Chapter 5

The failures or delays in making the passage across the Channel are thus described by Cleland in his _Annals of Glasgow_: "It frequently happens," says he, "that the mail packet is windbound at the mouth of the Liffey for several days together"; and we have seen it stated in a newspaper article that the packets crossing to Ireland by the Portpatrick route were sometimes delayed a couple of weeks by contrary winds.

A few years previously an attempt had been made to introduce steam-packets for the Holyhead and Dublin service; but this improved service was not at that time adopted. Referring to the year 1816, Cleland writes: "The success of steamboats on the Clyde induced some gentlemen in Dublin to order two vessels to be made to ply as packets in the Channel between Dublin and Holyhead, with a view of ultimately carrying the mail. The dimensions are as follows:--viz., keel 65 feet, beam 18 feet, with 9 feet draught of water--have engines of 20 horse-power, and are named the 'Britannia' and 'Hibernia.'" These were the modest ideas then held as to the power of steam to develop and expedite the packet service. In the period from 1850-60, when steam had been adopted upon the Holyhead and Dublin route, one of the first contract vessels was the _Prince Arthur_, having a gross tonnage of 400, and whose speed was thirteen or fourteen knots an hour. The latest addition to this line of packets is the _Ireland_ a magnificent ship of 2095 tons gross, and of 7000 horse-power. Its rate of speed is twenty-two knots an hour.

As regards the American packet service perhaps greater strides than these even have been achieved. Prior to 1840 the vessels carrying the mails across the Atlantic were derisively called "coffin brigs," whose tonnage was probably about 400. At any rate, as will be seen later on, a packet in which Harriet Martineau crossed the Atlantic in 1836 was one of only 417 tons. On the 4th July 1840, a company, which is now the Cunard Company, started a contract service for the mails to America, the steamers employed having a tonnage burden of 1154 and indicated horse-power of 740. Their average speed was 8 1/2 knots. In 1853 the packets had attained to greater proportions and higher speed, the average length of passage from Liverpool to New York being twelve days one hour fourteen minutes. As years rolled on competition and the exigencies of the times called for still more rapid transit, and at the present day the several companies performing the American Mail Service have afloat palatial ships of 7000 to 10,000 tons, bringing America within a week's touch of Great Britain.

Going back a little more than a hundred years, it is of interest to see how irregular were the communications to and from foreign ports by mail packet. Benjamin Franklin, writing of the period 1757, mentions the following circumstances connected with a voyage he made from New York to Europe in that year. The packets were at the disposition of General Lord Loudon, then in charge of the army in America; and Franklin had to travel from Philadelphia to New York to join the packet, Lord Loudon having preceded him to the port of despatch. The General told Franklin confidentially, that though it had been given out that the packet would sail on Saturday next, still it would not sail till Monday. He was, however, advised not to delay longer. "By some accidental hindrance at a ferry," writes Franklin, "it was Monday noon before I arrived, and I was much afraid she might have sailed, as the wind was fair; but I was soon made easy by the information that she was still in the harbour, and would not leave till the next day. One would imagine that I was now on the very point of departing for Europe. I thought so; but I was not then so well acquainted with his Lordship's character, of which indecision was one of the strongest features. It was about the beginning of April that I came to New York, and it was near the end of June before we sailed. There were then two of the packet-boats which had long been in port, but were detained for the General's letters, which were always to be ready _to-morrow_. Another packet arrived; she, too, was detained; and, before we sailed, a fourth was expected. Ours was the first to be despatched, as having been there longest. Passengers were engaged in all, and some extremely impatient to be gone, and the merchants uneasy about their letters, and the orders they had given for insurance (it being war-time) for fall goods; but their anxiety availed nothing; his Lordship's letters were not ready; and yet, whoever waited on him found him always at his desk, pen in hand, and concluded he must needs write abundantly."

Apart from the manifest inconvenience of postal service conducted in the way described, one cannot wonder that the affairs of the American Colonies should get into a bad way when conducted under a policy of so manifest vacillation and indecision.

But the irregular transmission of mails between America and Europe was not a thing referring merely to the year 1757, for Franklin, writing from Passy, near Paris, in the year 1782, again dwells upon the uncertainty of the communication. "We are far from the sea-ports," he says, "and not well informed, and often misinformed, about the sailing of the vessels. Frequently we are told they are to sail in a week or two, and often they lie in the ports for months after with our letters on board, either waiting for convoy or for other reasons. The post-office here is an unsafe conveyance; many of the letters we receive by it have evidently been opened, and doubtless the same happens to those we send; and, at this time particularly, there is so violent a curiosity in all kinds of people to know something relating to the negotiations, and whether peace may be expected, or a continuance of the war, that there are few private hands or travellers that we can trust with carrying our despatches to the sea-coast; and I imagine that they may sometimes be opened and destroyed, because they cannot be well sealed."

