Part 3

7. You should make yourself acquainted with the conduct of the Railway Mail Clerks, when off, as well as when on duty, and report to the Postmaster General any Railway Mail Clerk who, to your knowledge, is at any time under the influence of liquor or otherwise misconducting himself.

8. Compensation is made to Railway Companies for Mail Service performed in a Postal Car, at the rate of 6 cents per mile actually travelled by mixed trains and 8 cents per mile for quick passenger trains. Compensation is also made for the conveyance of bags in charge of the company's servants at the rate of from 2 to 4 cents per mile actually travelled by the trains performing such service.

9. When service by postal cars is necessary, the companies are bound to furnish Travelling Post Offices suitably fitted up, and to see that they are properly heated, lighted and cleaned, and supplied with water.

10. All plans for the fitting up of these Travelling Post Offices should, previous to being carried out, be submitted for the approval of the Postmaster General.

11. No promise of remuneration for services performed in connection with the Postal Service should be made to any person in the employ of a railway company. For all such services, compensation is made to the company in the regular allowance paid to them.

12. Canvas bags, as a general rule, should be used for the Railway Mail Service. The necessary supplies will be furnished on application to the Postmaster General.

XIII.

CIRCULATION OR DISTRIBUTION.

1. On the correct distribution of Mail Matter greatly depends the efficiency of the Postal Service, and this is, therefore, a point which requires your constant and careful supervision.

2. As a general rule all officers between which pass large numbers of letters and papers should exchange direct mails, and the termini of routes should be constituted forward or distributing offices.

3. Each Distribution Book or List should be prepared on a uniform plan. Books and forms for Manuscript Distribution Lists can be obtained on application to the Secretary.

4. You should see that all the Railway Mail Clerks and such Postmasters as require them, are furnished with proper Distribution Books, and that these books are from time to time revised and corrected.

5. All changes in the distribution in your Division should be recorded in a book kept for that purpose, and from this book the necessary corrections in the several Distribution Lists affected should be made.

6. Changes in the distribution affecting offices in other Divisions should be at once communicated to the Inspectors for the Divisions in which the offices are situated.

7. Postmasters and Railway Mail Clerks should be instructed at once to report to you any errors in the distributions which may come under their observation, and prompt steps should be taken for a prevention of their repetition.

8. When a Mail Clerk or Postmaster has a large number of letters for any particular office with which he does not exchange direct mails, he should tie them all up in one package, either addressing the package or facing the top and bottom letters outwards.

9. Provision should in all cases be made for the direct transmission of letters and papers between offices on the same route.

XIV.

TRAVELLING.

1. Visit and inspect each Money Order and Savings Bank Office in your Division and make a report thereon to the Postmaster General on the printed forms, as often as occasion serves, but at least once every year.

2. Visit and inspect every other office in your Division as often as circumstances permit.

3. Do not, unless with good and sufficient reason, pass a Post Office without calling and inspecting it.

4. Keep before you a memorandum of cases requiring personal investigation, so that in travelling you may be able to attend to as many of these cases as may be in the direction of your journey.

5. In travelling ascertain, as far as you are able, if the service on the several routes over which you pass is in every respect satisfactorily performed, and make memoranda in your Pocket Memorandum Book of any irregularities which you may observe, or of any changes which you may think desirable.

6. Note and take down particulars of any locality at which it is likely a Post Office may be required, so that when applied for, you may be able to report thereon.

7. In visiting a Post Office the following points should engage your attention:

1. Is the office provided with--

A Sign? A Letter-box? Pigeon-holes for letters and papers for delivery and despatch? Other necessary fittings? Forms and other necessary equipments?

2. Is it conveniently situated and provided with proper accommodation for the public?

3. Are the Postmaster and his assistants duly sworn, and do they understand their duties?

4. Has the Postmaster proper stamps and material for post-marking letters, &c., and obliterating the stamps thereon?

5. Are the Letter Bills properly post-marked and fyled?

6. Are the Registered Letters and Mail Key kept in a safe place?

7. Are the letters and papers for delivery properly post-marked? Are they all intended for the delivery of the office? Are they sorted into the proper boxes? Are there any which should have been sent to the Dead Letter Office?

