CHAPTER X.

POSTAL SERVICE STAFF; ITS COMPOSITION, DUTIES, RESPONSIBILITIES.--VOLUME OF WORK.

In 1855 the Bristol Post Office staff consisted of a postmaster and fifteen clerks, with sixty-four letter carriers. Over 1,500 people of all grades, including sub-postmasters and their assistants, are now employed; and the annual bill for salaries, wages, and allowances of men, women, and boys amounts to little short of L100,000. It will thus be seen that the Post Office ranks as one of the largest employers of labour in the western city.

The head office is centrally situated both for the receipt and despatch of the letter correspondence. It is not very far from a point known as "Tramway Centre," upon which the tram services of the city converge. It plays an important part with regard to the Bristol postal system, as out of a total of 833,000 letters posted weekly in the city delivery area--exclusive of 55,300 Clifton posted letters--221,000 letters are posted at the head office itself, and the total posted within a radius of a mile is 652,290, or more than three-fourths of the whole. In addition to the 888,000 letters posted weekly in Bristol city and Clifton, there are 108,000 letters posted in the suburban and rural districts. The posting every Sunday consists of 35,000 letters.

The greater extent to which the well-to-do classes in Bristol use the post than their less fortunate brethren may be gathered from the fact that the average yield of letters, newspapers, etc., per day per box in the Clifton district is 128 per cent. higher than in Redland and Cotham, and 179 per cent. higher than in Redcliffe; and in the Redland and Cotham district 22 per cent. higher than in Redcliffe.

The mails are chiefly conveyed between the head office and the principal railway station by horsed carts.

About 7,000,000 "forward" letters--that is, letters neither posted nor delivered locally, but passing through the Bristol Post Office--are dealt with annually.

The parcel post, started in 1883, has done well in Bristol. Nearly three-quarters of a million of parcels are posted in the district annually. The greater part of the parcel despatching duties is performed at a separate parcel office on the Temple Meads Railway Station premises. People often avail themselves of the parcel post for obtaining a regular weekly supply of produce. A joint of beef from Scotland, weighing just under eleven pounds, invariably reaches Bristol at the week end, and a package of butter from Dublin is observed every Friday in the Bristol parcel depot on its way to Weston-super-Mare.

The London mail is, naturally, the most important mail which leaves Bristol. In the course of the day fifty-five mail bags are forwarded, containing about 20,000 letters; the trains used being those leaving at 3.10 a.m., 7.50 a.m., 9.35 a.m., 11.40 a.m., 12.13 p.m., 1.54 p.m., 3.0 p.m., 3.43 p.m., 4.45 p.m., 7.22 p.m., and 12.45 a.m. So numerous are the London and "London forward" letters in the evening, that three clerks are engaged from 5.0 p.m. to midnight in sorting them. In the opposite direction fifty mail bags are received from London daily, containing about 30,000 letters. Birmingham comes next in the importance of exchange, thus: twelve mail bags go out daily, containing 5,500 letters, and ten bags come in, with 4,500 letters. The neighbouring city of Bath figures next, with ten outward mail bags daily, containing 4,200 letters, and ten inward bags, containing 2,700 letters. The same three cities also stand in the forefront in respect of the import and export of parcels, 870 parcels being received from London and 550 parcels sent thereto daily. Birmingham sends 190 parcels and takes a like number; whilst Bath sends 160 and takes in return 250 parcels daily.

The members of the permanent staff have fallen on better days than their predecessors of old times. They are granted holidays varying in periods according to rank, from the twelve working days allowed to the telegraph messengers to the month enjoyed by the superintending officers. Medical attendance is afforded gratuitously, and full pay is, as a rule, given during sick absence, and under special circumstances sick leave on full pay is allowed for six months, and a further six months on half-pay. After that time, if there appears to be little or no chance of recovery, a pension or gratuity is given. The appointment of medical officer to the Post Office was in 1862 conferred upon Mr. F. Poole Lansdown, who has held the post ever since. For the last four years the average sick absence per year has been ten days for males and seventeen days for females per head; and during the last seven years the average mortality amongst the established officers of the Service has been two per annum.

Uniform and boots are provided by the Department for the postmen and telegraph messengers, at an annual cost of about L2,000.

Good-conduct stripes are the reward to all full-time postmen, established or unestablished, of unblemished conduct. A stripe is awarded after each five years' meritorious service, and each man is eligible for six stripes, each of which carry one shilling a week extra pay. The value of the stripes is taken into account in calculation of pensions.

