The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-02-05 00:00:00

moved that the dock committee be requested to take the
necessary steps for that purpose.
Ntliotis
tr4,Laadmoponteta.secondfd the motion, which was unani-

rosrAt, ARRANGEMENT'S.

Mr. Macfie then made the following statement with
regard to improved :postal arrangements :---The mails to
and from Scotland are still in an unsatisfactory state.
There are nits mails northward; for the one, letters must
be posted before 1 20 p.m.' Which is a most inconveniently
early hour; for the other; letters maybe !mated about 8
lltn;,_but then they are not delivered_ even in Edinburgh
and Glasgow till about eleven or twelve next forenoon,
which is inconveniently late, and, of course, not till hours
still later in Paisley, Greenock; Dundee; Etc. The only
thoroUgh remedy Is a .I.4nacahiri niail for the North. At
present the very important correspondence of Liverpool
ant-Manchester is either despatched too early or kept
till to late, as we have just seen, to save having such a
mail, although It is clear we want one. If that correspond-
ence whin' no* that LiVerpdol hak become se great
Paeltet Station; esOeCially from Attierica wed Australia;
is more considerable than ever, must still go by a
London mail, let the 'hours of that mail be made to suit
Lancashire. Stich a mill could very well leav,e London at
6 p.m, wish the letters collected there during the day for
Scotland, and reach dinburgh at 5 a.m. Indeed, the
ekprest train thftt no* traferses half, the distance,„ Wight,
as fortnerlY
,tra'ierie the, whole;, and be Connected with the
yaiiotis trains which distribute themselves over Scotland,
Now, as to the mails from the North, we have only one,
gut such populous places as Liverpool and Manchester may
well claim tWo. A second san eatiily lle err

