72- 2 
12 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 

of three or four months. The compradore of the consulate general, who was 

charged with keeping the various accounts and with handling the office's 

money, refused Jernigan's offer to pay the amount from his own pocket and 

then wait for the reimbursing check, stating that, as he knew that the account 

was correct, he would send it in and allow the check from the post office to 

reimburse his own funds. Consul General Goodnow agreed to have the check 

from the post office made out in his own name, with provision that he would 

endorse it to the compradore. When the check was delayed because of a new 

administration in the Post Office Department, however, Goodnow cast aspersions against Jernigan's character, implying to the compradore that the money 

would have to come from the former consul general's bondsmen.70 Thus, the 

administrative difficulties of this period ended with as little accord as that with 

which it had begun. 

In conclusion, it should be noted that this period was one of growing 

general unrest and conflict in China. Riots against the ubiquitous Westerners 

began as early as 1868 in Yangchow and 1870 in Tientsin.71 These disturbances 

clearly presaged the Boxer uprising of the turn of the century, which will be 

discussed in its postal context in the following section. More immediately disruptive was the Sino-Japanese War, which was declared on 1 August 1894 and 

which finally officially ended by a peace treaty signed on 17 April 1895.72 On 

4 October 1894 Consul General Jernigan wrote to Assistant Secretary of State 

Edwin F. Uhl regarding Japanese spies in China, stating that owing to the uncertainty of the mails in China and Japan, "I have thought proper to send you a 

copy of my dispatch No. 28."73 This "uncertainty," however, was to prove only 

a taste of the disruption of communications that war in China would bring. 
The Chinese Imperial Post Office, 1896-1907 

The Adjustment of Routes 

On 20 March 1896 an Imperial decree established the Chinese Imperial 

Post Office, under the administrative control of Sir Robert Hart and the Imperial Maritime Customs Service. The United States had long sought the formation of such a service. As early as 1877, U.S. Minister George F. Seward had 

reported happily that it was the intention of the inspector general of customs, 

the same Sir Robert, to set up a postal system among the various open ports 

and the capital.74 When the official decree for a national system finally came, 

however, Consul John Fowler at Ningpo was one of the first to comment 

unfavorably. It was later written of Fowler that "he would be absolutely miserable if he did not have a row with some one or serious grievance against 

some person or department of the Chinese administration."

 75

 Fowler believed 

that the new system would only hurt American interests in China, for it would 

bring the trade of that country more than ever under the control of the British. 

He pointed out that Americans were not dealt with fairly in the choosing of 

staff for the Customs service.76 It was "to all intents the most powerful Agency 

for the development of English commerce in China. The whole system is 

pregnated with English ideas and aims, the personnel is almost entirely British. 

It has offices in London; its contracts for supplies are always sent to London." 

He favored keeping the then current system, whereby most of the mail service 

in China beyond the foreign systems was controlled by the Chinese themselves.77

 An entirely different viewpoint was that of Consul General Jernigan, 

who wrote that 

whatever tends to make China more civilized will certainly be promotive of American 

interest, for China will then be better prepared to recognize our superior civilization, and 

will doubtless be more inclined than ever to turn to us; and to be admitted as a member 

of the Postal Union China will thus be placed in touch with the civilized world by an 

Agency that will reach every corner of her vast empire.78 

The development of the services of the new Chinese postal system was 

extremely gradual, due to a lack of funds and to the necessity of gaining the 

support of the other native mail carriers.79 On 1 July 1896 the existing Customs 

postal service was expanded to include additional offices.80 Matter originating 

in China and addressed to a foreign country was turned over to the appropriate 

foreign legation (i.e., American, British, French, German, or Japanese) in 

Shanghai, or to the British in Hong Kong.81 The Chinese office applied foreign 

13 
14 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 

^.oCC^c^ 

FIGURE 2.—Consul John Fowler, master-critic of the Chinese Imperial Post Office. 

Courtesy of the National Archives. 
NUMBER 13 15 

postage stamps at Union rates in return for the same amount in Chinese stamps 

affixed by the sender.82 There was a great deal of confusion regarding the 

collection of domestic postal charges in addition to foreign ones on Union 

mails, the exact nature of which is unclear from the consular records.83 Part 

of the problem was the decision by China to charge extra postage for carriage 

over the costly winter route to the north.84 In the case of letters addressed to 

the American legation, Chinese postage stamps were added to the covers at 

Tientsin, and the extra charges involved were collected in Peking at the end 

of each month.85 

The complexity of these administrative conventions clearly indicated that 

full Chinese participation in the Universal Postal Union would be highly 

advantageous for the rapid development of communications facilities. An 

announcement from the Chinese office to the U.S. Shanghai agency, dated 

24 June 1896, stated that a letter had been sent to the Union indicating an 

intention to join.86 Under instructions dated 29 October 1896 Denby invited the 

Tsungli Yamen to participate in the Universal Postal Congress to be held in 

Washington in May 1897 in order to acquaint the Chinese with membership 

requirements.87 The Chinese accepted the invitation on 14 January 1897;88 

and on 22 March they named one American and two British citizens, all in 

the employ of the Customs, as their representatives.89 At the Washington conference, China found herself not yet ready to become a full member, although 

she did undertake to follow Union practices as fully as possible.90 Recognizing 

the superior service offered by the foreign agencies for letters addressed abroad, 

she desired that these offices remain in operation even after China had become 

a full member of the Union.91 Later, Chinese representatives signed the convention that resulted from the Sixth Congress of the Universal Postal Union, 

completed on 26 May 1906.92 On 1 October 1907, however, the day that the 

provisions of the agreement were to go into effect,93 China declared that she 

did not intend to join the Union.94 Thus it was not until 1914, that she became 

a member. 

Despite the confusion that attended the foundation of the Imperial Post 

Office, the intra-China American mails were quickly turned over to its care, in 

keeping with United States policy of allowing each country to handle its own 

postal affairs as far as it was able. On 12 February 1897, after the Imperial Post 

Office had announced new regulations with regard to mails carried between 

Chinese ports by a foreign postal system, Charles Denby wrote from Peking 

that the changes would not affect American mail, since the United States had 

no Union post office that maintained interport business.05 Twelve days later, 

Consul General Jernigan wrote that "by the rules of the Imperial Chinese 

post-office the postage on our local mails to the outports, to the various Consulates and to the Legation at Peking will have to be paid, which will materially 

increase our postage account."96 On 9 May 1899 L. S. Wilcox, the consul at 

Hankow, noted that the postal agency at his post had been discontinued, as 

he put it, some two years before.97 By 22 March 1898 matters had progressed 
16 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 

so far that a Consular Bureau memorandum to Second Assistant Secretary of 

State Alvey A. Adee questioned the advisibility of maintaining even the U.S. 

postal agency in Shanghai, stating that "while formerly all American mail for 

other ports was made up at Shanghai by our postal agent, at present this is 

all done by the imperial post and the Consul General keeps only a local post 

office."98 Consul General Goodnow's lengthy report to Washington, dated 

31 May 1898, recommended the continuance of the Shanghai postal agency 

on the basis of seven points. 

Since the Imperial Post Office did not carry international mail, the 

Shanghai office was "a convenience to parties sending mail to America." The 

U.S. mails were sent in sealed bags directly to San Francisco, while mail sent 

through the Japanese post office had to be re-sorted in Japan, frequently 

missing the departure of the same boat and suffering delays of a week to ten 

days. As evidence of this convenience, Goodnow noted that in spite of the 

delays caused by the (Spanish-American) war, and in spite of the fact that 

the U.S. 5-cent goal postal charge was equal to n!4 cent Mexican, while the 

Japanese charged 10 Sen, or 10 cents Mexican, he was selling many more stamps 

in each quarter of 1898 than he had in the same quarter of 1897 (see 

Appendix 3). 

Second, it was "a convenience to parties receiving mail from America." 

Since the beginning of the current quarter, he had rented six new boxes to 

business firms who had formerly received their mail by the local post. Since 

1 May 1898 eighteen families and firms had decided to make use of the 

general delivery window rather than let the customs handle their mail. 

Goodnow stated that the local service frequently took two days after posting 

to deliver a letter; four times in the last month he had received heavily 

water-damaged mail. Wrong deliveries were commonplace. Even the customs 

maintained a box rather than receive its mail through its own service. 

Third, there was "much complaint as to the charges etc. of the local post." 

Goodnow related the case of a Reverend J. R. Hykes who had had to send a 

package to another city. The parcel was returned to him by the Imperial 

Post Office because he had paid the 10 cents per pound examination fee in 

stamps rather than in cash. Unable to reach the post office in time to catch 

the mail once more, he gave the package to a friend who was traveling to 

the destination city; thereupon, he was threatened with a fine of 50 taels by 

the post office. The consul general stated that "the Imperial Post has antagonized and is antagonizing patronage and until they are really organized to do 

business properly, I can not recommend that our mail interests be further put 

in their hands." 

