The Sun.
London, England, 1849-10-11 00:00:00

TO THE POSTNIASTER•GENERAL.

1. In obedience to your Lordship's instructions, I
beg to submit my views as to further measures for
reducing the Sunday duties of the Post office, and as
to other improvements connected therewith.
2. The importance of affording to all connected
with the Post•office the utmost amount of rest on the
Sunday that is consistent with a due regard to public
convenience, having led to measures for the total sus •
pension of money-order businoss on that day through-
out England and Wales, it is very satisfactory to re-
mark, that neither the announcement of the change,
nor the experience of it thus far, has brought on the
department a single complaint from the public; aid
I confidently anticipate a like satisfactory result
should the Treasury concur in your Lordship's recent
recommendation of a similar measure in Ireland and
Scotland. •

3. Your Lordship will recollect that, in considering
the above improvement, the importance of similar re-
lief as respects other duties was kept in mind ; and,
from the investigations which have been made, there
can be no doubt that a further very important relief as
relates to Sunday work may be effected in all the pro-
vincial offices.

4. The consideration of this question, however, is
closely connected with that of a measure mainly re-
lating to public convenience, but which, contrary to
first appearances, proves on investigation to have a
direct tendency towards the same object of Sunday
relief.

5. The transmission of letters through London on
the Sunday, your Lordship is aware, has long been a
desideratum, having been recommended by the Com-
missioners f Post-office Inquiry in 1856,(7 Report,
p. 9) ; and by a Committee of the House of Com-
mons in 1838 (3 Report, p. 10), and again suggested
by several Members of a Committee of the House of
Lords in 1847 (Report of Select Committee, By.
430, 443).
6. The obstacles to the adoption of these recom-
mendations were, first, an assumption that it would
increase the Sunday work of the department; se-
cond, a fear that it would lead to.'n:Sunday delivery
in London.
7. Both these apprehensions, as will be shown here-
after, are groundless.
8. Since the time when the above recommenda-
tions were made the importance of the change has
greatly increased, the Sunday average of letters in-
volved in this consideration having advanced since
1836 from 5,000 or 6,000 to 50,000 or 60,000, or
tenfold.

9. The importance of the change will be still more
manirest on reference to the fact, that the present
number of London " forward letters" for a single
day much exceeds what was, in 1836, the corre-
sponding number for a whole week ; for the expediting
of which it was determined by Government, on the
recommendation of the Commissioners of Post-office
Inquiry, to establish day mails at an: estimated cost
of 15,000/. a year (7 Report, pp. 5 and 121).
10. The evil of the present arrangement, already
so great, is constantly increasing, partly because of
the general increase of letters, but mainly because of
the centralising tendency of the railways. The greatly
increased speed of conveyance, too, obviously tends to
make any detentions more severely felt : and the
inconvenience is particularly serious when, as occa-
sionally happens, the detention falls on a mail from
the East or West Indies.
11. The evil of detention has been found so serious
that in several cases the rule has been evaded, either
by snaking use of other existing channels for the
conveyance of the mails sent on ordinary days
through London, or by the actual establishment of
Sunday cross-posts, either of which arrangements
obviously involves increased expense, trouble, liabi-
lity to error, perplexity to the public, and additional
Sunday work : thus, the mail between Winchester
and Birmingham is sent on the Sunday through
Exeter ; and again, the correspondence between the
towns served by the North-Eastern Railway and
those served by the North. Western Railway is con-
veyed on the Sunday by a mail cart, expressly
running on that day between Cambridge and Wol-
verton, through Newport Pagnel, a distance of
forty-seven miles—an arrangement involving an
expense of 1481. per annum (981. for the cart and 501.
for additional sorting at Newport Pagnel), besides a
direct increase on Sunday occupation.
12 Meantime the mail trains, excepting a few o:
the day mails, run as on other days, and, save as
regards London, convey letters as usual, even to
London ; nearly all letters from Ireland, Scotland,
and the outports, as also all foreign and colonial
letters whatever, are brought, as on other days, the
same being partly assorted at the chief office on the
Sunday, for delivery, or for forwarding, as the case
may be, the next morning.
13. For the performance of these duties and for
the selection and delivery of the State's letters, ad-
erassed chiefly to the higher offices of Government,
twenty-six persons are ordinarily employed at the
chief office on the Sunday, their time of occupation
being, on the average, six hours. The arrival of a
heavy mail from abroad requires a greater force.
14. To remove the evils of this weekly suspension
of the ordinary transmission through London, and
the anomalies arising out of it, and with the view of
diminishing the amount of Sunday work in the de-
partment as a whole, I propose that the existing
mail trains should bring up on the Sunday, in addi-
tion to the present bags, the forward stamped letters
—excluding, however, newspapers, Parliamentary
proceeedings, and all documents not paying full letter
rate. These limitations will avert, on the one hand,
any possibility of a Sunday delivery of letters to the
London public, and, on the other, any unnecessary
addition to the Sunday accounts.
15. The restriction to stamped letters may perhaps
cause some inconvenience to the public, especially at
first, arising out of their difficulty of knowing what
correspondence passes through London and what does
not; but as it is in contemplation to confine the re-
ceipt of money paid letters to the chief office of each
provincial town, and as the deputies can be instructed
whenever the want of a stamp would cause the deten-
tion of a letter to state as much when it is presented
for prepa3ment (an arrangement which will be faci-
litated by the comparative leisure of blank post days),
it appears to me that the danger of inconvenience to
the public will be small, and certainly far less than
that which now results from the doubt as to whether
even stamped letters posted on blank post days will be
detained or not.