Harriet Martineau gives an insight into the way in which mails were treated on board American packets in the year 1836, which may be held to be almost in recent times; yet the treatment is such that a Postmaster-General of to-day would be roused to indignation at the outrage perpetrated upon them. She thus writes: "I could not leave such a sight, even for the amusement of hauling over the letter-bags. Mr. Ely put on his spectacles; Mrs. Ely drew a chair; others lay along on deck to examine the superscriptions of the letters from Irish emigrants to their friends. It is wonderful how some of these epistles reach their destinations; the following, for instance, begun at the top left-hand corner, and elaborately prolonged to the bottom right one:--Mrs. A. B. ile of Man douglas wits sped England. The letter-bags are opened for the purpose of sorting out those which are for delivery in port from the rest. A fine day is always chosen, generally towards the end of the voyage, when amusements become scarce and the passengers are growing weary. It is pleasant to sit on the rail and see the passengers gather round the heap of letters, and to hear the shouts of merriment when any exceedingly original superscription comes under notice." Such liberties with the mails in the present day would excite consternation in the headquarters of the Post Office Department. Nor is this all. Miss Martineau makes the further remark--"The two Miss O'Briens appeared to-day on deck, speaking to nobody, sitting on the same seats, with their feet _on the same letter-bag_, reading two volumes of the same book, and dressed alike," etc. The mail-bags turned into footstools, forsooth! It is interesting to note the size of the packet in which this lady crossed the Atlantic. It was the _Orpheus_, Captain Bursley, a vessel of 417 tons. In looking back on these times, and knowing what dreadful storms our huge steamers encounter between Europe and America, we cannot but admire the courage which must have inspired men and women to embark for distant ports in crafts so frail.[4] It is well also to note that the transit from New York occupied the period from the 1st to the 26th August, the better part of four weeks.

Reference has been made to the fact that a century ago the little packets, to which the mails and passengers were consigned, were built for fighting purposes. It was no uncommon thing for them to fall into the hands of an enemy; but they did not always succumb without doing battle, and sometimes they had the honours of the day. In 1793 the _Antelope_ packet fought a privateer off the coast of Cuba and captured it, after 49 of the 65 men the privateer carried had been killed or disabled. The _Antelope_ had only two killed and three wounded--one mortally. In 1803 the _Lady Hobart_, a vessel of 200 tons, sailing from Nova Scotia for England, fell in with and captured a French schooner; but the _Lady Hobart_ a few days later ran into an iceberg, receiving such damage that she shortly thereafter foundered. The mails were loaded with iron and thrown overboard, and the crew and passengers, taking to the boats, made for Newfoundland, which they reached after enduring great hardships.

The introduction of the uniform Penny Postage, under the scheme with which Sir Rowland Hill's name is so intimately associated, and the Jubilee of which occurs in the present year, marks an important epoch in the review which is now under consideration. To enter into a history of the Penny Postage agitation would be beyond the scope of these pages. Like all great schemes, the idea propounded was fought against inch by inch, and the battle, so far as the objectors are concerned, remains a memorial of the incapacity of a great portion of mankind to think out any scheme on its merits. Whatever is new is sure to be opposed, apparently on no other ground than that of novelty, and in this bearing men are often not unlike some of the lower creatures in the scale of animated nature, that start and fly from things which they have not seen before, though they may have no more substance than that of a shadow. However this may be, the Penny Postage measure has produced stupendous results. In 1839, the year before the reduction of postage, the letters passing through the post in the United Kingdom were 82,500,000. In 1840, under the Penny Postage Scheme, the number immediately rose to nearly 169,000,000. That is to say, the letters were doubled in number. Ten years later the number rose to 347,000,000, and in last year (1889) the total number of letters passing through the Post Office in this country was 1,558,000,000. In addition to the letters, however, the following articles passed through the post last year--Book Packets and Circulars, 412,000,000; Newspapers 152,000,000; Post Cards 201,000,000.

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_Form of Petition used in agitation for the Uniform Penny Postage._

UNIFORM PENNY POSTAGE.

(FORM OF A PETITION.)

TO THE HONOURABLE THE LORDS SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL [_or_, THE COMMONS, _as the case may be_] IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED:--

The humble Petition of the Undersigned [_to be filled up with the name of Place, Corporation, &c._]

SHEWETH,

That your Petitioners earnestly desire an Uniform Penny Post, payable in advance, as proposed by Rowland Hill, and recommended by the Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons.

That your Petitioners intreat your Honourable House to give speedy effect to this Report. And your Petitioners will ever pray.

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MOTHERS AND FATHERS that wish to hear from their absent children!

