CHAPTER XI.

CHRISTMAS AND ST. VALENTINE SEASONS.

A century ago the Christmas card was unthought of; whether it will be a thing of the past in the year 2000 cannot be foretold. The preparations made to meet the annually recurring pressure involve much forethought and considerable labour, and have to be in progress for a long time prior to Christmas. The time occupied in getting the instructions ready for the staff and making all arrangements incidental to the season is equivalent to more than the entire duty of a clerk for a whole year. Nothing whatever is left to chance; for unless the arrangements are organised in full detail, the work could not go on with the clock-like smoothness which is necessary to ensure a successful issue. At Christmas many people find a difficulty in deciding what to give their friends. The difficulty in the Post Office is how to convey Christmas gifts from friend to friend, from relative to relative, and the solution is found in the extensive preparations alluded to. They consist of many and various ways of affording means of rapid circulation and facilitating the traffic. Thus arrangements are made as regards London for direct bags to be made up at Bristol for each of the eight principal district offices, and separate bags for the inclusion of all the London sub-district letters throughout the day. At normal times such bags are made up only for the night mail and heaviest despatches. All foreign letters are sent in separate bags, so as to keep them apart on arrival in London from the inland Christmas missives. Then, in the reverse direction, London relieves the Bristol office by making a direct bag for the tributary office of Clifton by every mail, instead of by two mails only. To further facilitate matters, the parcels and letters for the environs of Bristol are kept separate from those for town delivery at all the large offices sending parcel baskets and mail bags here, and Bristol reciprocates by adopting the same plan for towns with which it exchanges mails. Even the expedient of putting specially-lettered neck-labels on the bags to indicate their contents is adopted. Where, ordinarily, bundles of letters are made up for particular towns, direct bags take their places, and where, ordinarily, letters are sent in bulk from many towns separate bundles are made up for each town: thus, letters from Bristol for Brighton, which are usually dealt with in London, are forwarded in a direct bag to pass through the metropolis unopened. The individual attendances of the ordinary staff are increased from eight hours to twelve, fourteen, and sixteen hours per day. All holidays are suspended for the time being, which enables some telegraphists to undertake postal duty; clerical labour is stopped, outside help is obtained, and altogether additional labour provided for to the extent of 50 per cent. over the normal staff. Although there is such a large augmentation numerically, the value of it cannot be judged in that way, as it takes a long time to make a really efficient postal officer, and the novices who are engaged, although willing enough, can do little more than undertake manual labour. Many army reserve men and army and navy pensioners are engaged to assist on the occasion. The weather is always a potent factor. The ordinary types of mail vehicles, contracted for by the Bristol Tramways Company, and always well turned out by Mr. G. Matthews, have to be supplemented at the Christmas season by the employment of large pair-horse trolleys, which, are used not only for the conveyance of mails between office and railway station, but are also sent round the town to pick up the heavy parcel collections from the numerous sub-offices.

The great unpunctuality of the mail trains which invariably sets in early in the Christmas week causes no little inconvenience, particularly as regards the mails from the North of England, and the merchants are therefore not slow to avail themselves of the Post Office new system, under which, for a small fee, they can get their letters brought by delayed trains delivered by special messenger promptly on their arrival at the Head Post Office. The extra posting of letters and parcels for places abroad, intended for delivery about Christmas Day, begins to manifest itself early in November.

A great number of people appear to think that Christmas cards and other printed matter may be sent by book-post in covers which are entirely closed, except for small slits cut at the sides. These packets are liable to charge at letter postage rates unless they are made up in such a manner as will admit of the contents being easily withdrawn for examination. To educate the public in the matter of full prepayment, it has become necessary for the Department to be particularly vigilant in surcharging the Christmas missives which contravene the regulations, and the Bristol clerks have the unpleasant task of raising an impost on letters during the Christmas season which infringe the Postmaster-General's not severe regulations. The custom of sending Christmas cards in open envelopes is increasing.

With regard to telegrams, the public have recently received at the hands of His Grace the Duke of Norfolk the great benefit of being allowed to have their telegraphic messages delivered up to distances of three miles without payment of any charge whatever for porterage. In this neighbourhood, the concession has resulted in an increase in the number of messages for delivery over a mile, especially at Christmas. During the Christmas season there is always a decrease in the number of business telegrams, but that is in some measure made up for by a large number of telegrams being sent by the public who are travelling to keep holiday, and in this connection more use is made of the telegraph than the telephone service. The decrease in the volume of work admits of telegraphists aiding their brother officers on the postal side.

