Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-02-06
LONDON POST OFFICE
MAKES A REFORM
Special Correspondence of The Star.

LONDON, January 81, 1910.
LondonerS have been grumbling for
century or two about their Anticipated
post office system, but the grumbling
doesn't seem to have much effect, for
the biggest city in the world remains
the worst served in the matter of pos
tai facilities. In fact, it is far behind
most of the big provincial cities in
England.
Bat the London post office has just
turned over in its sleep and evolved an
, improvement" which 1t has announced
with great flourish of trumpets as an
epoch making advance. For years people
who have lived in progressive commune
! ties have been complaining that there
vas no chance OF getting a letter, no
matter how important it might be, from
Saturday night until Monday morning.
Nearly every town OF any consequence
III the Jn4teu g-in- dom uds q sumo, -
livery, but London has to go without,
anu aFpdTentIJ 4 VA nave . eo.i.. ..,,
| without. for the Improvement just an
nounced is no less than an arrangement
by which any one who mas leIepnone
in the houze can receive Il message by
a combination o. mail and telephone
sunday morning.
The scheme is that any one who
wishes to send an important message
to a friend in London may find out if
| that friend has a telephone and what
charge of IA cents, write thirty words
on sheet of paper, address IL to the
central telegraph Office in London ana
mail 1t, and at $40 am. Sunday some
ca at TIC central tee. raph ,..ice wll
call up the person to whom 1t is ad-
dressed and read the message to him.
1t never seems TO have occurred to the
20 oiiIcs people taat /. would Je nu
easier for the person who wanted to
Send the me sage to Cal. up his friend
Saturday night and talk to him direct.
A any rate the plan was received with
SO much enthusia III that forty -one per-
S rs took advantage OF 1t the first Sun
| day.
1t also seems not to have occurred
to the poStmas .er general that com lara
tively few Londoners have telephone
in the house. The telephone service in
London is expensive and bad, and in
consequence this modern convenience
is not used to nearly the same extent
that II is in many smaller places. Then
there are some millions of Londoners
who would like to get their lettrs Sun
day. but who are too poor to have a
telephone anyway, but they probably
don't count
The whole postal system needs thor
ough overhauling. The post office con-
trolls the telegraphs in England and has
just taken over the telephones. The re-
suit is that except at half a dozen sta
tons In all London no one can send a
telegram or telephone from a public pay
station between pm. and am. No
matter how urgent the message may be
lit must wait until the Office opens, at
the regular hour, the sender must
travel miles to the general post Office
or one of the few stations which are
open all night. Even the newspapers
are not exempt from the operation of
this rule. 1t is impossible to file a
news telegram after o'clock in any
part of England except a few of the
big cities, unless twelve hours notice
has been given and an extra fee paid for
keeping the ,office open. The Telephone
central offices, it is true, are open all
night and subscribers can get through
To other subscribers but the pay sta
tions are all closed.
Then there is the little matter of
Christmas mails and other emergency
occasions. The postal authorities know
perfectly well that there will be rush
every year and they engage number
Of extra hands to cope with it, but they
never engage enough, and the result is
that for u fortnight on each side of
Christmas the mails are congeSted, and
large quantities of mail matter are lost
Christmas presents fail to arrive at
all, and business letters are delayed.
Last Christmas a batch of letters for
New York, which were posted in Lon
don early in order to avoid any delay
and which ought to have been delivered
in eight days at most. took fourteen
days to reach their destination.
The English public kicks, but the
post office sleeps on. Occasionally it
opens one eye and says, Sorry, I'll
try to do BETTER but it's efforts at i'm
provement are all like the telephone
letter scheme.