Fourth, Goodnow felt that it would be a terrible waste not to use the post 

office facilities as set up in the consular building, held by lease until 1900. 

Fifth, "prompt and polite service" was, under the present system, provided 

to Americans by Americans. 
NUMBER 13 17 

Sixth, China was in no position to take over the trans-Pacific mails. All 

mail would have to go via the delay-prone Japanese mail, or via the Canadian 

Pacific English mails, which ran only once every 20 days. 

Finally, Goodnow pointed out that no other country had discontinued 

its postal agencies. On the contrary, the Japanese and Russians were establishing new ones. Trans-Pacific communication with Shanghai was absolutely 

essential to American trade, since almost all the business of the Yangtse Valley 

and of northern China was done through that port.99 Thus, even when shorn of 

almost all its functions within China itself, the Shanghai Postal Agency is seen 

to have played a very important role in postal affairs. The Postmaster General 

agreed that the Shanghai agency should remain "for an indefinite period."

 10° 

Despite this decision, the United States entered into negotiations with 

China designed to make her even more the master of her own postal affairs. 

On 31 March 1899, Minister Edwin H. Conger at Peking notified Secretary 

of State John Hay that, after several conferences between American and 

Chinese representatives, the Postal Secretary of the Imperial Chinese Postal 

Administration, Mr. J. A. van Aalst, on behalf of Sir Robert Hart, wanted 

to invite the United States to conclude a postal agreement.101 Article 17 of the 

Universal Postal Convention of Washington, signed on 15 June 1897, at the 

conference which China had attended, made it "possible for a non-Union office 

to send its mail matter to all parts of the world franked with its own postage 

stamps provided a Union Office guarantees and pays whatever may be payable 

by way of transit fees." This was equivalent to becoming an actual member. 

China was about to conclude an agreement with the British in Hong Kong 

whereby her mails would be carried in the Union system, but she also 

wanted an efficient method of communication to the east from "the great 

emporium" of Shanghai. To this end, closed and open mails were to be 

exchanged between the United States and China. China also offered to distribute 

free of charge all mails, including parcels, "received from the United States 

Postal Administration or its Shanghai Agency," in return for the same service 

on its mails to the United States. The Shanghai Postal Agency was also to 

accept open mails destined for foreign countries via the United States, and 

China was to accept matter arriving from abroad via the United States, under 

the same conditions as she did mail originating here. Closed mails would go 

from China to "San Francisco, New York, and the principal United States 

cities . . . and even . . . countries beyond America." China, of course, would 

pay all transit charges for her mails, and Union regulations would prevail.102 

Truly, this seemed a means of solving all of the postal problems between China 

and the United States. 

The American Postmaster General provided an amended text for the 

agreement designating San Francisco and Tacoma, rather than Shanghai, as 

the exchange offices, since the Shanghai agency was not a Union office.103 This 

text was accepted by the Chinese, with hopes of a future adjustment of certain 
18 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 

points, and signed on i February 1900. Haste in putting the agreement into 

operation was suggested by Minister Conger, since the French were also about 

to sign an agreement with China. The Imperial Post Office agreed to begin 

whenever the United States was ready.104 Only four months later, however, the 

Boxers took Peking, and all plans for completing the arrangements were 

suspended.105 

Following the conclusion of the Boxer disorders the Imperial Post Office 

prof erred requests for a new convention through the American Minister in 

Peking.106 By 1908, however, the United States was still without an agreement 

with the Chinese service. The Boxer Rebellion had thus further delayed the 

full participation by China in the postal affairs of the world. 

In the interim the Imperial Post Office expanded and improved its services 

to a greater part of China. Through internal reorganization, the Chinese postal 

service attained a higher level of efficiency. Its administrative staff was gradually 

separated from that of the customs,107 and in 1905 the system realized its first 

year on a self-supporting basis.108 Rates were drastically reduced.109 The delivery 

of mail had been expedited to such a degree that in 1904, Minister Conger noted 

In connection with this [Boxer indemnities] it is interesting to note that over four 

hundred distinct payments have been made for which signed vouchers had to be returned, 

in some cases from remote parts of the country. The letters have all been sent through the 

Chinese Imperial Post Office and not one of them has ever been lost in transmission 

or even seriously delayed.110 

Despite this progress, for one reason or another many American diplomats 

favored a return to a system of American postal offices in at least their own 

cities of assignment. One example involved the requests from the consulate 

at Chefoo. In 1903 Consul Fowler was urging the Department of State to 

establish an agency at his port. In May of that year, Consul Miller of Newchwang wrote to support Fowler's request.111

 Miller's letter sets forth clearly 

the need, as he saw it, for this addition to the American system. Mail sent from 

the United States via Japan could be distributed from Chefoo to Peking, Tientsin, Newchwang, Port Arthur, and Dalny via the Chinese, Japanese, or Russian 

posts, saving the delays met under the then current system of serving those 

cities.112 In 1907, Fowler again explained the need for a postal agency, thus 

endorsing a petition from certain Americans in the city. One of the primary 

concerns expressed in the petition was for a return to the recently discontinued 

Japanese practice of sending the mails for Chefoo in ships directly from Japan, 

a service long used by the American navy and recommended by Fowler in 

1903. The consul reported that the Japanese had agreed to re-establish the route. 

The petition also called for an American post office in Chefoo, and here the 

consul thoroughly agreed. There were 6000 American citizens living in the 

area, for whom large mails were received; these became even greater when 

the fleet was in port. Yet, the Americans had to depend upon other postal 
NUMBER 13 19 

offices, especially the much-distrusted Japanese, and they had no American 

parcel post or money order service.113 

Fowler's request was refused by the State Department, which stated that 

in a similar case at Amoy the year before the Postmaster General had replied 

that 

in view of the repeatedly expressed desire of the Government of China for the discontinuance of the foreign post offices now operating in China, and of the Post Office Department's 

expressed willingness to withdraw the United States Postal Agency at Shanghai when 

the other foreign post offices in China are withdrawn, it is not considered advisable to 

open other United States Post Offices in China at this time.114 

The Postmaster General also cited a letter of 30 April 1902 from Minister Edwin 

H. Conger at Peking, which had outlined U.S. policy regarding Chinese postal 

development. Conger had stated that the foreign offices interfered with the 

postal service and sovereignty of China, and that they should be maintained 

only at Shanghai, where the mail routes abroad centered, and where China 

herself desired them to remain until her own facilities were ready.115 

Another request was received in 1906 from the southern port of Amoy, 

which was served by the Chinese government via ships trading between the 

Philippine Islands and Hong Kong. Since the United States had no post office 

in Amoy, its mails could not be forwarded in a special pouch. Thus they were 

subject to delays in Hong Kong and to the Chinese rate of foreign postage. 

Often, letters for Manila were placed privately on "coolie ships" leaving Amoy, 

with the object of having the crew post them at a Philippine port and so avoid 

the exorbitant costs and delays. Once again, registry and money order service, 

under Shanghai, was desired.116 

Finally, a request was received in 1908 from J. C. McNally, the consul at 

Nanking, 185 miles up the Yangtse River from Shanghai. The Americans there 

resented having to pay 5-cent postage through the Chinese, German, and 

Japanese post offices, while two trains a day connected them with Shanghai, 

where the cost was 2 cents. Postal money orders and registered articles had 

to be sent to the United States through Cologne, under a German-American 

agreement, despite the fact that both services were available in Shanghai.117 

Notwithstanding the United States' advertised desire to give as much control as possible to the Chinese posts, in 1905 the U.S. Post Office Department 

changed the carrying of its mails to Peking, and, probably at the same time, 

to Tientsin, from the Chinese to the French service. Mails for Peking were 

supposed to be sent through Yokohama via the Japanese Post, addressed to the 

French post office; the latter office had declared itself prepared to deliver mails 

to residences throughout the Legation Quarter.118 The Peking legation appealed 

the orders, noting that the French, unlike the Chinese, had no means of distributing the mails within the city, and were turning the mails over to the 

Chinese post office once they arrived in Peking. Early the following year, 

Peking telegraphed that 
2 0 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 

all the Americans here and Tientsin formally complained to me very great delay delivery 

home mails which are still handled by the French. They request forwarding them direcdy 

from Yokohama by the Japanese, and in China by the Chinese. I concur; very desirable. 

