The Sun.
London, England, 1860-04-14 00:00:00

THE POST-OFFICE.

The sixth report of the Postmaster-General to
the Lords Commissioners of her Majesty's Treasury
has just been published. The document extends to
between 40 and 50 pages, exclusive of , ppendixes,

and the following is but an abstract. :
With regard to the general progress, it appears
that though there has been an increi, e in the pos-
tal revenue, reductions have been made in the rates
of postage between the United Kingdom and several
foreign countries, and the inland post, which for
mmy years had steadily and rapidly improved,
has again made good progress, it once as regards
the means of posting letters in town, the extension
of rural posts, the frequency, speed, and regularity
of the mails, the extent of the area in which free
deliveries are made, the hour in the morning at
which the first delivery is completed, especially
in London and its suburbs, where it was for-

merly late, and the daily number of de-
liveries ; and all this has been accom-
plished without any addition to the labour of
the officers, though meanwhile their salaries and
wages have in many cases been considerably aug-
mented, so that the scale of remuneration is higher
now than at any previous time.
EXTENSION OF INLAND SERVICE.

Last year the number of post-offices in the United
Kingdom was increased by 177, making the whole
present number 11,412, of which 825 are head post-
offices and 10,587 sub post-offices. To these must
be added 1,958 road letter-boxes, 790 of which were
put up last year. Thus the whole number of pub •
lie receptacles for letters is now 13,370, as com-
pared with 4,518 before the establishment of penny
postage. Although in some cases attempts have
been made to deface road letter•boxes, and thrust
dirt into them, such abuse is rare. New post-offices
have been completed and occupied at Canterbury,
Doncaster, Southampton, Torquay, and Kilmar-
nock; and new offices are nearly ready for use at
Dover and Lincoln. New post-offices are in contem-
plation at Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Dundee, and
large improvements in the post-offices at Manches-
ter, Hereford, Norwich, Preston, and Taunton.
Further improvements have been made in the office
in St. Martin's-le-Grand, and others are in pro-
gress. Great relief, too, has been obtained by the
transfer to the district offices of much of the busi-
ness previously transacted at the central office ; so
that, with reference to the quantity of work per-
formed, the central office is now more commodious
than it had been for many years. There has been
a corresponding improvement in its lighting and
ventilating. It is fortunate that the original con-
struction, although in many respects very defective,
allowed of very considerable additions being made
to the available room, and that at a very moderate
cost ; while, either by an additional story, or by
carrying the building over the area reserved for the
railway vans, abundant space may be obtained for
all requirements within the extremest range of
probability.
When the district offices are completed, instead
of possessing, as formerly, only one post-office at
which mails are despatched and received, and letters
sent out for delivery, London will have ten such
post-offices.
Although the postal district system has now in
London, been in operation to a greater or less extent
more than three years, it is not yet complete there,
notwithstanding the progress made each year since
its Commencement. The chief difficulty has been to
procure good sites for the district offices ; but this
difficulty is now nearly surmounted, and in most of
the districts a new office, if not completed, has been
commenced, while in every case a temporary office at
least has been provided. In each district the morn-
ing delivery within London proper and the despatch
to the suburbs are now made from the district office,
the mail bags being brought to it direct from the
railway stations, instead of being first conveyed, as
formerly, to the General Office, in St. Martin's-le-
Grand ; and the result is greater punctuality in the
deliveries and diminished labour to the letter car-
riers, who are no longer required to come on duty
at so early an hour as when they all were required
to assemble at the Central Office. The facilities
afforded by the district system for the rapid inter-
change of letters between one part of London and
another has enabled the department still further to
abridge the time between the posting of a letter and
its delivery ; so that there is no difficulty, so far
as the Post-office is concerned, in a person in Lon-
don writing to a friend there, obtaining a reply,
and sending a rejoinder, all in the same day. Any
letter posted in the town portion of either of the
districts just before the box is cleared for delivery
in the same district, is despatched by the letter
carrier within 30 minutes of the time of posting.
With few exceptions every resident in London is
now within a furlong of a post-office or a road
letter-box, and within a quarter of a mile of a
money order office. The co-operation afforded by
the public in the rapid sorting of letters by placing
