The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1850-09-03 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL
-POST-OFFICE AND ITS IN-

TERNAL ECONOMY.

We last week offered some remarks on the subject of
the inefficiency of the Liverpool Post-office. That the
postal arrangements, as regards this town, are unsatisfac-
tory and inadequate, will not, we presume, be disputed
by any one ; but that the authorities at St. Martin's-le-
Grand adopt most unlikely means of securing to the pub-
lic greater accommodation, by co-operation on the part of
its subordinates in the provinces, is another point which
cannot be questioned. It is proverbial that no govern-
ment servants are so disgracefully underpaid as the clerks
of the post-office, and it is marvellous that the merchants
of this and other large commercial towns, do not see how
impolitic it is to allow such a state of things to continue.
Their apathy is, moreover, no less censurable than unac-
countable, for no respectable merchant, we are sure,
would deem it wisdom to circumscribe, so as to be below
the means of respectable existence, the pay of his imme-
diate servants; yet the clerks of the Post-office are to all
intents and purposes equally their servants, to whom they
entrust -enormous amounts of money, and innumerable
documents of great value; and yet as a body their condi-
tion is anything but what it ought to be.
We have long been convinced of the rottenness of the
system which obtains in the Post-office, and affects espe-
cially the Post-office of this town; and having determined
on again bringing before the public the importance of the
subject, we have made some inquiries ; and what do we
learn ? Why, that instead of improvement, things are
gradually becoming worse, and we think it high time
that all parsons who are interested should bestir them-
selves (and who is not ?) in the clerks of our own Post-
office being amply paid—paid to be honest, like other
servants of the Government, who, be it understood (if
not honest) would not pilfer the private property of
the public, like Post-office clerks, but the revenue of
the Government. This difference in the species of pro-
perty to be stolen, would seem to be taken into serious
consideration by the Postal authorities; and if it be so,
it behoves every individual who entrusts his property
to the custody of the Post-office, to inquire who is the
promoter of such a system. Since the appearance of
our last article on this subject, a poor clerk in our Post-
office died within twenty seven hours of his quitting the
office through illness, and the expenses of his interment
have been liberally paid by his fellow-clerks. As to what
occasioned his death, whether through being only half-fed
or over-worked, we have nothing to say ; but in his place a
clerk will be appointed at sixty pounds per annum ; and
as it is a new regulation as regards the Liverpool Post-
office at least, for all new clerks to receive but that sum,
instead of as formerly, and until lately, seventy pounds
per annum, it is very plain that should fatal sickness, or
more liberal employment await a few more of those who
remain in the service, Mr. Rowland Hill, or whoever has
suggested and carried out this beggarly improvement will
hug himself under the idea that for every remove by death
or otherwise, he saves to the post-office £lO per annum :
and what will be the state of the case in a few, very few
years hence ? Why, that in place of there being between
forty and fifty clerks at one grade of salary, viz„ £7O per
annum, there will be that number at £6O per annum, with
scarcely the remotest chance of advancement. Under
such a state of things what class of persons do the public
imagine the post-office will be filled with. Certainly not
with men whose integrity of character, much less whose
abilities, would procure for them employment in any
other service. But we "lave merely adverted to the clerks
of the lower class; there is higher -ame that our remarks
'-- 1--- Is it known P he 'l, of T '

apply to. _ wtL merchant ti.
some of the principal and most active and zealous of the
clerks in the Liverpool post-office, who have been in the
service from fifteen to twenty years, do not, including
even the annual contributions from the public, receive
above £lBO per annum ; that no one individual in that
establishment (except the post-master himse'
hope, receives at least six times as much,) is
liberal government more than £l7O per annun
of those ancient 0--

it, who, we
paid by the

and one

ervants, now in the sere and yellow leaf,
is serving, we understand, his thirtieth year ! Let any
one of our readers consider these facts, and then let him
wonder, (if he can,) that amongst this valuable body .of
men there are more than one who feel themselves for-
gotten and uncared for.

We hope then, that some of the leading men in Liver-
pool will feel it their duty, if not as philanthropists, yet
as wise men, guarding their own property, to remonstrate,
not wit° the postmaster-general. w:lo, it would seem, is
overruled by Mr. Hill, but with the Treasury, on this all-
imrortant subject.

A LESSON ON THE EFFECTS OF GUNPOWDER
EXPLOSIONS.