The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-31 00:00:00

Ninth Report of the Postmaster-General,

Year 1862.

-ea.--
Whoever takes a comprehensive view of the Post-
office and allows his mind to dwell long enough on
the various services it daily renders to the com-
munity, will assuredly class it among the most
important of our institutions. By a very slight
effort of the imagination we may fancy that it
realises the long sought after, but undiscovered
principle of perpetual motion, for its machinery
never ceases. It is incessantly active, both on land
and water, and might appropriately take for its
raotta the Si Qum regio in terris nostri non plena
laboris ?" for its agency extends to the remotest
parts of the habitable globe. It is the great agent
of civilisation and commerce, and discharges its
functions with a regularity that is truly astonish-
ing. Letters, books, mercantile circulars, diverse
small articles, and money, are distributed by its
means with punctuality and despatch, and entitles
it to the distinctive title of the great " wheel of
circulation," which Adam Smith applied to another
instrument. From year to year fresh demands are
made cn the energies of the Post Office, and it
proves itself equal to all emergencies. It is always
penetrating new districts, and multiplying advan-
tages to the old. In the London district alone
11,000 additional houses were built during the last
year, "2,300 within the town limits, and more than
9,400 in the suburbs." In the more important
provincial towns there is a proportionate increase
in builded area, As education spreads, which
it does rapidly, the number of those who
can write is annually augmenting) and adds to the
labours of the administration. The penny postage
was established in 1839, since which date down to
1802 the increase of letters transmitted through
the post has been 629,000,000, or very nearly eight-
fold the number since the uniform rate was intro-
duced. How rapidly and continuously the advance
has become appears from the fact that the returns
of 1862 exceed those of 1861 by 12,000,000. In
the London district alone the number of letters
is now nearly double that of the whole United
Kingdom prior to 1839. The proportion of letters
to each person is 24 in England, 19 in Scotland,
but only nine in Ireland. This gives a melancholy
picture of the Emerald Isle, whether se regards
trade or education. Without instituting a com-
parison between it and England, the contrast
between it and Scotland is humiliating and depress-
ing, Ireland being greatly superior in territorial
area and population. These Post-office statistics
show too clearly the backwardness of the country,
and the value of the silly boast of its being inha-
bited by the a finest peasantry" in the world. That
they are a warm-hearted, affectionate race, hold-
ing strongly together by the ties of family, is
abundantly proveable by very many well-known
facts, from which it might be assumed that episto-
lary communication would be frequently among re-
lations, and from its absence we can only infer that
the grossest ignorance prevails among the lower
ordere, that is to say they can neither write nor
read• New, who deprives them of the advantages
which cheap and rapid postage present to their ac-
ceptance ? Certainly not the British Government,
which has organised and sustains the mail service,
though it is falsely charged with all the inferiority
visible in the land and the people; but it would be
difficult for the most brazen impudence to affirm
that it deprived the finest peasantry of the privilege
of acquiring the rudiments of knowledge. The pain-
ful fact remains that they have it not, and the
blame must rest with those who keep them in
mental slavery, This is one of the truths that all
may learn who rightly view the Post-office system
in all its bearings.
As to trade, it appears that the increase of
printed circulars has bean unusually great, and
during the last year at the London office the in-
crease has been more than 11 per cent. over the
preceding year. It would be a rash inference that
this was evidence of expanding trade ; it is, indeed,
proof of a very contrary state of things, for it shows
the difficulty of effecting sales, arising from the I
want of means in the pockets of willing purchasers.
It is notorious that to all the suburban districts
circulars are not only sent through the post but are
delivered by hand from large metropolitan esta-
blishments. It isa direct method of advertising, as
the circulars are sure to come under the eye of I
those to whom they arc addressed, which is not so
certain in newspapers. These missives are designed
to draw customers from the local shops to a central
tkpository, where business is conducted on a scale
of magnitude, and the cost would not be incurred
if trade were brisk. This practice has long been
resorted to by tailors—we beg pardon, we ought
to have written "merchant . clothiers ;" but
recently it hag been followed by tea merchants of
large business and well-known provision dealers and
importers of genuine foreign wines on an extensive
scale. If, then, see put a right interpretation on this
portion of the Post-office statistics, and deduce from
them the true knowledge they impart, we ought to
conclude that trade is not so prosperous as some ac-
credited authorities represent, if the old saying be
true that none know where the shoe pinches so well
those woo wear it. These circulars are but
flags
of distress hung out to attract customers to the
resell
t. Such invitations or etecovs are never issued
except tinder presture and are clear roofs that an
eatablisetaent-is p
The Pk,,it 'nbot self, sustaining.
Office is the poor man's bank, and in
that eharket
it is the BEZ discharges a very useful function,
_ instrument for transmitting small
sums of nao-eel,
when letters are registered, and
when they are
weiter. The i'eeot of course it is the fault of the
and rece27as always trifling in its per-
centage,`-"l'e it has been reduced from 6d.
to 43, On inland letters containing money, the
Itt..ettey has been rattle
compulsory since last
August, at the London
ulee, where alone these
measures arc as yet enforeei.
The public evidently
approve of them, for the increase
of registered
Letters in 1862 compared viA%
those of 1861 has
been 37 per cent. The nuentir _
et e
58 00„ letters com-
pulsorily registered web a
consequence
the number of applications for missing letters at
the London office has declined by mots
than one-
half ; but this reform has been attended
ar EL
b much
mere cheering result. "In the last 'matter of
1861 four London letter-carriers were convicted
of
stealing cash letters; in the a
corresponding .;
‘larter
of 1862 not one was even charged with such an
offence." This rule of compulsory regietratioe
will be extended to all parts of the country. It is,
however, notified that even when a letter is regis-
tered the Post Offlee does not absolutcdy
guarantee
its security and delivery with its contents untouched,
nor can it till some alteration is made in an act of
Parliament ; but even under the law as it exists the
risk incurred by the public is reduced to a minimum,
as it appears from the following official statement
t‘ During the last half of 1862, ' out of about
900,000 registered letters posted iss the United
Kingdom, whether for delivery at home or abroad,
the whole number lost was only 12, viz., seven in-
land and five foreign or colonial letters, although
there were some other letters which it was declared
bad been opened. The bank-notes, coins, or other
available property stated, upon what was considered
good evidence, to have been contained in the last
mentioned letters, amounted to less than £2OO (.1;62
et which was in places abroad), while the total
"mount of each property in the 12 lost letters was
only £9 ss. 61.„
The let
ter.carriers and other officers of this de-
puttneytt are, of
.course, interested in whatever ar-
rangemett
eirmnishes temptation to theft, and
throws inapea,
:a inents .
in the ay of its successful
p?rpotratima ; ,
where is committed they are
it at dete t-
_e.i
cda(,, on. IN -
made the more easy, as the
•liteocent, are not involved in suspicion. This is
benefits turiski
one of the g from registration, and
an
auhtiiery system is now introduced sailed " re.
strictive -sor-ingt';
which which reduce the
number of
the ,
hands through
~in,
of fetters. pass, and thus
facilitates the tree ILi
the United
are 2,879
Kingdom there money-Order offices; in
of the
their advantages manycolonies I already
lune the intention •
share, and we praels to include
all within their rano"e at no distant date. This
method of circulation is now very considerable,
increase. /
and it is annually on the
hh. 1862 the
HIM thus distributed waft /5,
,2e9„,
and the
number of orders was 7,557 U 45, trio average veins
riper would under_
of olch. aboun 109. ' b a
teke the traremission of such trillir.g str=l2, so. that
here the Post Orilee renders a :ro:'`; service to