ted what

more nil than for the express train that lea"ves Edinburgh
at 9,25 am, and reaches Liverpool at 5, to bring a bag ? I
doubt if the commercial men in the North are fully aware of
the needless detention for hours to which their
foreign and colonial letters arriving here must
often be subjected, in Glasgow, if they gn by, the
first mail;in Liverpdol, if by the second. But there
are other • respects in which Liverpool has, not all the ad-
vantage to which it. may well be held entiVed. 'Whereas
Landon has ten deliveries daily, we bate but four. 'Whereas
Liverpool has its latest delivery at 4.30, p.m., London ha,
Tana after that hour. No wonder, then, that a thousand of
our merchant firms cling t ) the clumsy system of service by
high-charged boxes, nor that even the greatest firms in
London do entirely without them, and would, no doubt,
reject an offer of a ich a miscalled facility, as a burden
and not a boon. Hlw can the Government ex-peret us
to dispense with boxes, and how can it conceive justice
is done to those firms who have consented to dis-
pense with them, when the • number of deliveries to
boxholders is no less than nine daily, but to non-
holders only four ! I refer to the regular deliveries, those
of the ordinary mails; bat there is another important ad.
vantage given to the boxholders. No sooner does rn
American or Australian mail packet arrive a matter
happily of alniost daily occurrence now at our port, though
not so in London—than a delivery takes place to the box-
holders, while the others must wait till the letter carriers
go their round, which would be no hardship if, as in
London, where deliveries are hourly. the delay is at the
worst very short. I believe lam correct in stating that the
number of collections at the London receiving houses is
also ten at leant. Here they are four only. The fewness
of collections and deliveries will appear grievous if we
remember that, between half past seven in the morning
and nine at night, there are twenty differently timed
dispatches, and fifteen differently timed arrivals, of mails.
'Whereas the earliest collection at the receiving-houses is at
8, a.m. in London, the earliest here is at about 10 a.m.
Whereas the latest collection there is at 10, p.m., our latest
at 7 30, p.m. Now let us compare with Edinburgh and
Glasgow. Those cities have their first delivery at 7 and 7-15,
a.m., ours at 8. The latest collection at the receising-
houses there is at 10, p.m., here the latest is at 7 30, as
already stated. Letters posted in any receiving-house by 9
o'clock, are delivered in any part of London by past 11,
and so on for every succeeding hour till 6 o'clock. Letters
posted by 6, p.m., are not delivered till between 8 and 8
same night. That is, a personl iving at one extremity of the
town,or in its outskirts,may feel assured that any letter posted
any time during the day, for a person living at the opposite
extremity or outskirts, will reach in about two hours, and
an answer be due in about two hours after the immediate
posting of the reply. To prevent the suspicion of this being
an overstrung representation, I have allowed the maximum
tinteetheeedose of the letter-carrier's round. In Liverpool,
a person living in .Upper Parliament-street posts a letter
before half-past nine a.m. It is not delivered in town till
between 'eleven and halt past twelve. If he posted it before
a quarter to twelve, it is delivered between half-past one and
three o'clock. If he post before half-past two, it is delivered
between half-past four and six o'clock. Thus, the time taken
to deliver a letter posted in a receiving house in Liverpool is
about an hour more than that taken in London, where the
work to be done, and the distance to be traversed, are both so
much greater. Now as to the answer to such a letter : if
it have been posted before half-past nine, the answer is
due by fix o'clock, that is in eight hours; whereas in
London, an answer is due after about five hours. But
what is worse, you cannot count on an answer the same
same day to a letter posted after breakfast time ; whereas
in London, a letter posted anywhere by three o'clock, is
entitled to an answer in due course the same night. It must
be evident that what is possible in the way of speedy and
frequent deliveries in so large a city as London, must be as
easy, or rather much more easy, in the comparatively
limited area of Liverpool. Nor can it be fairly alleged that
thy correspondence which passes through the receiving
houses of Landon, for distribution within London itself,
is so important as to justify ten deliveries, but that the
like " intramural" correspondence of Liverpool is so unim-
portant as to deserve only four. If there be ground for such
an apology, I blame the post office itself. The excuse is
virtually a confession that by omitting facilities it has
stunted the growth of a branch of business which it ought to
have fostered and fed, by affording such ample accommo-
dation to meet the natural wants of the public, as any private
individual or company, if favoured with a lease of the
interestpast
o
felt
tit
supplied, a
makebath
known,
wduty
tilland
t
swuopaply, l haveand
when
should be thoroughly availed of. Thousands of letters are
t
sent by special messengers, and thousands are left unwritten
for want of adequate frequency and promptitude of
deliveries. Depend on it. the trade might be made a paying
one. See the resolute manner in which, for a price no more
or little more than that of the postage penny, onr news-
paper proprietors furnish a sheet of news, and also deliver
not later than eight o'clock. I use the very words of one
of their advertisements : —" At or before eight o'clock every
morning in Liverpool, and within tour miles from the
Exchange, and four miles from Woodside Ferry. We can
promise this confidently, for the engagement is under a
heavy penalty." (Hear, hear.) This matter of early deli-
very has hitherto been neglected—to say nothing of business
convenience. Much domestic happiness depends on it. Why
should the toiling man of business be deprived of receiving
his private letters in the bosom of his family before he
leaves home for the day ? That is one illustration among
many of the advantages and pleasures which we lose in
consequence of the present grievous tardiness. I should
think there are few men, indeed, in this community so
favourably situated that they can wait till the postman's
cheerful knock and yet reach their offices, in what they, or
those who employ them, reckon good time. As to the
latter collection from the receiving houses, I, for one, find
the inconvenience of the recent alteration, which closes
them at 7 30, in place of nine as formerly. Now-a-days
when evening attendance at places of business is nearly at
an end, these receiving houses have acquired a social import,
and an importance that did not belong to them in the
bad old times, when merchants and their clerks loitered down
town till nine or ten at night, after simmering away the
forenoon and afternoon in such intermittent half-employed-
ness as to have plenty of leisure for throwing off their
poivate letters, in the intervals, by the dozen,
if they had
chosen. But choose they
would not then, either in the
counting-house or at home ; for the penny postage had
not yet been introduced, which has so greatly and so
happily increased the means and the occasions for letters
of the class I refer to. I hope that these great boons
can be conferred on the public without increasing the
tolls of the letter-carriers, who come to their work
quite early enough already, at half past five in the
morning. An earlier delivery can easily be accomplished
by enlarging the staff, a change which would be generally
beneficial, as it would facilitate an increase of the number of
deliveries, as well as the bringing the time taken to perform
them within the London standard of an hour for each de-
livery. These subjects have already been represented to
the Postmaster General by the Council. I hope, notwith-
standing the silence of the present report respecting them,
they will be again ureed, and c3ntinue to be urged, till
success crown your efforts.
The subject was referred to the council for consideration.
On the motion of the Chairman, thanks were voted by
acclamation to the members of parliament for the southern
division of the county and the borough, and also to those
firms who contribute monthly returns of the value of
the imports of various commodities, to enable the secretary
to make out a return for government.
On the motion of Mr, Lamont, thanks were voted to the
chairman, and the meeting separated

SUPPRESSION OP THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC.—MR. HARRISON'S
LECIURES.—Last night, the first of a series of five lectures
upon. the Maine liquor law was delivered by Mr. A. S.
Hatmon, under the auspices of the United Kingdom
Alliance for the Suppression of the Liquor Traffic. The first
lecture took place in the Teutonic Hall. Mr. B. Fowler
preside. There was but a very limited attendance. After
an introductory address by the chairman, Mr. Harrison
proceeded to deliver his lecture, of which the basis was a
resolution declaring that the traffic in strong drink is a
curse to the people, a reproach to the rulers, and a disgrace
to the church, and ought therefore to be suppressed. Mr.
Harrison expressed some regret at the absence of such a
numerous audience as he bad been led to expect, and then
proceeded to argue the different points of the resolution at
length and in detail, shewing the many evils, morally and
physically, which result from the consumption of so much
of the material of food for the people in what proves the
ruin of so many. For these evils, he contended that a law
suppressing the traffic in intoxicating drinks would be one
of the only effective remedies. The resolution was earried
by acclamation. Mr. Harrison will deliver four other lec-
tures in different parts of the town.