The Postmaster General replied that the United States mails for Chefoo, Peking, 

and Tientsin had been sent via Japan since the preceding April, and thus "the 

delay complained of is not understood at this Department." The mails were 

addressed to the French post offices at the three cities. The department further 

stated that it did not seem that the delivery could be improved by changing 

either of these routing decisions, and that the legation should send some of 

the delayed covers to Washington, where the department would do its best 

to take remedial measures.119 Minister Rockhill noted sometime later that most 

of his mail was still received via Shanghai. The French were having the Chinese 

carry the mails to the French post office at Peking, where anyone living outside 

the Legation Quarter had to pick up his mail. He also mentioned that the 

mails sent by the Japanese via Dalny were transferred to the Chinese at Newchwang and then distributed in Peking through the same unsatisfactory French 

system.120 

At the same time, the postal arrangements with the French at Tientsin 

were equally unsatisfactory. The French distributions were frequently three to 

five hours later than the delivery of the Chinese mails that had arrived in the 

city on the same boat; moreover, the French, with post offices in Tientsin and 

Peking only, could not get the mail to the 13 American missionary outposts 

in the area. Instead, the material was held at the French post office. It was then 

left to the missions to arrange final delivery through the Imperial Post Office 

upon payment of 2 cents per half ounce. Within the city itself, the Chinese 

delivery system was much better than that of the French not only because it 

was faster, but also because the staff could speak English. Furthermore French 

ships were forbidden by Chinese law to carry any non-Chinese mail other than 

their own (a system begun by Sir Robert Hart, under which the ships of a 

given nation carried mail from its own and the Chinese systems only, in return 

for a rebate on "special permits" to load and unload cargo outside of regular 

hours).121 Therefore the French were disregarding the regulations by carrying 

the American mails. The English boats plying between Shanghai and Tientsin 

carried only the Chinese mails. Under these circumstances, Albert W. Pontius, 

in charge at Tientsin, strongly recommended that the American agency in 

Shanghai also make use once again of the Imperial Post Office.122 State Department official Charles Denby concurred with Pontius and called for an 

end to the "multiplicity of branch offices of various nationalities" in China. 

Since the legation had already made its dissatisfaction known, with the State 

Department receiving no reply to its letter to the Post Office Department on 

the subject, Alvey Adee ordered that the Washington office be addressed once 

more.123 No action was implemented in response to these appeals and the eventual resolution of this highly complex matter remains uncertain. 
NUMBER 13 21 

Another routing matter, which was satisfactorily resolved, was the effort 

at the Foochow consulate to have its mails managed directly at Shanghai instead 

of via Hong Kong, as had been done from the beginning of the American 

service. In 1897, W. C. Hixson, the United States marshal in charge at Foochow, 

forwarded a letter to this effect from the city's General Chamber of Commerce 

to the Postmaster General and urged that this change in routing be approved. 

It was estimated that from ten to fifteen days would be saved by eliminating 

the route south to Hong Kong. With steamers leaving Shanghai for Foochow 

every two or three days,124 the Imperial Post Office agreed to carry the mail 

from Shanghai free of charge.125 With the endorsement of Consul General 

Jernigan the change was made, and apparently it worked well in preventing 

undue delay. Furthermore, in February 1903 Consul Gracey successfully protested the projected placement of his office under the administrative control of 

the new Canton consul general, for that would have required the mails from 

Foochow to be taken south to Canton, via Hong Kong, just so that the consul 

general could read the dispatches. The ultimate time to Shanghai would have 

been fourteen to sixteen days, rather than the current thirty-six to forty-eight 

hours.126 

Finally, one should note the matter of the distrusted Japanese postal system 

in Manchuria and North China. In 1904, the Post Office Department ordered 

that all mails made up in New York for Manchuria be sent in the posts to 

Russia.127 The order was then modified, at the urging of Minister Conger,128 

to include the mails for Newchwang (one of the early treaty ports) in those 

sent via Shanghai.129 By 1908, following the Russo-Japanese War, however, 

American mail for Manchuria was being sent by the trans-Pacific steamers and 

given to the Japanese Post at Kobe. In that year, Consul General William 

Straight of Mukden complained that his mails were not safe in the hands of 

the Japanese, and requested that they be sent in the diplomatic pouch to Peking, 

or to the consulate general in Shanghai, for transmission in the Imperial Post. 

The latter possibility was accepted.130 

This attitude of distrust was also reflected from within the State Department when, in 1908, it directed Rockhill in Peking to utilize the Chinese post 

rather than send and receive his official mails directly through Yokohama. 

Although, time could have been saved through use of the Japanese post, via 

various lines to U.S. Pacific ports such as San Francisco, Vancouver, Seattle, 

Tacoma, and Portland, suspicion that the pouches would be compromised 

prevented the use of these facilities.131 Even in 1908, the United States distrusted 

the intentions of Japan in the North. 

Proliferation of Disputes 

During the period from 1896 to 1907, a number of difficulties disturbed 

those in charge of the Shanghai Postal Agency. The delays caused by the 

Spanish-American War have already been mentioned (see p. 16), as have the 
2 2 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 

various complaints against the Chinese Imperial Post Office relating to charges 

for domestic carriage of Union mails. As these last were being argued, there 

occured the greatest disruption of postal facilities of this period of American 

mails to China. On 13 June 1900 the Boxers occupied the city of Peking, cutting off all contact between the American legation and its government.132

 On 

23 June Consul General Goodnow at Shanghai was ordered to "hold pouch 

until safe forward Peking or send it Consul Chefoo." Goodnow decided to wait 

until the ministers were heard from again.133 All postal services were disrupted 

by the war that broke out through much of northern China. 

Due to this disruption and with a need for carrying mail to and from 

the American troops involved in the ensuing military operations, the Postmaster General on 2 August 1900 created a Military Postal Service in China,134 

with a "Military Postal Station No. 1" to be established on 25 August. The 

station was to offer facilities for money orders, registry, the sale of postal 

supplies, and the handling of mails.135 Thus, this station, set up to serve 

American military personnel, was the first American office in China that offered 

all practical domestic services, including money orders. In 1901, it also became 

the first to accept mail from the United States at domestic rates.136 Postal service 

was eventually established at Peking, Tientsin, and Tongku.137 

During these difficult months, civilian correspondence was carried on in a 

variety of ways. Governments with interests in China maintained their own 

couriers to carry instructions and intelligence. As the Chinese government was 

not able to carry on a regular mail service for much of the time, "the 

(American) Navy often carried (its) mails."138 Peking was finally relieved 

by a joint foreign relief force on 14 August 1900, but all difficulties were not 

immediately resolved. On 17 December Vice Consul General John R. Hykes 

wrote from Shanghai that 

this morning we received a mail from Peking and the latest dates were the 28th of 

November . . . The mails from the North are very uncertain and the over-land courier 

service which is our most rapid method of communication with Peking during the 

winter months is, in the present unsettled state of the country, subject to delays . .

 139 

It was not until 26 July 1901 that the Postmaster General ordered 

the military postal service in China .. . be discontinued, to take effect September 1, 1901. 

Discontinue on the same date Military Station No. 1, China.140 

A second order returned all American military mails in China to the "rates, 

classifications and conditions existing prior to the establishment of the exceptional service in that country."

 141 

Following the Boxer troubles, postal matters in China seem largely to 

have returned to their condition before the war. Consul Fowler continued 

his complaints against the Chinese service. On 9 January 1902 he asked that 

a post office be established at each consulate, so that all the mails from the 

United States could be forwarded from Shanghai in sealed sacks by the first 

ship, regardless of its flag. Under the current situation, he wrote, bags addressed 
NUMBER 13 23 

to each of the ports and containing all but our first-class mail were received 

in Shanghai and there turned over unopened to the "customs" post, which then 

would use only certain ship lines to transport them, often causing a week's 

delay.142 Fowler clearly wanted to crush the foreign-controlled customs service. 

In 1903, however, another step was taken toward better relations between 

the American and Chinese offices. The foreign postal agencies in Shanghai 

had long been a problem for the Chinese customs, since mail matter entered 

the country there without having been inspected for dutiable articles. On 15 June, 

therefore, the U.S. Postmaster General provided that all letters and packages 

that the postal agent felt might contain such articles would be inspected by 

specially authorized persons from the Chinese customs service. If material 

on which duty should be charged was found, the agent would arrange for the 

collection of the money and then remit it to the Chinese. The U.S. agency at 

Shanghai was reminded that it must retain custody of all mails in its care and 

allow none but the addressee or his agent to open a sealed package.143 

Further difficulties arose over the order of the Postmaster General which, 

in 1903, made domestic postal rates, classifications, and conditions applicable 

to mails exchanged between the United States and possessions, and the 

Shanghai Postal Agency. The original order stated that articles franked at the 

lower rates would be accepted "for delivery in Shanghai .. . or in the cities 

in China served through the United States Postal Agency at Shanghai."

 144

 This 

last apparently applied only to certain categories of mail. As Minister Conger 

put it, many people misinterpreted the order to signify "that they could send 

letters at domestic rates to Peking, Tientsin, and every other Chinese post 

office."