FRIENDS who are parted, that wish to write to each other!

EMIGRANTS that do not forget their native homes!

FARMERS that wish to know the best Markets!

MERCHANTS AND TRADESMEN that wish to receive Orders and Money quickly and cheaply!

MECHANICS AND LABOURERS that wish to learn where good work and high wages are to be had! _support_ the Report of the House of Commons with your Petitions for an UNIFORM PENNY POST. Let every City and Town and Village, every Corporation, every Religious Society and Congregation, petition, and let every one in the kingdom sign a Petition with his name or his mark.

THIS IS NO QUESTION OF PARTY POLITICS.

Lord Ashburton, a Conservative, and one of the richest Noblemen in the country, spoke these impressive words before the House of Commons Committee--"Postage is one of the worst of our Taxes; it is, in fact, taxing the conversation of people who live at a distance from each other. The communication of letters by persons living at a distance is the same as a communication by word of mouth between persons living in the same town."

"Sixpence," says Mr. Brewin, "is the third of a poor man's income; if a gentleman, who had 1,000_l._ a year, or 3_l._ a day, had to pay one-third of his daily income, a sovereign, for a letter, how often would he write letters of friendship! Let a gentleman put that to himself, and then he will be able to see how the poor man cannot be able to pay Sixpence for his Letter."

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READER!

If you can get any Signatures to a Petition, make two Copies of the above on two half sheets of paper; get them signed as numerously as possible; fold each up separately; put a slip of paper around, leaving the ends open; direct one to a Member of the House of Lords, the other to a Member of the House of Commons, LONDON, and put them into the Post Office.

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_Reproduced from a handbill in the collection of the late Sir Henry Cole, K.C.B. By permission of Lady Cole._

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Should any reader desire to inform himself with some degree of fulness of the stages through which the Penny Postage agitation passed, he cannot do better than peruse Sir Henry Cole's _Fifty Years of Public Work_.

The Postmaster-General, speaking at the Jubilee Meeting at the London Guildhall, on the 16th May last, thus contrasted the work of 1839 with that of 1889: "Although I would not to-night weary an assemblage like this with tedious and tiresome figures, it may be at least permitted to me to remind you that, whereas in the year immediately preceding the establishment of the Penny Postage the number of letters delivered in the United Kingdom amounted to[5] 76,000,000, the number of letters delivered in this country last year was nearly 1,600,000,000--twenty times the number of letters which passed through the post fifty years ago. To these letters must be added the 652,000,000 of post-cards and other communications by the halfpenny post, and the enormous number of newspapers, which bring the total number of communications passing through the post to considerably above two billions. I venture to say that this is the most stupendous result of any administrative change which the world has witnessed. If you estimate the effect of that upon our daily life; if you pause for a moment to consider how trade and business have been facilitated and developed; how family relations have been maintained and kept together; if you for a moment allow your mind to dwell upon the change which is implied in that great fact to which I have called attention, I think you will see that the establishment of the penny post has done more to change--and change for the better--the face of Old England than almost any other political or social project which has received the sanction of Legislature within our history."

Among the Penny Postage literature issued in the year 1840 there are several songs. One of these was published at Leith, and is given below. It is entitled "Hurrah for the Postman, the great Roland Hill." The leaflet is remarkable for this, that it is headed by a picture of postmen rushing through the streets delivering letters on roller skates. It is generally believed that roller skates are quite a modern invention, and in the absence of proof to the contrary it may be fair to assume that the author of the song anticipated the inventor in this mode of progression. So there really seems to be nothing new under the sun!

HURRAH FOR THE POSTMAN, THE GREAT ROLAND HILL.[6]

"Come, send round the liquor, and fill to the brim A bumper to Railroads, the Press, Gas, and Steam; To rags, bags, and nutgalls, ink, paper, and quill, The Post, and the Postman, the gude Roland Hill! By steam we noo travel mair quick than the eagle, A sixty mile trip for the price o' a sang! A prin it has powntit--th' Atlantic surmountit, We'll compass the globe in a fortnight or lang. The gas bleezes brightly, you witness it nightly, Our ancestors lived unca lang in the dark; Their wisdom was folly, their sense melancholy When compared wi' sic wonderfu' modern wark. Neist o' rags, bags, and size then, let no one despise them, Without them whar wad a' our paper come frae? The dark flood o' ink too, I'm given to think too, Could as ill be wanted at this time o' day. The Quill is a queer thing, a cheap and a dear thing, A weak-lookin' object, but gude kens how strang, Sometimes it is ceevil, sometimes it's the deevil. Tak tent when you touch it, you haudna it wrang. The Press I'll next mention, a noble invention, The great mental cook with resources so vast; It spreads on bright pages the knowledge o' ages, And tells to the future the things of the past. Hech, sirs! but its awfu' (but ne'er mind it's lawfu') To saddle the Postman wi' sic meikle bags; Wi' epistles and sonnets, love billets and groan-ets, Ye'll tear the poor Postie to shivers and rags. Noo Jock sends to Jenny, it costs but ae penny, A screed that has near broke the Dictionar's back, Fu' o' dove-in and dear-in, and _thoughts_ on the shearin'!! Nae need noo o' whisp'rin' ayont a wheat stack. Auld drivers were lazy, their mail-coaches crazy, At ilk public-house they stopt for a gill; But noo at the gallop, cheap mail-bags maun wallop. Hurrah for our Postman, the great Roland Hill. "Then send round the liquor," etc.