8. Are the newspapers for delivery all sorted in their proper pigeon-holes.

9. Are all letters and papers posted for despatch as well as for delivery at the office properly pre-paid by stamp?

10. Are the entries in the Book of Mails sent and received, and the Registered Letter Books properly made?

11. Are the instructions and circulars received from the Department properly fyled?

12. Are the notices sent for exhibition to the public properly posted?

13. Is there a notice posted in the lobby indicating the office hours and the times at which mails are closed and received?

14. Is the Postmaster supplied with postage stamps sufficient to meet the requirements of the public?

15. Are the mails regularly received and despatched, and the provisions of the contracts under which the office is supplied properly carried out?

8. In the event of the office being a Money Order Office ascertain--

1. If the entries in all the books are properly made.

2. Whether the Cash Book at Offices where a Cash Book is kept is made up to date, and whether the date of the Deposit Receipts agree with the date for which credit is taken therefor.

3. Whether the Postmaster has in hand the balance due on Money Order Account.

4. Whether all the numbers of the Money Orders taken from the Order Book are properly accounted for.

9. You should take every opportunity of ascertaining and noting down the character and standing of the several parties employed in the Postal Service. The information thus obtained may be of value.

10. You should also take every opportunity of collecting accurate information in regard to the settlement of the country, the position of Post Offices, roads and distances, and with this object you should carry a map of the section of country through which you pass, and mark thereon as much as you can of the above information.

XV.

CASES OF LOSS OR ABSTRACTION.

1. All cases of alleged loss of mails or letters, or of abstraction of money or articles of value from letters should be promptly and thoroughly investigated.

2. The circumstances attending those cases are so various that it is difficult to lay down any specific rule as to the mode in which the investigation should be conducted.

This must be left to the judgment of the Inspector. The following course, however, may be taken in ordinary cases.

3. The printed form of questions should be filled up by the applicant in each case. If the applicant cannot supply all the particulars required, they should be obtained from such other parties as may be able to furnish them.

4. A "Tracer" should be filled up, and sent to the office at which the letter was posted.

5. The particulars of the cases should be at once entered in the book for the record of applications for lost letters.

6. The papers connected with each case should be enclosed in a printed "Missing Letter Envelope." This should be docketed, the date on which, and the name of the office to which the Tracer was despatched entered thereon, and placed in a pigeon hole appropriated to Missing Letter cases "awaiting answers."

7. A prompt return of the Tracer must in all cases be insisted on. On no account should its unnecessary detention at any office be permitted.

8. If on return of the Tracer it is shown that no loss has occurred, the applicant should be so informed, a memorandum to that effect written on the envelope in which the papers are enclosed, the papers put away amongst cases of application for letters which have been found, and the entry of the case in the record of applications for Lost Letters scored out with a blue pencil.

9. If it is found that a loss has actually taken place, the names of all the offices through which the letter passed, or should have passed, should be carefully recorded in the book of record of applications for missing letters. These offices should then be carefully indexed and a minute examination made with the object of ascertaining whether any of the offices through which the letter passed, or should have passed, appears with unusual frequency in other cases of loss, and whether in such event there is any reason either from the resemblance in the character of the losses or the circumstances attending them to suspect that the losses may be attributable to the same office.

10. In the event of frequency of loss at a City Post Office, it should be ascertained through whose hands the missing letter would pass, and an endeavor should in this way be made to concentrate the several losses on the guilty party.

11. It is a well established fact that a person who has once committed theft will continue to steal, and a concentration of cases of loss, in the manner pointed out, will certainly afford a clue to his detection.

12. Commencing each month, number each office consecutively, as it appears in the record of cases of loss or abstraction. This will show:--

1st. The number of cases which have occurred at any particular office during the month; and

2nd. In each case the relative number of cases affecting each of the offices through which any lost letter, or letter from which an abstraction has been affected, has or should have passed.

13. It should be borne in mind that losses or abstractions may have occurred previous to the posting of the letters or after their delivery, and that the occurrence of two or more cases applicable to the same party posting or receiving letters is sufficient, at any rate, to awaken suspicion that the loss may not have taken place in the transit of the letters through the Post Office.

14. In cases of abstraction it is very important that both the cover and the letter from which the alleged abstraction has taken place should be obtained. A very careful and minute examination thereof will, in many cases, enable the Inspector to determine whether any abstraction has really occurred, or, if it has occurred, to narrow the suspicion down to the office where it has actually been committed.

1. Examine the flap of the letter, if necessary, by means of a magnifying glass, and ascertain if it shows the least sign of having been opened and re-fastened, either by slight tears in the paper, marks of dirt, or moisture, or the application of additional mucilage.