 14S

 In order to end this practice, the Postmaster General directed on 

20 February 1904 that the following be, in effect, added to the 1903 statement: 

EXCEPT that the Postal Union postage rates and conditions shall be applicable to LETTERS, 

POSTAL CARDS AND PRINTED MATTER destined for said cities other than Shanghai, viz: Letters, 

5 cents a half ounce or fraction of half ounce; postal cards, single, 2 cents, double, 4 cents; 

printed matter of all kinds, including periodicals from publishers for regular subscribers, 

one cent for each two ounces or fraction of two ounces.146 

The cities involved were the same twenty as listed in 1889 (see pages 4, 5), plus 

Foochow. Even this amended order, however, did not solve the problem of 

fees. Minister Conger noted toward the end of July that Americans were still 

receiving large numbers of letters addressed to other cities of China and 

franked at the 2-cent domestic rate. Any deficit between the postage paid and 

the 5-cent Union rate was doubled when the charges were collected by the 

Chinese post office; for example, for two consecutive days the Minister had had 

to pay $1.30 and $4.20, respectively, in postage due.147 By 1908, after fourth-class 

mail beyond Shanghai had been cancelled,148 a Rates Leaflet in use at Shanghai 

stated that all "articles for places other than Shanghai are subject to Postal Union 

postage rates and conditions." Even higher postage could be charged by the 

Chinese for heavy articles sent to or from places not served by steam.149 
2 4 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 

The years 1904 and 1905 saw still another war in the Far East, this one 

between Russia and Japan. Some delay and disruption occurred, of course, in 

mail services via Japan to the United States, and in the contested areas. Consul 

General John Goodnow, returning to Shanghai, wrote on 1 March 1904, that 

he had been "delayed a few days in Japan by the break of communications 

owing to the war."

 150

 In December he found it necessary to return to the State 

Department letters directed to the American consuls at Dalny (Dairen) and 

Vladivostock, stating that "we have used every means in our power to get them 

to their destination and, being unsuccessful, return them to you."

 151

 The difficulty in receiving dispatches was probably a familiar problem for the Dalny 

consulate. In 1898, the Russians, in control of the Liaotung Peninsula, had refused to accept Chinese Imperial Post Office stamps on matter addressed to 

Port Arthur, demanding that all mail be posted at their office in Shanghai for 

transmission through their own system.152 

In 1905, another complaint was made against the postal agency at Shanghai 

by a correspondent who had experienced trouble with his mail. While the 

accusation was easily countered, the matter clearly shows the difficulties under 

which the Shanghai office was operating at this time. Mr. John Franklin Crowell 

of the Intercontinental Correspondence University, wrote to Washington that 

"owing to the notorious carelessness and supreme indifference of the Consular 

post office," it was necessary for all mail sent to him through the agency to be 

registered. Consul General James Linn Rodgers replied that great care was 

exercised in the handling of all mail, and that those persons who kept locked 

boxes or called for their mail at the general delivery window had no trouble 

at all with missing letters. If the items were intrusted to the Chinese Imperial 

Post delivery, with which the agency had a contract, however, some carelessness 

might be met. In the case of mail matter addressed to interior points, which 

was turned over to the Chinese for transmission with receipts taken for the 

bags alone,153 even more difficulties were likely. Much of the material so transferred was stamped, even at this late date, at domestic postage rates, the collection of extra charges for which was a chore for the native post, especially since 

many items had to be returned to Shanghai because the postage due was refused 

by the addressee. Rodgers pointed out that the responsibility of the American 

system ended when the mail was turned over to the Chinese either for local 

or interior delivery; any attempt to trace a missing item through the Chinese 

post, he added, usually failed.154 

The following year, the Chinese Imperial Post Office began to complain 

about the practice of franking letters addressed to a foreign country maintaining postal offices in China with the stamps of that country at the low overseas 

rate available only at the Treaty Port agencies, and then sending such covers 

to these ports in another envelope through the Chinese post office. One thus 

avoided the more expensive Union rates to foreign countries. The matter had 

first appeared in the consular files in 1904, when Consul L. S. Wilcox of 

Hankow wrote that a Reverend A. E. Andre of Fan Cheng (north of Hankow) 
NUMBER 13 25 

FOWLEBGEMEHT . 

$fcr££)%&f..for transmission r 

i the sum of f. 

Y by money order payable t^/^^0/7j;7<n^n^' .<%£. 

Imperial (Post Office, 

IZ/^i&z: 

Isstiing Officer 

i8. 

i 

f Note. A proper money order for tne above sura shall be issued by the 

\ United States Postal Administration and furnished to the Payee. 

'JSk If payment of the money order be not obtained -within twelve months 

BP from the month of issue of this acknowledgement, all claim to the money will 

I be lost. 

j ^ . The fee for a single order is as under :— 

^ For sums not exceeding $ 25 35 sen. 

^ Above $ 25 and not exceeding $ 50 70 sen. 

FIGURE 3.—A receipt issued by the Japanese post office in Shanghai, showing the use of 

foreign postal services in transmitting money from the United States Consulate General 

to the Department of State. Courtesy of the National Archives. 
2 6 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 

had complained to him that the local post office had suddenly halted the practice by refusing to accept such covering envelopes. Reverend Andre noted that 

all foreign mail matter except letters was retaxed upon delivery in Fan Cheng, 

even if franked at Union rates, and stated that at least the right of cheap communications with home enjoyed at Shanghai should be given to those Americans living in other cities.155

 On 19 November 1906 the Chinese Imperial Post 

Office in Foochow issued an official circular, noting that "numerous letters have 

recently been received at this Office" regarding the matter. The circular stated 

that such a practice could not be allowed, as it was "an evasion of the rights of 

the Chinese Imperial Post"; furthermore, it claimed, all other postal systems 

forbade circumventing postal charges by using covering envelopes. In his dispatch accompanying this circular as sent to the Department of State, Consul 

Samuel L. Gracey also included copies of two other letters on the subject. On 

9 October 1906 the Deputy Postmaster of the Imperial Post Office at Shanghai 

had written to a Reverend W. N. Brewster in Foochow, stating that 

I have as promised referred to Peking the question re. sending your International letters 

under cover to friends in Shanghai for posting as U.S.P.O. and B.P.O. and am able to 

inform you that it is satisfactory from a Postal point of view. 

On 1 December Gracey wrote to John Gardner Coolidge, the charge d'affairs 

in Peking, noting that the circular's quote from the British laws was not, as 

claimed, from the postal guide, but from a (unidentified) private letter, and 

that the International Postal Union and U.S. regulations seemed to contain no 

such provisions as the Chinese mentioned. The matter was suspended until 

further rulings could be obtained from Peking.156 In this case the various parts 

of the Chinese postal administration seemed to have very little idea of what 

the others were doing. 

Finally, as the period of Shanghai's administration by the consul general 

ended, a case arose which highlights the confusion resulting from all the different postal administrations operating in China. The Consul at Tsingtau, Wilbur T. Gracey, had complained to Washington that postal authorities in the 

United States had refused to accept parcels addressed to his post city. In reply, 

he was told that Tsingtau was located in the German leased area of Kiaochow, 

and that thus 

articles for Tsingtau are included in mails subject to the stipulations of the United Postal 

Convention, which convention makes no provision for the transmisson, at less than the 

letter-rate fully prepaid, of packages of miscellaneous merchandise other than samples having 

no salable value.167 

Packages of merchandise addressed to cities other than Shanghai had had 

to be delivered in China through foreign postal systems with a branch in the 

city involved since the use of the U.S. domestic fourth class rate applicable to 

some such places had been cancelled in 1906.158 Apparently, no parcel post 

agreement had been signed with the German offices in China, although such 
NUMBER 13 27 

conventions were operating with at least the offices of Japan and of Hong 

Kong.159 

The year 1907 saw a very complex postal situation in China, replete with 

unsatisfactory service and great confusion. The Chinese Imperial Post Office 

was seeking to extend its services so that membership in the International Postal 

Union and improved domestic methods could make possible the removal of 

all competing lines and provide China with a single, rapid mail system. In 

Shanghai, the United States Postal Agency was placed under the administration 

of a full-time, salaried postal agent, with the hope that his myriad duties would 

now be more fully and successfully performed. It was not, however, until 1914 

that China entered the Union;160 foreign postal agencies remained until the 

end of 1922.161 

426-780 O - 12 - i 
Notes 

National Archives 

Seventeen files of material were utilized at the National Archives. They 

are listed below with the Record Group number under which each is included. 

See References for complete citations of published works. Shortened citations 

are given in the notes following. 

General State Department Records (R.G. 59) 

Instructions 

Miscellaneous Letters 

Numerical File 

State Department Records by Post (R.G. 84) 

Amoy 

Canton 

Chefoo 

Foochow 

Hankow 

Newchwang 

Ningpo 

Shanghai (Consulate General) 

Tientsin 

Dispatches, Peking to Tientsin 

Peking (Legation) 

Post Office Department Records (R.G. 28) 

Orders of the Postmaster-General 

Post Office Department Journal 

Press-Copy Letterbook of the Postmaster-General 

Post Office Department Library 

Miscellaneous Orders of the Postmaster General. Bound volumes. 