The advantages resulting from a rapid and cheap carriage of letters must readily occur to any ordinary mind; but perhaps the following would hardly suggest itself as one of those advantages. Dean Alford thus wrote about the usefulness of post-cards, introduced on the 1st October 1870: "You will also find a new era in postage begun. The halfpenny cards have become a great institution. Some of us make large use of them to write short Latin epistles on, and are brushing up our Cicero and Pliny for that purpose."

Unlike some of the branches of post-office work, other than the distribution of news, either by letter or newspaper, the money order system dates from long before the introduction of penny postage--namely from the year 1792.

It was set on foot by some of the post-office clerks on their own account; but it was not till 1838 that it became a recognised business of the Department. Owing to high rates of commission, and to high postage, little business was done in the earlier years. In 1839 less than 190,000 orders were issued of the value of L313,000, while last year the total number of transactions within the United Kingdom was 9,228,183, representing a sum of nearly L23,000,000 sterling.

In the year 1861 the Post Office entered upon the business of banking by the establishment of the Post Office Savings Banks. At the present time there are upwards of 9000 offices within the kingdom at which Post Office Savings Bank business is transacted. The number of persons having accounts with these banks is now 4,220,927, and the annual deposits represent a gross sum of over L19,000,000.

In order of time the next additional business taken up by the Department was that of the telegraphs. Before 1870 the telegraph work for the public was carried on by several commercial companies and by the railway companies; but in that year this business became a monopoly, like the transmission of letters, in the hands of the Post Office. The work of taking over these various telegraphs, and, consolidating them into a harmonious whole, was one of gigantic proportions, requiring indomitable courage and unwearying energy, as well as consummate ability; and when the history of this enterprise comes to be written, it will perhaps be found that the undertaking, in magnitude and importance, comes in no measure short of the Penny Postage scheme of Sir Rowland Hill.

In the first year of the control of the telegraphs by the Post Office the number of messages sent was nearly 9,472,000, excluding 700,000 press messages. At that time the minimum charge was 1s. per message. In 1885 the minimum was reduced to 6d., and under this rate the number of messages rose last year to 62,368,000.

The most recent addition of importance to the varied work of the Post Office is that of the Parcel Post. This business was started in 1883. In the first year of its operation the number of inland parcels transmitted was upwards of 22,900,000. Last year the number, including a proportion of foreign and colonial parcels, rose to 39,500,000, earning a gross postage of over L878,547. The uniform rates in respect of distance, the vast number of offices where parcels are received and delivered, and the extensive machinery at the command of the Post Office for the work, render this business one of extreme accommodation to the public. Not only is the Parcel Post taken advantage of for the transmission of ordinary business or domestic parcels, but it is made the channel for the exchange of all manner of out-of-the-way articles. The following are some instances of the latter class observed at Edinburgh: Scotch oatmeal going to Paris, Naples, and Berlin; bagpipes for the Lower Congo, and for native regiments in the Punjaub; Scotch haggis for Ontario, Canada, and for Caebar, India; smoked haddocks for Rome; the great puzzle "Pigs in Clover" for Bavaria, and for Wellington, New Zealand, and so on. At home, too, curious arrangements come under notice. A family, for example, in London find it to their advantage to have a roast of beef sent to them by parcel post twice a week from a town in Fife. And a gentleman of property, having his permanent residence in Devonshire, finds it convenient, when enjoying the shooting season in the far north-west of Scotland, to have his vegetables forwarded by parcel post from his home garden in Devonshire to his shooting lodge in Scotland. The postage on these latter consignments sometimes amounts to about fifteen shillings a day, a couple of post-office parcel hampers being required for their conveyance.

And we should not omit to mention here the number of persons employed in the Post by whom this vast amount of most diverse business is carried on for the nation. Of head and sub-postmasters and letter receivers, each of whom has a post-office under his care, there are 17,770. The other established offices of the Post Office number over 40,500, and there are, besides, persons employed in unestablished positions to the number of over 50,000. Thus there is a great army of no less than 108,000 persons serving the public in the various domains of the postal service.