Of the 1,500 persons of all grades alluded to there are in the postal department a superintendent, 24 superintending officers, and 154 male and 8 female clerks.

The selection of candidates for situations in the Bristol Post Office as sorting clerks and telegraphists, both male and female, was for many years vested entirely in the postmaster, and persons were given temporary employment without passing any educational test as to their special fitness for Post Office employment. It so happened that not infrequently a clerk would be employed in a temporary capacity for some years, and finally be rejected by the Civil Service Commissioners on educational or medical grounds. In 1892, however, a special preliminary educational examination was instituted. All candidates of respectable parentage, of good health and character, were allowed to sit at this examination, the successful ones being taken into the office and trained for appointment to the Establishment. The Civil Service Examination had, of course, to be undergone before an appointment could be obtained. In 1896 a new system was introduced, whereby a Civil Service certificate had to be obtained before a person was taken into the office. This obviated the necessity of holding the preliminary educational examination, but the postmaster still exercised the privilege of nominating candidates to the situations. The open competitive system of examination was commenced last year, and the appointments are now open to general competition.

There is a term of probation in the Post Office, and details of the duties devolving on postal clerks may not be without interest to the Bristol public. The business, with its multitudinous ramifications, takes a long time to learn thoroughly. To become a perfect all-round postal clerk a man must possess intelligence, must be cool, fertile in expedient, have a retentive memory, and withal be quick and active. He must know how to primarily sort, sub-divide, and despatch letters. He must have a good knowledge of Post Office circulation and be able to bear in mind the names of the smallest places--hamlets, etc.--in the kingdom, the varying circulations for different periods of the day, and the rates of postage of all articles sent through the post. Be must be able to detect the short-paid letter, and to deal with the ordinary letter, the large letter, the unpaid, the registered, the foreign, the "dead," insufficiently addressed, the official, the fragile, the insured, the postcard (single and reply), the letter card, the newspaper, the book-packet, and the circular (the definition of which is very difficult). He is responsible for the correct sortation of every letter that he deals with, and he has to be expert in tying letters in bundles. He has to cast the unpaid postage and enter the correct account on the letter bill; take charge of registered letter bags and loose registered letters, and advise them on the letter bill; see to the correct labelling, tying, and sealing of the mail bags he makes up; check the despatch of mails on the bag list; dispose of his letters by a given time, the hours of the despatch of mails being fixed. In consequence, he often has to work under great pressure in order to finish in time. The postal clerk has to surcharge unpaid and insufficiently prepaid correspondence; to see that all postage stamps are carefully obliterated, that the rules of the different posts are not infringed; to attend to the regulations relating to official correspondence. He has to decipher imperfectly and insufficiently addressed correspondence, search official and other directories to trace proper addresses. In addition to all this he has in turn to serve at the public counter, and there attend to money order, savings bank, postal order, and other items of business of the kind.

As an illustration of the perspicacity of officers of the Post Office in the Western Division of the Kingdom and of the postmen of Bristol, may be cited the circulation through the post and prompt and safe delivery of a letter from Plymouth bearing as its only address the magic letters "W. G.," with cricket hat, stumps, and ball, so dear to the individual who bears the initials.

Delay in delivery of articles sent by post, however, not infrequently takes place in consequence of misdirection. A parcel was addressed to a reverend gentleman at "Publow Church, near Bristol," and as it could not be presented at the fine old structure itself, the postman took it to the adjoining vicarage, where, in the absence of the vicar, it was taken in by a servant upon the inference that it might be intended for some future visitor. It turned out, however, that the address was inaccurate, and that the parcel was actually intended for a village some miles from Bristol, on the other side, having for its name Pucklechurch.

Occasionally there is very slow transmission in these speedy days. A rather remarkable case occurred here of a postcard having occupied nearly eight years in travelling between Horfield Barracks and the premises of a firm in Stokes Croft,--a distance of less than two miles. The missive was posted and stamped on the 10th July, 1890, and trace of it was lost until it turned up at Bournemouth and received the impression of the stamp of that office in April, 1898, whence it was sent to Bristol and delivered. There were no other marks to indicate its long detention.