The inflow of Christmas cards is pretty evenly dispersed over the earlier days of the season, but the great rush comes on the night of the 23rd and the morning of the 24th of the month. Letters up to four ounces in weight are now conveyed at the small cost to the public of a penny. So far as this city is concerned, letters and book-packets over two ounces in weight, which are now blended in one post, are quadrupled in number at the Christmas season. This increase in the letter packets has the effect of retarding the postmen in effecting their deliveries, inasmuch as they have to search in their bags for the packages which they cannot carry tied up in consecutive order. The trouble arising therefrom is somewhat mitigated, however, by the circumstance that the charged letters are less numerous than heretofore, owing to the large increase in the weight which is now carried for a penny. The Christmas season is departmentally regarded as consisting of the days from the 20th of the month to Christmas Day, the 25th, inclusive. From the most reliable calculations that the officials are capable of making, it would appear that during the Christmas period no fewer than 2,000,000 letters are dropped by the residents into the 500 receptacles dotted here and there over Bristol's large postal area. The letters distributed by Bristol's regular postmen, with their 250 followers, are a million and a half, in each case about an extra week's work to be got through in three days.

Some 20,000 letters and parcels find their way to the Bristol Returned Letter Office as the flotsam and jetsam of the Christmas postings. They consist of letters without addresses, letters addressed in undecipherable caligraphy, letters for people dead, gone away, and not known; parcels of poultry and game without name of sender or addressee. Certainly handwriting does not improve, hence all these failures and embarrassments to the Post Office.

The articles for transmission by parcel post handed in at the head Post Office, branch, offices, sub-offices in town, suburbs, and villages, reach the total of 40,000, being about four times as numerous as at ordinary periods. The rural districts alone produce 8,000 parcels. The parcels delivered number 35,000, being treble ordinary numbers. Ten thousand of these parcels are delivered in the villages. Nearly a thousand large hampers of parcels are exchanged between London and Bristol, and of these some forty contain foreign parcels alone.

Notwithstanding the vastly increased numbers, it becomes noticeable at Bristol, year by year, that there is a diminution of parcels conveyed by parcel post containing articles of good cheer: the geese, the fowls, and the game having decreased, plum pudding's, however, being as much in evidence as ever. The reduction in the parcel post rates which took place in 1897 has had a very marked effect upon the parcel post traffic, and the increase, particularly in the heavy weights, has been very great. On the other hand, the reduction in the rates of charge for the conveyance of post parcels has had the effect of bringing about a decrease in the number of parcels weighing under 2 lb.

As showing that the postal deliveries at the Christmas season are arranged as well as the extraordinary circumstances will admit, and that the public on its part can appreciate the difficulties to be contended with, it may be worthy of mention that complaints of delay are rarely made.

The Postmaster-General is not unmindful of his duty in providing sustenance for his legions at the busy season, and refreshments are supplied for the permanent staff without stint. There are no trams running on Christmas Day, so that the postmen with their heavy loads are much worse off than on ordinary days, when, with lighter loads, they can ride to and fro on the tramcars. There are some pleasing social features which are worthy of record. For instance, the ladies of the Clifton Letter Mission have for some years past sent "A Christmas Letter" and Christmas card to each of the 150 telegraph messengers employed in the Bristol district. The ladies who manage the society known as the Postal and Telegraph Christian Association invariably send to every postman in the Bristol district a sympathetic and seasonable letter, accompanied by a pretty Christmas card and the best of all good wishes. The staff of the Bristol Post Office usually pay the compliments of the Christmas season to their postal friends elsewhere in the form of a prettily-designed card.

Christmas Day of 1898 is rendered memorable in postal annals from the circumstance that on that day the postage on letters to and from many of our colonies and foreign possessions was reduced from the modest sum of 2-1/2d. per half-ounce to the still more modest sum of 1d. per half-ounce. Bristol has a not inconsiderable colonial and foreign correspondence. British India takes 550 letters, etc., on the average weekly; the Dominion of Canada, 450; Newfoundland, 110; and Gibraltar, 100; the other countries to which the reduced rate of postage has been applied take 500 in the week.

One of the many changes that have taken place in the manners and customs of the people as affecting the Post Office is very noticeable as regards the observance of St. Valentine's Day. Thirty years ago the votaries of the patron saint, in their thousands, vied with each other, year after year, to honour his memory, and make the Post Office the medium of sending to every close friend some kind of love token, ranging from the artistic production at one guinea, down to the humble penny fly-leaf which contained the simple but expressive pleading, at the bottom of a neat woodcut, "O come, true love, be mine." Only too often, however, the day was made the occasion to strike a blow at the fickle lover by means of some gross caricature. On the eve of St. Valentine the energies of the staff, which was limited as compared with now, were formerly greatly taxed to get rid of the enormous piles of packets which flooded the various receptacles in the city. All this is, however, changed; the occasion now passes by almost unnoticed in the sorting office and by the postmen.