The St. Johns herald., 1894-02-22
ENGLAND'S PARCEL POST.
A System That Has Grown wiSh
 Amazing Repidity.
What Was an Unknown Convenience Tsn Years Ago Is Now an Almost In- dispensable AdinDct to
 Daily Life.


 The act authorizing the parcel post svas passed in 1882. But it may well b imagined that time was necessary t mount an entirely new postal servic, without disorganizing the ordinary mails, and 1t was not until August 1883, that the post was actually placed at the disposal of the public, says the London Times.
 May l, 1856, a new scale of weight and charges was issued. The scale which still obtains, ascended b single instead of double pounds, an. thus represented charge of Sd for the first pound and 11Id for each sue ceeding pound. At the same time the maximum weight was raised to eleven pounds, parcel of that weight being carried for 1sd. Compensation was promised for the loss or damage Of any parcel in the post up to the sum of e1. while further sums of 95 and e10 might be secured by the payment of penny and 2d respectively.
 The original scale of weights and charges was for a parcel not exceed
 
 5d; up to five pounds, 9d, and up to seven pounds, Is. At seven pounds the post stopped. The maximum dimen- sions allowed were three and one-hal1 feet in length and six feet in length and girth combined, and these dimen- sions have been found throughout to be sufficient to meet the public demand.
 The effect of these changes at once became visible. From June, 1886, on wards, the number of parcels increased by more than twenty per cent. over the number for the corresponding months of the previous year, and the total number of parcels carried in the year 1886 rose to 31,O00,000. In the mean time parcel posts had been established with many colonies and foreign states. The admirably managed post office of India and the post office of Egypt tor ganized by the country) were the first to respond to the invitation of the postmaster general, and the inter change of parcels with India, Burmah, Alden and Egypt commenced July 1, 1885.
 At the end of another six months Germany and Belgium, forerunners of this country in parcel post enterprise, had entered in similar relations, and from the commencement of 1886 the work of connecting this country with the rest of the world for the purpose of interchanging parcels by post pro- ceeded apace.
 The next change of importance took <.f registration was for the first time ex- tended to inland parcels, together with compensation on liberal scale. For the ordinary registration, a fee of 2d, compensation up to e5 was promised while for every additional Id another &5 could be secured up to a maximum of a25. At the same time the compen- sation payable on an unregistered par eel was raised from &1 to e2 Finally. December l last, scale of payment rising to 95O (which had previously been applied to the post to India and the West Indies) was adopted; and it is now possible to obtain compensation up to that amount by payment of the registration fee of 2d and additional fee of 9d, or lid in all. It is not sur prising that under the influence of these improvements the number o1 parcels sent per head of the popula tion has more than doubled since the post was instituted.
 So completely has the parcel post now become an adjunct of daily life that it is almost difficult to realize that ten years ago anyone wishing to send a parcel, even between two cen. ters of population, had no certainty when it would be dispatched, when it would be delivered, and how much he would have to pay; while rural districts were, for such purposes, practically out of