Not infrequently the Post Office has to contend with difficulties arising from want of thought on the part of the trading community. Recently there was a somewhat unusual occurrence at the Bristol Post Office. A sack containing samples of biscuits in small tin boxes was received. Around the tins flimsy paper was tied, on which the addresses were written. The paper had become so frayed in transit that scarcely a single wrapper was complete, and when the tins were turned out of the sack there were showers of small pieces of paper like a snowstorm. In order that the samples might reach their destinations, the addresses were, as far as practicable, re-copied, and the samples sent out. Nearly every one of the 500 packets received was then sent out for delivery without delay, no doubt to the astonishment of those who received the biscuits in envelopes from the Returned Letter Office.

In the sorting office all through the twenty-four hours there is work going on. As one batch of officials goes off duty another comes on, and these relays never cease--not even on Sundays, Christmas Days, or Bank Holidays. The sorting office is at its busiest from 5.15 to 6.45 in the evening, and from 8.30 p.m. till midnight. Then postmen enter hastily, one after another, with bags from the branch offices and pillar-boxes, which are immediately taken charge of, opened, and the contents shot out. The postmen rapidly arrange the small letters face upwards, pack them in "trays" of 400, pass them over to the stamping department; the stampers obliterate Her Majesty's head, and record the hour, date, and place of departure, with one and the same stroke of the stamp, at the rate of a hundred a minute. The stamped letters are placed on sorting tables, where the first division takes place. Those for Bristol and neighbourhood are assigned to a compartment for further sortation, and the outward correspondence is sorted out into the different "roads" by which it will travel. Letters for small places are sent to the mail trains, where they are sorted to their respective stations as the locomotive is whirling them along at the rate of fifty miles an hour. Many of the larger towns, such as Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Exeter, Plymouth, Reading, Bath and Swindon, have their own bags made up at Bristol. Newspapers, packages, and book packets are sorted separately, and subsequently put into their respective bags. By-and-by the country postbags come pouring in, and no sooner are they opened than the letters they contain are subjected to the same analytical treatment.

In a week 2,600 separate bags (or sacks containing several bags) are sent away from the Bristol Post Office over the Great Western and Midland Railway systems. The weight is 21 tons, or an average of over 18 lbs. per bag or sack. Of the total number, 500 of the bags, with an average weight of nearly 14 lbs. each, are for places within the Bristol district, and 300 of them are sent to London, with a total weight of 4 tons 33 lbs., or an average of 30 lbs. per bag or sack. The bags and sacks received in Bristol from all quarters are about equal in number and weight to those going outwards. Those from London weigh 6 tons 3 cwt. 44 lbs.--an average of 51 lbs each.

In order to simplify the disposal of the letters in London, they are not sent up unsorted from Bristol, but are divided into thirty-seven labelled bundles or separate bags, a bundle or bag being made up for each London district, for each great railway out of London, for several foreign divisions, for seventeen large provincial towns, and even in such detail as for Paternoster Row and Wood Street.

It is not often that ships of war appear in Bristol waters. Indeed, the old inhabitant saith that it is fifty years since a warship anchored in the vicinity. The recent visit of a squadron calls therefore for a passing mention. Such an event took place during the British Association Meeting in September, 1898. The ironclads composing the squadron were H.M.S. _Nile_, _Thunderer_, _Trafalgar_, _Sans Pareil_, and the gunboat _Spanker_. The vessels anchored in Walton Bay, midway between Clevedon and Portishead. In these pages the interest attaching to them must necessarily be centred in their mail arrangements. Nearly a thousand letters a day were received at Clevedon for delivery to the fleet. The ships' postman from each ship came ashore by launch three times a day to fetch the letters. Launches were specially employed to fetch telegrams on signal being given by flag from the end of Clevedon Pier.

A first aid class in connection with the St. John's Ambulance Society was formed by members of the Bristol Post Office staff in 1894, and there was an average attendance of twenty members, under the skilled direction of Dr. Bertram Rogers, of Clifton. Of the members who presented themselves for examination at the termination of the course of lectures, eight were successful, and were presented with certificates at the Society's Annual Meeting, held at the Merchant Venturers' Technical College; and in the following year they qualified for the Society's much-prized medallion of efficiency. At the conclusion of the course, Dr. Bertram Rogers was presented with an ivory-handled and silver-mounted malacca cane, subscribed for by members of the class. A writing-case was also presented to Mr. Blake for organising the class.

The want of a gymnasium in or near the Post Office premises is greatly felt, but the staff do not neglect opportunities of improving their health in other ways. Cycle Clubs have been in active operation; the Cricket Clubs come off victorious in many matches; and the Electric Swimming Club has been attended with great success.