28 
NUMBER IS 29 

i. National Archives, Shanghai, 2 May 1866. 

2. U.S.P.O.D., Annual Report i86y, pp. 129-130. 

3. Ibid., p. 22. 

4. Dispatch of 12 September 1868. In a register of materials received. National Archives, 

Shanghai, 13 October 1868. 

5. For the difficulties in obtaining compliance from the Canton office, see National 

Archives, Shanghai, 12 March 1883. OuSer offices also caused difficulties. 

6. Lobdell, "Beginnings," pp. 18 and 20. 

7. In a register of materials received. National Archives, Shanghai, 11 July 1868. 

Unfortunately, the dispatches themselves cannot be found. 

8. National Archives, Shanghai, 13 February 1882. 

9. United States Official Postal Guide, series 2, vol. 11, no. 10, p. 23. 

10. National Archives, Shanghai, 16 September 1882. 

11. National Archives, Miscellaneous Letters, 30 October 1882. 

12. U.S.P.O.D., Annual Report 1873, pp. 123-128. 

13. National Archives, Instructions, 22 January 1875. 

14. Lobdell, "Beginnings," pp. 35-36. 

15. Ibid., p. 36. See also United States Official Postal Guide, series 2, vol. 4, p. 784. 

16. United States Official Postal Guide, series 2, vol. 4, p. 784. 

17. National Archives, Shanghai, 13 February 1882. 

18. National Archives, Peking, 16 April 1879. 

19. National Archives, Shanghai, 13 February 1882. 

20. Fairbank, East Asia, p. 317. 

21. National Archives, Tientsin, 2 September 1887. 

22. National Archives, Tientsin, 14 December 1894. 

23. National Archives, Tientsin, 2 September 1887. 

24. Ibid. 

25. National Archives, Shanghai, 20 March 1880. The document dated 19 March is enclosed in this dispatch. 

26. National Archives, Tientsin, 2 September 1887. 

27. A note of 3 September 1887, written on the dispatch. 

28. National Archives, Dispatches, Peking to Tientsin, 10 October 1887 (vol. 4, p. 153). 

29. Cancellations reading "U.S. Postal Agency, Tientsin" are known for the late 1880s 

and early 1890s; they are identical in type to that of Shanghai, which also appears on 

the envelopes. For what little has been published on this matter, see Sloane, "U.S. 

Varieties," vol. 13, no. 1, and vol. 28, no. 10. 

30. National Archives, Dispatches, Peking to Tientsin, 5 December 1881 (vol. 3, p. 51). 

31. Ibid. 

32. National Archives, Dispatches, Peking to Tientsin, 28 April 1885 (vol. 4, p. 90). 

33. National Archives, Tientsin, 2 July 1894. 

34. Chinese Directorate General of Posts, Report, 1921, p. 6. 

35. Fairbank, East Asia, p. 316. 

36. Chinese Directorate General of Posts, Report, 1921, p. 6. 

37. National Archives, Peking, 14 December 1887. 

38. Ibid. 

39. National Archives, Peking, 14 February 1887. 

40. Ibid, 14 December 1887. 

41. Ibid. 

42. An oval handstamp from the "United States Consulate, Ningpo, China" is known 

with dates in the early 1890s. The mail then passed through Shanghai on its way to 

the United States. See Sloane, "U.S. Varieties," vol. 13, no. 1, and vol. 28, no. 10. 

426-180 0-72- 4 
3 0 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 

43. National Archives, Ningpo, 15 March 1886. 

44. Ibid., 31 January 1887. 

45. Ibid., 19 January 1887. 

46. National Archives, Shanghai, 30 July 1896. 

47. National Archives, Hankow, 15 October 1894. 

48. Chinese Directorate General of Posts, Report, 1921, p. 7. 

49. National Archives, Shanghai, 20 April 1870. 

50. Ibid., 26 December 1881. 

51. National Archives, Miscellaneous Letters, 20 May 1882. 

52. Ibid., 30 October 1882. 

53. Ibid., 23 January 1883. 

54. National Archives, Instructions, 25 October 1886. 

55. National Archives, Shanghai, 25 August 1887. 

56. National Archives, Miscellaneous Letters, 30 October 1896. 

57. National Archives, Shanghai, 14 November 1881 (Annual Report). 

58. Ibid., 3 February 1880. 

59. Ibid., 20 March 1880. The document dated 19 March is enclosed in this dispatch. 

60. National Archives, Shanghai, 12 July 1880. 

61. National Archives, Miscellaneous Letters, 5 December 1881. 

62. National Archives, Shanghai, 13 February 1882. 

63. Ibid., 27 March 1897. 

64. Ibid., 24 September 1885. 

65. Ibid., 4 May 1886. 

66. Ibid., 3 April 1897. 

6y. Ibid., 23 October 1877. Also 20 November 1877. The document dated 22 October 

is enclosed in the latter dispatch. 

68. National Archives, Shanghai, 20 November 1877. 

69. Ibid., 14 May 1880. 

70. Ibid., 23 October 1899. 

71. Ibid., 27 August 1895. The document dated 20 August is enclosed in the dispatch. 

72. Livingston, "R. A. de Villard," p. 58. 

73. National Archives, Shanghai, 4 October 1894. 

74. National Archives, Peking, 23 April and 17 December 1877. 

75. Note attached to dispatch. National Archives, Chefoo, 23 January 1903. 

76. The indoor staff of the Customs as of 25 January 1899 was British 175, Continental 

European 90, American 16, Russian 9. The United States maintained one-tenth to 

one-seventh of the trade, but received only one-eighteenth of the jobs. National Archives, Shanghai, 29 January 1899. The document dated 25 January is enclosed in the 

dispatch. This letter shows just how little the Chinese had to do with the management 

of their own customs service, or with that of the mail service it controlled. 

77. National Archives, Ningpo, 10 June 1896. 

78. National Archives, Shanghai, 4 March 1897. 

79. Chinese Directorate General of Posts, Report, 1921, pp. 7-8. 

80. National Archives, Peking, 2 May and 3 July 1896. 

81. Ibid., 3 July 1896. 

82. Chinese Directorate General of Posts, Report, 1921, pp. 8-9. 

83. National Archives, Shanghai, 2 July 1898. The document dated 15 June is enclosed 

in die dispatch. Also National Archives, Chefoo, 23 January 1903, with enclosures. 

Fowler claimed that the Chinese had broken an agreement of 1897 to transmit "fully 

prepaid" American mail matter in the open mails between Shanghai and "interior 

Chinese Post Offices," free of additional charge to the addressee. United States postage 
NUMBER 13 31 

stamps were to be used. It is doubtful, however, that the agreement pertained to 

Chefoo at all, or in all seasons, nor that the principal case, relating to carriage that 

probably occurred during the Boxer Rebellion, would have fallen under it anyway. 

It is also unclear whether or not parcels would have been included. For a highly 

colored account of the process by which the Imperial Post took over American mails, 

see the almost constant stream of dispatches directed by Fowler to the State Department, beginning on 24 February 1897, National Archives, Chefoo. 

84. National Archives, Peking, 31 March 1899. 

85. Ibid., 31 December 1896. 

86. Ibid., 16 June 1896. The document dated 24 June is enclosed in this dispatch. 

87. National Archives, Peking, 31 December 1896. 

88. Ibid., 15 January 1897. 

89. Ibid., 23 March 1897. The document dated 22 March is enclosed in this dispatch. 

90. Chinese Directorate General of Posts, Report, 1921, p. 8. 

91. National Archives, Miscellaneous Letters, 13 July 1898. 

92. National Archives, Numerical File, 4375 (vol. 389), 3 June 1907. 

93. Second Assistant Postmaster General, Report, 1906, p. 182. 

94. National Archives, Numerical File, 4375/33 (vol. 389), 11 November 1907. 

95. National Archives, Peking, 12 February 1897. 

96. National Archives, Shanghai, 24 February 1897. 

97. National Archives, Hankow, 9 May 1899. 

98. National Archives, Shanghai, 14 February 1898. 

99. Ibid., 31 May 1898. 

100. National Archives, Miscellaneous Letters, 13 July 1898. 

101. National Archives, Peking, 31 March 1899. 

102. Ibid., 31 March 1899. The document dated 30 March is enclosed in this dispatch. 

103. National Archives, Peking, 8 June 1906. 

104. Ibid., 1 February 1900. 

105. Ibid., 4 November 1903. 

106. Ibid. 

107. Buder, Report, 6 February 1908, National Archives, Numerical File, 8526/2-4 (vol. 

614). 