2. Weigh the letter with its alleged contents and see if the weight corresponds with the amount of postage paid on the letter.

3. Carefully examine the post-marks. If the impressions or indentations have penetrated from the cover to the letter inside, ascertain whether there has been any change in the position of the letter in the envelope between the time it received the post-mark of one office and the time it received the post-mark of another office.

This will sometimes enable you to determine at which office the abstraction was affected.

4. Ascertain if any of the post-marks have penetrated through the envelope from one side of the letter to the other. In such a case you may be able to determine whether, at the time the letter was stamped at any particular office, it actually contained an enclosure.

15. Cases of alleged abstraction have been brought to light in which it has been proved that paper has been enclosed in letters by the senders instead of the money purported to have been remitted.

The proof consisted of the impressions of the postmarks placed on the letter at the office at which posted having gone through the envelope on to the papers enclosed.

It is, of course, important to ascertain whether the stamps were placed on the letter at the time it was posted.

16. Cases of alleged theft have also been brought to light by the writing on the envelope being in a different hand to the writing in the letter enclosed, by the date of the letter not corresponding with the date of the post-mark of the office at which mailed, and by the dates of the post-marks on the letter showing that it has been subjected to some unusual delay. All these points should, therefore, be closely looked into.

17. In all cases it would be desirable to ascertain at what point the best opportunity for the alleged theft would have been afforded.

18. The evidence in each case of enquiry should be carefully taken down in writing, and every circumstance, however trifling, which may in the slightest degree bear on the case, noted. It is frequently by a collection of apparently unimportant facts that important results are arrived at.

19. Care should be taken in every case to avoid the formation of any opinion until all the facts which it is possible to obtain in regard to it are collected together. It is only from these facts and from the character and antecedents of the parties who may have been concerned in the loss, and not from some suspicion unsupported by facts, that conclusions can with any safety be drawn.

20. All serious cases of loss or abstraction should be at once specially reported to the Postmaster General, and the most prompt action taken thereon.

21. In cases of ascertained loss or abstraction, the Inspector for each Division through which the letter passed should be furnished with full particulars thereof.

22. When there is no moral doubt of guilt, it is desirable that the party suspected should be at once suspended from his duties.

23. It is not advisable however to take criminal proceedings in cases of theft, unless there is a probability of such evidence being obtained as will secure a conviction of the guilty party.

XVI.

ARREARS AND OUTSTANDING ACCOUNTS.

1. All outstanding accounts and arrears due from Postmasters and ex-Postmasters must be entered in the book provided for that purpose.

2. This Book should be divided into three parts:

1. For entry of arrears due from Postmasters in office. 2. For entry of arrears due from ex-Postmasters. 3. For entry of names of offices which have failed to render their accounts.

3. Prompt steps must be taken to obtain these outstanding accounts and arrears.

Application should first be made to the Postmaster or ex-Postmaster to send them in.

If he fails to do this within a reasonable time--say two weeks--a letter should be addressed to each of his sureties. If this produces no good result, a second application should be made to the sureties informing them that if by a certain day--say in two weeks time--the accounts and arrears are not forwarded, the matter will be reported to the Postmaster General, who will probably order legal proceedings to be taken against them.

4. If, after the expiration of the time given, the accounts and arrears are not paid, this result should be specially reported to the Postmaster General. In such case it would be desirable to ascertain and report to the Postmaster General whether the Postmaster and his sureties are good and sufficient for the amount of the arrears due.

5. When the accounts and arrears are sent in, the entry in the Arrears Books should be erased in blue pencil.

6. On no account should outstanding accounts and arrears be overlooked and neglected. In some cases, when the amounts involved are large, a personal visit may be necessary.

XVII.

CONCLUSION.

It is very important that each Inspector should make himself thoroughly conversant with the foregoing regulations, and it will be the duty of the Chief Inspector, when visiting the several Divisions, to ascertain whether these Regulations are properly observed and to report to the Postmaster General such deviations as may come under his notice.

ALEXANDER CAMPBELL, _Postmaster General._

OTTAWA, 1st August, 1879.

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Typographical errors corrected in text:

[1] On page 13, entry 8: "Those cases not erased should be consecutively numbered and the number erased in the return." The word 'erased' is marked out and 'entered' is written in the margin. By the context, the word clearly should be 'entered', so corrected and noted here.

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