The Sun.
London, England, 1860-03-29 00:00:00

THE GENERAL POST-OFFICE.

The public will require very little apology from
us for directing their attention to a subject of such
wide-spread interest, and such deep public impor-
tanee, as that of the arrangements and present
working system of the General Post-office. It is a
subject, too, with which most of our readers are
tolerably familiar, whether they regard St. Mar-
tin's-le-Grand as the centre of that immense rami-
fication through which circulates to all parts the
private and commercial intercourse of nearly half
the world, or merely recollect it as being the theme
of some of the most interesting periodical and ma-
gazine articles of their kind which have appeared.
In the latter sort of publicity it has certainly had
the honour of being more written about than any
other Government establishment in the kingdom.
From such sources we arc all familiar with the let-
ter statistics of Valentine's-day, and know almost
to a sackful the precise number of the newspapers
with which the two unfortunates who stand in the
large window of the hall are pilloried by those who
come on Friday night to despatch the country
edition of the weekly papers. These stock wonders
of the place are wonders now no more. We should
think 'by this time even children must be aware
that jars of leeches, packets of hops, tea, silkworms,
2utta percha, watches, pickles, crinolines, and
jewelry are sent by post, and, knowing this, are
quite prepared to hear unmoved of " hair-breadth
scapes ' and dangers in "their travel's history."
Those dreadful scrawls, the blind directions, have
been so quoted, lithographed, and reproduced, that
they are now as legible as print in their way.
Even the celebrated letters from eminent banking
firms containing untold wealth in notes which have
been huddled into the letter-box open and unad-
dressed fail to command any great astonishment.
' Everybody knows that £50,000 was thus found
derelict in the box some long time back, and is, on
the whole, perhaps rather disappointed to hear that
in the interval that has since elapsed no new trea-
sure-trove of greater value has turned up. '
On the thrice-told tale of these postal curi-
osities, therefore, we are not now going to
enter. The object of this article is to direct atten-
tion towards the Post-office through a newer and
less agreeable channel ; to point out where, in some
matters, it is falling in the public estimation, and
to endeavour, as far as lies in our power, by 'timely
notice, to check the spirit of false economy and
system of routine from seriously impairing the
efficiency of a great national institution, and one of
which this country is justly proud. If our readers
could be aware of the communications nightly re-
ceived on this subject, with their details of letters
lost or other postal grievances in various parts of
the kingdom, it would need little else to show them
that the system of St. Martin's requires help
or alteration of some kind or other. By the
courtesy of the postal authorities, who accorded
every facility for visiting the chief office and mak-
ing inquiries, we are enabled to point out certain
existing arrangements and deficiencies which do
now, and must still more ere long, tell most seriously
on the efficiency of the establishment. The main
cause of all the shortcomings may be summed up in
a few words—firstly, inadequate space in the pre-
sent building for an efficient staff; secondly, the
whole system being treated more as a source of re-
venue to the Government than as a necessary public
convenience, to the really proper working of which
the ordinary consideration of profit and loss should
be in a great measure subordinate. The present
buildinr, was erected in 1824. Since that date
l therehas been a perpetual struggle to adapt the
edifice to the wants of the system, which, in truth,
may be said to have outgrown the accommodation
of a building three times its size. These attempts,
of course, like all others of the same kind, have
only yielded their usual expensive and incon-
venient results. Imagine endeavouring to adapt
the old Golden Cross at Charing to receive
and dispose of the traffic brought in daily from
King's-cross and Euston-square, and our readers
will have a pretty good notion of what has
been effected by the same mode of dealing with
the difficulty at the General Post-office. Fooms
have been overcrowded, closets have been turned
into offices, extra rooms hung by tie rods to the
girders of the ceilings, and, as a last resource, th'
working staff had been continued at so low an ebb
as to be unequal to the duty. Bat all in vain.
There are not enough hands to do the duty pro-
perly, and there is not enough room for those who
arc already there. These inconveniences react
with more or less of ill effect through all the de-
partments. To the want of space, and consequent
diminution of staff, it is due that the public have
been called upon to discharge Post-office work by
affixing the district initials to their letters. Partly
from the same cause has also arisen the necessity of
discouraging to the utmost the transmission of
newspapers through the post, arid by this evasion
of its duty leaving it to news-agents to perform a
most important part of its functions throughout the
entire kingdom. When to these shortcomings are
added the inconveniences which arise from avoid-
ing anything in the nature of outlay in order to
increase the profits to the Government, it will
readily be guessed that the whole postal machinery
is being gradually worked under a system which
must ere long deprive the public of its chief effi-

