The Penn's Grove record., 1882-09-30
A Linen Bag and Eighteen
Great Seals.

OF all forms of Russian post office
circumloeution the palm, for tedious
ness, incongruity, loss of time and
money, is carried off by the formulas
and processes invoked during the des-
patch of a registered letter to the
United Kingdom. You may send
bank-notes and even coin in ordinary
envelopes to other Continental coun.
tries. Your registered letter to France,
Germany or Italy may be dispatched
without preliminary s~chrei6eref-
shining only with five official seals,
each about the size of a two shilling
piece. But for money sent to Her
Britannia Majesty's dominiOns special
precautions must be taken. In the
first place three printed forms must be
filed up. In one you furnish a gen.
eral statement of your intentions,
with special reference to your address
and that of the person who is to re-
ceive the money. In each ofthe other
two are twelve columns to be filled up.
This task accomplished, you hand the
papers to the clerk, insert your bank
notes in a linen envelope, and having
addressed the latter, present it for reg
istration. Alasl you have reckoned
without the post-office authorities.
The envelope, you are told, must be
discarded for something more substan-
tial. A bell is rung, a chinovnik comes,
disappears, but finally returns, bring
ing with him y stout linen bag and two
rough pieces of board. The clerk takes
your bank-notes, places them between
the boards, and squeezes the boards
into the linen bag. Thus prepared
for MIN, the package is handed to the
chinovnik, who spends exactly a quar-
ter of an hour in stitching it up. The
bell then rings again, and a second
chiaouaik appears. He carries an Off
cial seal in one hand and a stick of
sealIng-wax in the other. Sealing
wax is the divinity ofthe Russian post
office. You will have to pay for it,and
there is consequently no reason why
it should BE stinted. 1t is not stinted.
With slow and cautious movements,
manipulating the stick in the gas
flame as deity as a Manchester fancy
glass blower making a tube
| the chinopnik deposits n after an
other, all over the back, partly on the
| front, at the corners, and at b esides of
the package, eighteen preposterous
seals. TIL re is just enough for
the address, and when you have writ
ten that with a careful hand (for ink
spreads rapidly on linen), you think
your troubles are at an end. Not
quite! You first pay for the sealing
way. Then the clerk, having made
some mysterious marks on the pack
age with red chalk, weighs 1t and in
forms you that there is Is, Cd. to pay.
You hand the money over the counter
and Immediately rush from the office,
glad to escape after a detention of be-
tween two and three hours over a pro-
cess which, absurdly formal as 1t was,
need not have occupied more than
twenty minutes. But you are pur-
sued, and it is only after you have
paid the chin0Unik sd more for the
linen bag and the strong boards that
you are allowed to depart.
1 give this scene precisely as have
witnessed it myself. ! give 1t not
only In the interests of English resi-
dents in Russia, but because OF the
singular statement which / have
heard made In its justification. CUES
tioning the post office authorizes here
on the subject, 1 was informed that
most of ia decentralization and sealing
wax 1 complained of was English, moi
Russian at all-that, in fact, Her Bri'
fannie Msjesty's Postmaster-Genera
refuses absolutely to receive any con
signments Of money from Russia un'
less they are placed between boards
thrust into linen bsgs,and made glori
GUS with the wax of eighteen seals
: Now, l am not going to argue agains'