upon them the initials of the district is acknow-
ledged with thanks, and also the assistance given
to the letter-carriers by the more general use of
door letter-boxes. In most of the suburban parts
of the districts arrangements have been made for
accelerating
.the deliveries and for giving addi-
tional facilities for posting ' • and, within six miles
of London, a late evening delivery has been esta-
blished. In order to save the letter carriers from
undue labour, this last delivery was at first accom-
panied with several restrictions • but the delivery
is now made at all houses which are provided
with letter-boxes, or which, like hotels and re-
tail shops, are usually open to the letter carriers,
provided the letters be fully prepaid. Although
there are already ten deliveries every day in
London proper, the adding one more is in contem-
plation, an arrangement which, with the open-
ing of the other new district offices, the revision of
the posts in the few rural parts of the suburbs which
have not yet been dealt with, and some other minor
alterations, will complete the scheme of London
district improvement.
After many efforts some machines have at length
been constructed which are found in practice to
perform the work of stamping and obliterating more
quickly and perfectly than by hand. Some of these
machines have been in use for a considerable time,
and many more are in course of construction.
For the further development of the provincial
rural posts, a work in constant progress, the depart-
ment has incurred an additional expense of more
than £ll,OOO per annum ; but it is hoped that is
time all this expense will be repaid, and will be
found, in addition, to yield a fair profit.. At 1,516
places free deliveries were established for the first
time last year; and at 504 other places, including
Newcastle-on-Tyne, Liverpool, and Londonderry,
the free delivery was extended or otherwise im-
proved. About 93 per cent. of the letters, news-
papers, and other postal packets delivered in the
United Kingdom are now conveyed without any
charge beyond the ordinary postage, by letter car-
riers and rural messengers, to the houses of the ad-
dresses; and this proportion, great as it is, is always
on the increase.
The division of London into postal districts has
brought to light some of the causes which there in-
fluence the increase and decrease of correspondence,
and which could not have been ascertained had the
circulation
foundculatio in the
ncontinutwed to eontbe
the greatest variations
through one central
a
office. As may be supposed,
weral
rn
; thedist first tworictsand beingintlie
chieflyweste influenced western
byaci and the south-western
umstancesaffecting the com-
emfeprcairalliacmomenmtuannidt y
by ntbe London
twolatter by the meeting
o
occurredA decrease
after
Midsummer last year (a
in the London district correspondences
compared with the cor-
responding period in the previousapparently caused partly by the ununa
s uamndbewrasof
year),ln
persons who left town in consequence of the great
heat of the weather ; partly by the absence of the
large number of election circulars posted in the
previous summer; partly by a temporary check to
trade, while the season in 1858 was one of un-
usual activity ; and partly by the builders' strike,
by which many branches of trade were suspended.
As an example of the postal effect of a Parliamen-
tary election in one of the metropolitan boroughs,
it may be mentioned that the number of letters and
circulars which passed through the post in reference
to the Marylebone election was upwards of 70,000.
During the last year 77 towns were provided
with day mails to or from the metropolis of one or
other of the three parts of the United Kingdom,
and some of them with mails in both directions;
this mail being in several instances the third during
the twenty-four hours. The mail to the Scilly
Islands is now despatched three times a week, and
a steamboat has been substituted for a sailing vessel,
thereby greatly improving the communication, both
in frequency and regularity. The conveyance of
mail bags by ordinary trains, at the rates usually
charged to the public for parcels, was considerably
extended during the year ; but this extension of
postal convenience at a moderate charge has been
confined chiefly to the following lines of railway,
viz., the Great Northern, the South Eastern, and
the London, Brighton, and South Coast. Improve-
ments in the cross post communication of the coun-
try are of almost daily occurrence ; one of the most
important during the last year being that which
gave to Liverpool and Manchester a more direct
communication with Cornwall and Devonshire.
But by far the most important acceleration of
the past year was that of the night mail, via Car-
lisle, between London and Edinburgh and Glasgow,
referred to in the last report. This acceleration
has given an earlier arrival and later despatch of
the night mail at Edinburgh and Glasgow by nearly
eperbp
two hours each (thus increasing the interval for
reply
b by
nearly four hours), and has afforded a simi-
lar boon t
Dundee,
ndee,Aberdeen, Inverness, and
the north of Scotlan
generally. As regards Edin-