108. Ibid. 

109. National Archives, Newchwang, 12 April 1902. 

n o . National Archives, Peking, 22 June 1904. 

i n . National Archives, Chefoo, 23 January 1903. 

112. National Archives, Newchwang, 22 May 1903. 

113. National Archives, Numerical File, 7705 (vol. 576), 21 June 1907. 

114. National Archives, Numerical File, 7705 (vol. 576), 29 July 1907. 

115. National Archives, Peking, 30 April 1902. 

116. National Archives, Amoy, 11 June 1906. For the request of the new consul general 

at Canton for a postal agency at his post, see the dispatches dated 20 April and 

24 July 1903, National Archives, Canton. 

117. National Archives, Numerical File, 13827 (vol. 856), 21 April 1908. 

118. National Archives, Miscellaneous Letters, 22 April 1905. 

119. Ibid., 22 January 1906. 

120. National Archives, Peking, 30 March 1906. 

121. Chinese Directorate General of Posts, Report, 1921, p. 8. 

122. National Archives, Numerical File, 1481 (vol. 165), 29 August 1906. 

123. National Archives, Numerical File, 1481 (vol. 165), 10 October and 13 October 1906, 

respectively. 

124. National Archives, Shanghai, 3 April 1897. 
3 2 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 

125. National Archives, Foochow, 29 March 1897. 

126. National Archives, Shanghai, 11 March 1903. The document dated 18 February is 

enclosed in this dispatch. 

127. United States Official Postal Guide, series 2, vol. 26, no. 6, p. 9. This is General 

Order 576, dated 12 May 1904. 

128. National Archives, Peking, 3 July 1904. 

129. United States Official Postal Guide, series 2, vol. 26, no. 10, p. 13. This is General 

Order 588, dated 29 September 1904. 

130. National Archives, Numerical File, 8526/10-11 (vol. 614), 15 April 1908. 

131. Ibid., 16360 (vol. 959), 22 September 1908 (and notes) and 21 September 1908. 

132. National Archives, Shanghai, 25 June 1900. 

133. Ibid., 29 June 1900. 

134. National Archives, Orders of the Postmaster-General, journal 5, p. 459. This is order 

number 9111^, dated 2 August 1900. 

135. Ibid., p. 454. This is order number 912, dated 2 August 1900. 

136. Ibid., pp. 670-673. This is order number 395, dated 30 March 1901. 

137. U.S.P.O.D., Report of the Third Assistant Postmaster General, igoi, p. 800. 

138. National Archives, Chefoo, 23 January 1903. 

139. National Archives, Shanghai, 17 December 1900. 

140. National Archives, Orders of the Postmaster-General, journal 6, p. 141. This is 

order number 933, dated 26 July 1901. 

141. Ibid., p. 165. This is order number 1008, dated 23 August 1901. 

142. United States, State Department, Foreign Relations . . . , 1902, pp. 222-225. 

143. National Archives, Orders of the Postmaster-General, journal 7, pp. 223-224. This 

is order number 534, dated 15 June 1903. 

144. Ibid., p. 183. This is order number 441, dated 30 April 1903. 

145. National Archives, Peking, 4 November 1903. There is evidence that the Postmaster General misjudged his power to change the rates for mail conveyed beyond 

Shanghai. 

146. National Archives, Orders of the Postmaster-General, journal 7, p. 575. This is order 

number 147, dated 20 February 1904. Emphases are taken from the United States 

Official Postal Guide, series 2, vol. 26 no. 3, p. 6. 

147. National Archives, Peking, 26 July 1904. 

148. United States, Washington City Post Office, Postal Information, p. 1. 

149. National Archives, Numerical File, 8526/2-4 (vol. 614), 6 February 1908. A sample 

of the leaflet was enclosed in this dispatch and is bound with it. 

150. National Archives, Shanghai, 1 March 1904. 

151. Ibid., 1 December 1904. 

152. Ibid., 5 September 1898. The information is contained in an article from the 

North China Daily News, 3 September 1898, which is included in the archival 

material. 

153. All mail matter for the interior was turned over to the Chinese for promised delivery 

at no charge above Union rates. See National Archives, Chefoo, 23 January 1903, for 

excerpt from Superintendent of Foreign Mails dispatch to Consul General Jernigan, 

30 June 1897, Number 133311. 

154. National Archives, Shanghai, 30 October 1905. 

155. National Archives, Hankow, 23 July 1904. The Andre letter is dated 8 July 

1904. 

156. National Archives, Numerical File, 3841 (vol. 352), 9 October and 1 December 

1906. 

157. National Archives, Numerical File, 9185 (vol. 666), 4 December 1907. 
NUMBER 13 33 

158. United States, Washington City Post Office, Postal Information, p. 1. 

159. For the agreement with Hong Kong, see National Archives, Orders of the PostmasterGeneral, journal 8, pp. 109-110. This is order number 830, dated 26 July 1904. For 

that with Japan, see National Archives, Orders of the Postmaster-General, journal 

8, pp. 159-160. This is order number 958, dated 25 August 1904. 

160. List appears in the United States Official Postal Guide, series 3, vol. 7, no. 1, p. 130. 

161. United States, State Department, Foreign Relations . . , 1922, pp. 291-292. 
References 

Chinese Directorate General of Posts, Supply Department, Report on the Chinese Post 

Office, 1921. Published 1922. 

Fairbank, John K., Edwin O. Reischauer, Albert M. Craig. East Asia: The Modern 

Transformation. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1965. 

Livingston, Lyons F. "R. A. de Villard and the Stamps of China." The Collectors Club 

Philatelist, vol. 28, no. 1 (January 1949). 

Lobdell, H.E. "1867, The Beginnings of Scheduled Trans-Pacific Mail." Twelfth American 

Philatelic Congress (1946). 

North-China Herald, 4 October 1907. 

Polland, W. Scot. "Mail Service to China and Japan in the Nineteenth Century.' 

Western Express, January 1965. 

Sloane, "U.S. Varieties" Stamps Magazine, vol. 13, no. 1 (5 October 1935), p. 21, and vol. 

28, no. 10 (9 September 1939), p. 337. 

United States, House of Representatives. "Postal Accounts with Shanghai and Tientsin, 

China." House Document 704, 59th Congress, 1st Session. 

United States, Senate, Select Committee on Methods of Business and Work in the Executive Departments. "The Cockrell Report, 1888." Senate Report 507, 50th Congress, 1st 

Session. 

United States, State Department. Foreign Relations of the United States. 1902, 1922. 

United States, Washington City Post Office. Postal Information, vol. 2, no. 14 (2 April 1906). 

Available at the Post Office Department Library, Washington, D.C. 

United States Official Postal Guide. Series 2: vol. 4 (January 1882); vol. n , no. 10 (October 

1889); vol. 26, no. 3 (March 1904); vol. 26, no. 6 (June 1904); vol. 26, no. 10 (October 

1904). Series 3: vol. 7, no. 1 (July 1914). 

United States Post Office Department [U.S.P.O.D.]. Annual Report of the Postmaster 

General, 1867, 1873. [The titles of the published annual reports change frequently.] 

. Report of the Auditor for the Post Office Department, 1895. 

. Report of the First Assistant Postmaster General, 1902. 

. Report of the Second Assistant Postmaster General, 1906. 

. Report of the Third Assistant Postmaster General, 1901. 

34 
Appendix I 

Development of the Postal Services 

at Shanghai 

The Shanghai Postal Agency was founded by the Post Office Department 

on 10 June 1867, when the Postmaster General wrote to the Secretary of 

State by special messenger, requesting that he appoint the consul general at 

Shanghai "to receive, distribute, deliver, and dispatch the correspondence conveyed by United States Packets to and from [that] port."

 1 On the same day, 

the State Department approved the appointment, directing that separate 

FIGURE 4.—Map of Shanghai showing locations of the various U.S. consulates general. 

Basic map courtesy of the National Archives. 

35 
3 6 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 

accounts be kept for the two functions of the consulate general, as the Post 

Office had agreed to defray the postal expenses, and enclosing a certificate 

of appointment and a letter of instructions from the Postmaster General.2 The 

actual Postmaster General's order was made on June 14;3 and on 14 October, 

Vice Counsel General Mangum acknowledged the appointment on behalf 

of Consul General Seward.4 

The service offered by the Shanghai agency slowly grew more extensive 

than that of simply receiving and dispatching letter and papers. Boxes were 

first made available for rental in 1870.5 In 1887, Consul General Kennedy wrote 

that 

It is very gratifying to know that, through representations made by me to the Post 

Office Department, samples of merchandise can now be sent to the United States as 

Fourth-class matter, and not at Letter rates, as had been previously exacted.6 

Another such added service, long desired by the American businessmen in 

China, was that of the domestic money order. In 1899, Consul General Goodnow wrote to the State Department, enclosing an advertisement from the 

Japanese Post Office offering money orders to be sent to the United States, and 

strongly suggesting that this country take advantage of this impetus to trade 

by offering its own service.7 An example of the receipt issued by the Japanese 

in acknowledgement for their orders, in this case used by Consul General 

Kennedy in 1887 to transmit a payment from the estate of a deceased American 

to his heirs in the United States,8 is pictured here. Goodnow's request was 

refused, however, in a letter from the Postmaster General to the Secretary 

of State, dated 19 December 1899. Under the law, it was impossible to establish a domestic money order office in a foreign territory.9

 By 1902, however, 

the law had apparendy changed, and on 22 March of that year, in answer 

to further requests from Shanghai, the consul general was authorized to 

issue money orders.10 

On 19 August 1902 the Postmaster General issued an order that made the 

service to Shanghai even more useful for businessmen whereby the Postmaster at San Francisco was to make up supplementary mails for the China 

steamers, closing them not more than one hour before the steamer sailed. 