ciency.
Both these faults—want of space and the avoid-
ance of a little judicious outlay to secure good
working appliances and zealous subordinates—
make themselves manifest throughout every room
in the General Post-office from first to last. The
circulation-room is the first the visitor enters. It
was built at a time when a double sheet in a letter
paid double postage, and when it was necessary to
ascertain this fact by holding it close to the light
of a strong lamp in order to see through. From
this huge apartment, therefore, the light, and to a
great extent ventilation also, are carefully ex-
cluded. Its use, however, is still compelled by want
of space, a want of which has encroached upon every
spot fn the apartment save one. This is a small six-
sided room or turret chamber built in the thickness
of the wall, near the ceiling, whence the detectives
constantly watch the carriers and letter-sorters
night and day. The totally inadequate scale
of remuneration with these men receive makes
this espionnage unfortunately but too necessary—so
necessary, in fact, that since the recent reduction in
their wages no means have been found adequate to
check robberies at the Post-office, which are still, it
is to be feared, far from being on the decrease.
Disregarding an appearance of dirt and confusion
in this room, as due to the want of accommodation
and proper working means, let the visitor pass at
once to the end where the letters arrive. It is near
six o'clock, and they are coming in by thousands,
through the apertures of the letter-boxes, into a
deep trough. A " shoot" from this place would
convey them at once to where the men have to
" face" and stamp them, but there is no room for a
shoot, the building is not adapted 'for it, and the
expense must not be incurred. The letters, there-
fore, are got out of the trough by a porter, who
sweeps them into baskets with an old carpet broom,
and any one who has witnessed this operation can
at once understand how it is that letters are so often
found open, or why postage stamps come off in this
grubbing-out process.
The department devoted to registered letters is
managed with the utmost care that is consistent with
the perpetual want of accommodation. But even in
this branch there are some strange anomalies. Regis-
tered letters, it appears, arc used by banking firms
• more than by any other class in the kingdom, and
their packets of notes or gold go free. Thus the
visitor will see by the side of wealthy parcels from
Baring's or Rothschild's, which are transmitted for
nothing, ill-scrawled addresses on envelopes con-
taining a few half-crowns for some poOr family in
the country, on which the Post-office in registra-
tion fee and postage levy a tax of a shilling or
eighteenpence. It appears scarcely just to remit
established charges in favour of any class, though,
above all others, the last one would think who
ought to be excepted are the bankers.
The prcccss of " facing" the stamped letteEs in
their order is gone through at long tables, whim are
not, however, long enough to affurd room for a suffi-
cient number of hands to do the work either quickly
or quietly. This begins the series of petty delays.
They are next carried to other tables, where the
. date and hour arc stamped on their backs, after
which they undergo another removal, to where the
postage stamp is obliterated, after which they are
sorted at other tables into divisions, and yet again,
at other tables, into postal towns. Let any of our
readers who are curious in these matters go and
see for themselves how each of these'processes is
managed by hand, and rely upon it that they will
agree with those intrusted with the management
of the duty in the circulation-office that the system
of working is bad, and valuable time is wasted by
it. The tables are said not to be large enough to
accommodate the number of sorters that ought to
be employed, and there is no room for larger tables.
Again, if there were better tables, there would still
be too few hands for the work, and the employ-
ment of more, even at the miserable low rate of
wages that is paid, is avoided on the ground of
expense. It is profit, profit, and always profit
which seems the chief object pursued at the Post-
office, and pursued, too, in such a manner as must
eventually defeat the object. It will scarcely be
credited that the old process of hand-stamping the
letters is persevered in at a time when machinery
is so universally employed to simplify and save
time and labour, These causes of delay—which we
think can be proved to be aggravated by the sys.
tem of so far underpaying the hands employed as
ID make them quite fearless of dismissal and indif-
ferent to doing their work properly—amount in
the aggregate to a considerable loss of time. It is so
great, iu fact, that it is only by a system of driving