16. The inland letters thus brought in, as they
would require no accounts either to be examined or
made out, would be dispatched by the existing day
mails, in those cases where this would be necessary to
secure their early delivery on the Monday. All the
other letters, whether inland or not, would be sent
by the night mails. It is obvious that under this
arrangement none of the letters in question will be
delivered any where on the Sunday.*
17. I should also strongly advise that in the per-
formance of the above-mentioned duties at the London
office, no infringement should be allowed on the hours
of divine service ; the whole interval from ten in the
morning. till five in the afternoon being left perfectly
free, and I should propose to extend this arrangement
as far as practicable to the existing duties at that
office.

18. By availing ourselves of the time now occupied
by the clerks of the travelling post-office in assorting
such of the letters in question as now reach them by
the special cross-posts, I am of opinion that a force
of twenty-five men, at the expense of 300/ per annum,
will suffice for the duties now proposed ; and when
it is considered that in the single anomaly referred to
above the plan will effect a saving of 1481. a-year, it
appears highly probable that the total reductions
effected by the improvement will fully compensate
such additional expense.
19. I should add that, although Mr. Bokenbam,
whom I have consulted, sees no difficulty as regards
the practicability of the general measure, he is of
opinion that little aid can be afforded by the clerks
of the travelling post-office ; consequently, though
willing to try with twenty-five additional men, his
impression is that a somewhat larger number will be
necessary.

20. As regards the effect of the proposed change on
the amount of Sunday occupation, it is manifest
from what has already been stated, that for the
increased force at the chief office there is, to say the
least, a large set-off elsewhere. A further examina-
tion, however, will put the matter in a light still more
satisfactory.
21. It is notorious that a blank post is everywhere
preceded and followed by a greater amount of cor-
respondence than usual. Thus in London the average
number of letters is greater on Saturday by six per
cent., and on Monday by 25 per cent., than on other
days. But, as respects the correspondence sent
through London, Saturday evening is at present in
most towns a blank post time. It therefore follows
that such correspondence is dispatched from the pro-
vinces in unusual amount on Saturday morning, and
on Sunday morning or evening, according as there
may or may not be a Sunday day mail.
22. Now, each of these augmentations tends to

osition has subsequently been modified;
th• eing confined entirely to the night mail.