Morning journal and courier., 1880-06-22
TWO IMPROVEMENTS NEEDED.

Professor Fawcett, the new English Post master General, has planned to supply need which has long existed in England it also has in this country-that is, the need of cheap, easy and safe method of making re- mittances by mail. The present money order system is admirable for it's safety, but it is those who have occasion to use it know. There is, for instance, quite ceremony to be gone through before money order can be sent or paid the rate of insurance on the small sums which make up the greater part of the money order business is too high, and comparatively few of the postofices are money order offices. The plan now proposed in England is to issue postofice checks, so to speak, which are, of course, paid for on de- livery, and which, when bought by the quan- tity, can be kept at hand, and used from time to time, as necessary. Unlike bank checks, the sums payable are to be engraved on the face of these postoffice orders, the four de- nominations for which it is at present pro- posed to issue blanks being, respectively, for one pound, and for three even fractions of pound. By combining them, and by using a few pence in stamps, it is clear that even change for any amount can be made. For the name of the payee and the place of payment it is pro- posed to leave blank spaces, which are to be filled by the sender of the money When neither space is filed, the order will be so far like bank-note that it is payable to any person, at any postofice. When the place of payment alone is indicated payment will be made to any person, but only there; and when the payee is named payment will be made only upon his indorsement at any post office, if none in particular is indicated, but otherwise only as directed. The bare cost of sending an English money order, not the fee to the public, is three-pence; the fee proposed under the new system is two-pence for pound sterling or for ten shillings, and half that for smaller sum.
 We should like to see something like the above described plan tried in this country, and suggestion recently made by the New York Times seems also worth acting upon. It was that some way should be provided by which person could receive from the post office certificate that certain letter ad- dressed to certain person had been mailed
 
 order," the express companies receipts read. Tradesmen who deliver goods through the postoffice, lawyers and other men would find such system great convenience, and 1t would save a great deal of time, temper and money which are now lost. It would also, as the Times pointed out, be very useful in tracing lost letters, and would increase the probability of delivery by mak ing it necessary that the letters mailed should be stamped, addressed and securely sealed The importance of this last precaution may be inferred from the fact that in only six months of last year l, 153 unsealed letters were received in New York city alone. Some of them contained several thousand dollars in cash, and, including checks, there was over $2OO, GOO thus exposed to whoever would take it. One letter containing $1, ,500, 900 in unregistered United States bonds was so in- securely sealed that it burst open before leav- ing the stamping table. The figures for the United States show that about three million letters go through the dead letter office an- nually, and that very large proportion of them, not excepting very valuable letters, are unfit to be mailed
 It would not cost the Postoffice department very much to try these plans, which promise much for the convenience of the people, and there seems to be no reason why they would not work we'll Our new Postmaster General might do good thing for himself as well as the people by trying them.