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

Ninth Report of the Postmaster-General,

Year 1862.

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 ce.r.ses. It is incessantly active, both on land
and water, and might appropriately take for its
motta the " 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 en 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 thG more important
provincial towns there is a proportionate increase
in builded area, As education spreads, which
it does rapidly, the nsmber of those who
can write is annually augsienting' and adds to the
labours of the administrtion. The penny postage
was established in 183 f, since which date down to
1832 the increase or letters transmitted through
the post has been en.',9,000,000, or very nearly eight-
fold the number since the uniform rate was intro-
duced. How rapidly and continuously the advance
has becoimappears from the fact that the returns
or 1862 .eceed those of 1861 lov i 2,000,000. In
the Loelon district alone the number of letters
is not/ 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
1-ut only nine in Ireland. This gives a melancholy
picture of the Emerald Isle, whether al, regards
trade or education. Without instituting a scn.
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 " 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
orders, that is to say they can neither write nor
read. Now, 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 charaed 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
acquiring the rudiments of knowledge. The pain-
Tui Lot remains that they ha7o 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 vine the Post-office system
in ail its bearings.
As to trade, it appears that the increase of
printed circulars has been unusually great, and
during the last year at the London ciao 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

-want of means in the pockets of willing purchasers.
It is notorious that, to all the suburban districts
circulars ore not only sent through the post but are
delivered by hand from largo r.uetropolitan est -
blishments. It isis direct method 'of advertising, as

the circulurs are sure to corao under the eye o:

thwe to whom they are addressed. which is not s;:
cer:;ain iu newspupt•zs. These missives nu: designed
to e.ra77 customers from the local shops to a central
b7sincss is conducted on a scale

..0, eud. the cost would not be incurred.
if tree were bri.sle. Teia practice has long been
resorted to by tailore—we beg pardon, we oughi.
to have written "merchant clothiers ;" but
recently it hu4 been followed by tea merchants of
large business and weir-knoam provision dealers and
imparters at geenine foreign wiues on an extensive
scale. If, then, we put a riot 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
as those who wear it. These circulars are but flags
of distress hung out to attract customers to the
rescue. Such invitations or decoys are never issued
e=xcept under pressure, and are clear proofs that an
e3tablishment is not self sustaining.
The Peat Office is the poor man's bank, and in
that character discharges a very useful function.
It is the safest instrument for transmitting small
Silta`3 of money when letters are registered, and
whea they are not of course it is the fault of the
writer. The fee was always trifling in its per-
•centage, and recently it has been reduced from 6d.
to 4d- On inland letters containing money, the
registry has >3'-'en made compulsory since last
August, at the London office, where alone these
measures arc as yet enforced. The public evidently
approve of them, for the increase of registered
letters in 1862 compared with those of 1861 has
been
37 per cent,
The number of letters com-
yeas 58,000. As a consequence
pulsorily registered
the number of applications for missing letters at
the London office has declined by more than one-
half; but this reform has been attended by a much
more cheering result.
the last quarter of
1861 four London letter-carriers were convicted of
stealing cash .letter's; in the corresponding' quarter
of 1562 not one was even chargQd
with such an
offence." This rule of ,compulsory registration
will be extended to all parts of the country, It is,
however, notified that even when a letter is regis-
tered the Post Office does not absolute 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 la w as it exists the
risk incurred by the public is reduced to a minimum,
as it appears from the following official statement:
" Daring the last half of 1862, out of about
'OO,OOO registered letters posted ie the United
Kingdom, whether for delivery at borne or abroad,
the whole number lost was only 12, viz., seven in-
land and fire foreign or colonial letters, although
ther.! were some other letters which it was declared
had 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 (X 62
of `}rich was in places abroad), while the total
amount of such property In the 12 lost letters was
014 00. 6d."

vE

The letter-carters and other officers of this de-
inrttn,eut are, of course, interested in whatever ar-
rargemeut diminishes temptation to 'theft, and
throws 110 Pediments in the way of its successful
perpetration ; end where it is committed they are
glad that detection is made the more easy, as the
innoctn'f tire vet involved in suTicion. This is
one of the benefits arising. from registration, and
an auxiliary sYstem nab introduced called " re-
strictive sorting," which reduces the number of
hands through which the letters pass, and thus
facilitates the tracing of guilt. In the United
Kingdom there are 2,579 money-order cffices; in
their advantages many of the colonies already
share, and we presume the intention is to include
all within their range at no distant date, This
method of circulation is now very "n3idt)rable,
and it is annually art the increase: In 1862 the
sum thus distributed was X 15,761,259, and the
number of orders was 7,587,045, the average value
,of each being about 10a. No banker would under-

take the transnaiesien of such trifling sums, so that
here the Poet 011iee renders a most useful service to