Letters carried in these mails were to be prepaid at "double the rates applicable 

to similar articles in international mails."

 X1

 It was now possible to send last 

minute articles in each mail. 

The greatest boon to American trade came, of course, when domestic postage rates were made applicable to "articles passing between this country and 

[the Shanghai] Agency." The superintendent of foreign mails notified the 

consul general on 9 May 1903, that the service would be conducted upon that 

basis beginning on 1 June; Goodnow replied on 9 June that it would indeed 

be "a great advantage to Americans in China and to American trade."

 12 

A side benefit to the consular service was that now, under domestic mail classifi-
NUMBER 13 3 7 

cations, the official correspondence between Shanghai and Washington could 

be transmitted in penalty envelopes.13 

The period 1867 to 1907 also saw a great growth in the popularity of the 

American system for mail transportation. Much of this has already been mentioned, in discussing the disputes between various consuls general and the 

Washington departments. By 1888, the Select Committee on Methods of Business and Work in the Executive Departments reported the Shanghai Postal 

Agency had four employees, who received salaries of $100, $15, $8, and $5 per 

month, respectively.14 In 1905, Vice Consul General Davidson reported that 

the office handled "some four thousand bags of mail a year".15 One year later 

the Consular Bureau stated that the agency handled about 12,000 bags per 

annum, receiving about 200 bags at a time. The American office exceeded the 

German in volume of mail handled but was slighdy exceeded by the English.10 

Whether either or both of these figures are correct, a large volume of material 

was passing through the consulate general by 1907. 

On 25 September 1907, after years of repeated urging on the part of many 

consuls general, the Shanghai Postal Agency was taken from under the responsibility of that officer. John M. Darrah had earlier in the year been appointed 

deputy marshal at the consulate general, in order to fill a gap between departing and arriving marshals.17

 He had also worked for some time within the 

postal agency itself.18 In September, acting under authority which he had held 

since the 1860s19 but chosen not to use, the Postmaster General ordered that 

John M. Darrah is hereby appointed United States Postal Agent at Shanghai, in China, 

and his compensation is fixed at twenty-three hundred dollars ($2,300) per annum, United 

States gold.20 

Now, for the first time, a full-time agent devoted his efforts to managing and 

improving the service at Shanghai. 

Notes 

(See pages 28-29 for full National Archives and U.S.P.O.D. Library references. See page 34 for complete 

citations of publications.) 

i. National Archives, Miscellaneous Letters, 10 June 1867. Bound in the volume marked 

on the spine as pertaining to the first part of June 1868. 

2. National Archives, Miscellaneous Letters, 10 June 1867. Bound in the volume marked 

on the spine as pertaining to the first part of June 1868. Unfortunately, the letter of 

instructions from the Post Office Department has been lost. 

3. National Archives, Post Office Department Journal, vol. 63, p. 304, 14 June 1867. 

4. National Archives, Shanghai, 14 October 1867. 

5. National Archives, Post Office Department Journal, vol. 68, p. 621, 9 May 1871. 

6. National Archives, Shanghai, 25 August 1887. 

7. Ibid., 19 February 1899. 

8. Ibid., 11 November 1887. 

9. National Archives, Miscellaneous Letters, 19 December 1899. 
3 8 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 

io. U.S.P.O.D., Report of the First Assistant Postmaster General, 1902, p. 166. 

11. National Archives, Orders of the Postmaster-General, journal 6, p. 594. This is order 

number 929, dated 19 August 1902. 

12. National Archives, Shanghai, 9 June 1903. 

13. National Archives, Instructions, 23 December 1903. 

14. United States Senate, Select Committee, The Cochrell Report, 1888, Part 3, p. 6. 

15. National Archives, Shanghai, 27 March 1905. 

16. Ibid., 24 February 1906. Consular Bureau memorandum attached. 

17. National Archives, Numerical File, 552 (vol. 80), 1 February 1907. 

18. North-China Herald, 4 October 1907, p. 7. See also United States House of Representatives, "Postal Accounts." 

19. U.S. Statutes at Large, Section 7, Act of 27 July 1868 (15 Stat. Chap. 246). 

20. Post Office Department Library, Miscellaneous Orders of the Postmaster General, vol. 

12, order 719, 25 September 1907. 
Appendix 2 

Facilities and Equipment Available to the 

Postal Agency 

The developing situation and services of the Shanghai Postal Agency may 

be seen clearly in the physical facilities and tools available to it at different times 

during this period. In 1868, for example, as the agency was first being established, the only likely indication in a consular inventory that such an office 

existed at all was the presence of "1 stamp 'Forwarded by U.S.C " x (The 

dating stamp of the Consulate General was definitely used as a postal marking, 

appearing as early as November 1867.2 A Special "P.O.D." dater is reported in 

use the following year.3) Very little equipment was available. 

In 1874, Consul General George F. Seward signed a lease agreement, at 

his own risk, for a consular compound to be built to his specifications, with 

a main entrance off Woochang Road, on the banks of the river, in the American concession. As seen in a floor plan drawn in 1885, the post office was here 

situated in virtually a single room on the ground floor of the main building, 

immediately to the left as one walked down the corridor.4 By 1878, the office 

was well provided with various pieces of equipment, as will be seen from the 

inventory below. Entries where the writing is not sufficiendy clear for positive 

identification, are noted with a question mark.5 

2 large forms (boxes for firms) 

1 large sorting table 

1 receiving [reading?] table 

1 set alphabeticle [sic] boxes (letters) 

1 set alphabeticle [sic] boxes (papers) 

3 upright distributing boxes 

2 small distributing stands 

1 stamping table 

1 set pigeon holes for Chinese letters 

1 table 

1 candlestick 

3 post office scales 

1 spring balance scale 

1 copy book letters sent 

1 register of registered letters 

1 register of letter book [ ? ] 

memo, request book 

old style mail bags 

new style mail bags (canvass) 

letter boxes for steamers 

pkg. wrapping paper 

twine box & lot of cotton twine 

shelf for weighing letters [?] 

ink stand 

leather mail bag 

3 ink pads 

4 cancelling stamps 

2 date stamps with type 

1 register stamp with type 

1 missent & forwarded stamp 

1 due stamp 

1 paid stamp 

39 
4 0 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 

i paid in full stamp i U.S. Postal Guide 

i unpaid stamp 3 vols. Postal regulations 

i not found stamp i large iron safe 

i advertized stamp i too late stamp 

i unclaimed stamp i tax stamp 

i returned for postage stamp Sundry forms 

i unsufficiently [sic] prepaid stamp i U.S. Post Office sign 

This is the only full inventory of the post office contained in the Shanghai consular records. 

In 1885, the owner of the land and buildings, David Reid of London, England, grew tired of having his rent set at low levels by the Congressional appropriations, and sold the property to the Japanese Mail Steamship Company.8 

In 1888, this company informed the Americans that it would be necessary 

for the consulate to be vacated on the following 1 February. Consul General 

Kennedy was forced to rent space in a row of tenements that were to be put 

up on a back street in the heart of the business district of the British concession, 

because the high rents charged in Shanghai put all other land far beyond 

the reach of the consulate.7 The new buildings were delayed because of heavy 

rains,8 but on 1 April 1890 the move was made to 12 Kiukiang Road. Consul 

General Joseph A. Leonard wrote that 

in the back of the [second] story is the Post Office twenty eight by twenty feet in size 

with a room twenty by thirteen feet alongside for the use of the coolies. The Post Office is 

much better arranged and more convenient for the distribution of mails than it was in 

the building removed from.9 

The building was so situated that this country's flag could not be seen from 

the harbor,10 but the financial situation made it necessary in 1899 for the lease 

to be extended through to 31 March 1901.11 

In late 1900 or early 1901, Consul General Goodnow agreed to rent the 

premises then occupied by the Club de Recrio, with a ten-year lease that would 

begin when certain repairs and changes, to be started on 1 June, were completed.12

 The site, at 36 Whangpoo Road, was in the American Settlement, only 

a block away from that of the buildings commissioned by Seward in 1874. 

The lease was signed on 1 August 1901 to begin on that date.13 This position 

of the consulate general was still not completely to the liking of patriotic diplomats, since it was located on a street behind the warehouses of the Japanese 

Steamship Company;14 it was, however, in the American portion of the city. 

The facilities for the post office originally constituted one room. In 1905, however, Consul General Rodgers wrote that 

the Post Office has been allotted one back room, accessible to the public only by a species 

of alley known as Old China Street, which abuts on the Eastern side of the premises. 

As the mail for Shanghai, and for other places in China, coming into this office, has been 

increasing with every month, and as Americans of Shanghai have complained bitterly 

of our postal accommodations in comparison with those of other nations, it seemed but 
NUMBER 13 41 

CONSULATE-GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES. 

SHANGHAI, CHINA, 189 

^VMX. 1-L-vv 

FIGURE 5.—Floor plan of the post office at 12 Kiukiang Road, 1897. Transmitted by Consul 

General Goodnow to Assistant Secretary Day, 12 November. Courtesy of the National 

Archives. 
42 SMITHSONIAN STUDffiS IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 

SWBWm. WWW i 

—Sega T' - (5"&— 

* " *»- * 

w 

OJLX. 

FIGURE 6.—Floor plan of the post office at 36 Whangpoo Road, 1905. Transmitted by Vice 

Consul General in charge Davidson to Assistant Secretary Loomis, 27 March. It appears 

that enclosures in the Shanghai file, Record Group 84, National Archives, were confused 

before the documents were bound. This figure appears to have been in Rodgers' letter to 

die Department of State, 6 July 1905. Courtesy of the National Archives. 
NUMBER 13 43 

justice to the department to give it the space it pays for, and at the same time to afford 

the public conveniences and facilities, which were impossible under the old arrangement. 

The Post Office will have the East half of the first floor, which will permit of the 

installation of a requisite number of lock-boxes, money order and stamp department, 

besides providing a lobby into which the public can go for their mail and other postal 

business.15 

These new accommodations included four rooms: Receiving and Dispatching 

Room (25 feet by 21 feet); Post Office, Registry, Money order, Stamps, General 

delivery, Mail boxes (25 feet by 27 feet); Assorting and Compradore Room (25 

feet by 21 feet); Lobby for those calling for mail (8 feet by 25 feet). Despite this 

J***&. 1ML CititlR. 

Sca.kc '/r / fooT 

FIGURE 7.—Floor plan of the post office at 36 Whangpoo Road, 1907. Transmitted from 

Consul General Denby to the Assistant Secretary of State, 2 October. Courtesy of the 

National Archives. 
4 4 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 

enlarging of the office, Consul General Charles Denby, who replaced Rodgers 

in 1907, felt called upon to complain to the State Department that there was still 

not enough room for the office or for the lock boxes demanded, nor was there 

room for a private office for Mr. Darrah, who has just been appointed to his 

post. The surroundings were not at all conducive to the conduct of business.16 

This may well have been true, but the offices then occupied were the best ever 

held by the postal agency, and they seemed quite likely to be the best obtainable from Congress for many years to come. 

Notes 

(See pages 28-29 f° r full National Archives and U.S.P.O.D. Library references. See page 34 for complete 

citations of publications.) 

1. National Archives, Shanghai, 7 April 1868. 

2. Lobdell, "Beginnings," p. 25. The stamp, at the lower left of the envelope, is dated 

27 November 1867. 

3. Polland, "Mail Service," p. 15. An illustrated cover, sent from Peking on 27 October 

1868, was handstamped in Shanghai on 20 November. 

4. National Archives, Instructions, 23 December 1874. See also National Archives, Shanghai, 30 October 1885. 

5. Ibid., 26 September 1878. 

6. Ibid., 24 September 1885 and 3 February 1888. 

7. Ibid., 9 August 1888 and 26 June 1890. 

8. Ibid., 14 November 1889. 

9. Ibid., 26 June 1890. 

10. Ibid., 24 May 1895. 

11. Ibid., 6 October 1899. 

12. Ibid., 22 January 1901. 

13. Ibid., 27 November 1900 and 5 October 1901. 

14. National Archives, Numerical File, 651/1 (vol. 96), 11 September 1906. 

15. National Archives, Shanghai, 6 July 1905. 

16. National Archives, Numerical File, 651/7-13 (vol. 96), 2 October 1907. 
Appendix 3 

Chinese Currency and Accounting 

One of the most difficult problems faced by the Shanghai postal agent was 

that of accounting for the monies received and spent as part of his job. Until 

1894, the official unit of currency in China was the tael, which, according to 

E. J. Smithers in Tientsin, 

is a weight of pure silver, and is the highest that is applied to the precious metals. It is 

not a coin, but is nevertheless the common medium of exchange in all commercial transactions throughout the empire. It differs from the currency of Western nations inasmuch as 

it represents no fixed value, its value varying according to the scales in which it is weighed.1 

The tael was then divided by weight into mace and candareen; each candareen 

then equaled ten copper cash.2 Actual transactions were made in bank notes, 

silver bullion, copper cash, or foreign currency.3 The value of the tael in relation to foreign currencies was often changed, with Treasury circulars advertising the changes taking weeks to arrive in China.4 

In 1894, the Mexican dollar, in use since the eighteenth century, was adopted 

as the official Chinese currency, called the yuan. At that time, it was worth 

about 50 cents in American gold.5 Although a coin, the Mexican dollar was 

also valued only for the silver it contained, its worth depending upon the silver 

market at any given time. Other coins in use, such as those representing dollar 

fractions, which were less fine and called "small money," and the copper cash, 

even varied in value in relation to the dollar.6 Under these circumstances, 

it was extremely difficult to maintain any idea of the value to the Post Office 

Department of money received and spent at the Shanghai agency. The complex question of exchange rates and premiums figured highly in the 1877 

charges against Vice Consul General Bradford,7 and created many problems. 

In 1899, in an effort to stabilize the situation in regard to the sale of postage stamps, Consul General Goodnow requested that he be authorized to 

sell 5-cent stamps for an even 10 cents Mexican, as did the other offices under 

the Universal Postal Union. Because of the exchange rate, he had been forced 

to sell the stamps for "practically 10V2 cents Mexican."

 8 Belatedly, the Postmaster General issued order number 287 of 1 March 1901, in which he stated that 

the agent was 

45 
4 6 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 

hereby authorized to receive Mexican silver at 50 per cent of its face value in exchange 

for United States stamped paper. When the Mexican silver thus received is exchanged 

for American currency the postal agent shall submit with his quarterly postal account a 

sworn statement of the transaction. An allowance will be made to cover any loss resulting 

from the difference between the commercial rate of exchange and the rate herein authorized, and the postal agent should claim credit therefor in his quarterly postal account.9 

This system remained in effect until 1 July 1908, after which time Mexican 

money could be accepted only at the current rate of exchange, and only if the 

transaction entailed no loss to the United States government.10 

Finally, there was the very real problem of maintaining a regular financial 

interchange between the Post Office Department and far-away China. In 1895, 

for example, it was suddenly discovered that no settlement of the Shanghai 

accounts had been made since 1879, and that no remittance of income had been 

submitted since 1884. The matter was remedied by an order of 1 April 1895, 

which made the agency accountable at the end of every quarter, as would 

be an ordinary postmaster.11 

Notes 

(See pages 28-29 f° r full National Archives and U.S.P.O.D. Library references. See page 34 for complete 

citations of publications.) 

1. National Archives, Tientsin, 3 September 1887. 

2. National Archives, Tientsin, 30 September 1875. 

3. Livingston, "R. A. de Villard," p. 57. 

4. See, for example, National Archives, Shanghai, 7 April 1887. 

5. Livingston, "R. A. de Villard," p. 57. 

6. Young, "The U.S. Postal Agency," pp. 339 and 341. See also list of rates for the 

Chinese Imperial Post Office in National Archives, Numerical File, 9526/2-4 (vol. 614), 

6 February 1908. 

7. National Archives, Shanghai, 20 November 1877 (with enclosures) and 2 May 1878. 

8. National Archives, Shanghai, 19 February 1899. 

9. National Archives, Orders of the Postmaster-General, journal 5, p. 642. This is order 

number 287, dated 1 March 1901. On 1 April 1905, however, the agent in Shanghai 

announced that "postage stamps and postal cards will be sold at the rate of exchange 

fixed by the American Government quarterly." He then ceased claiming an allowance 

for exchange. See United States, House of Representatives. 

10. Post Office Department Library, Miscellaneous Orders of the Postmaster General, vol. 

12, order 1387, 20 May 1908. 

11. U.S.P.O.D., Report of the Auditor for the Post Office Department, 1895, pp. 641-642. 

U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1972 O - 426-780