Her Majesty's Mails: An Historical and Descriptive Account of the British Post-OfficeLewins, William
History
Her Majesty's Mails: An Historical and Descriptive Account of the British Post-Office
Lewins, William
Postal service -- Great Britain
When it has been fully ascertained that nothing further can be done to
effect the delivery of an imperfectly or improperly addressed letter, it
only remains to have it sent back to the writer. This is done, if
possible, without the letter being opened. By an arrangement of ten
years' standing, if the returned letter has the writer's name and
address embossed on the back of the envelope, impressed on the seal, or
written or printed anywhere outside, it will not be opened, but
forwarded back according to this address. We may point out here,
however, that this arrangement, excellent and satisfactory as it is, has
sometimes led to serious mistakes and confusion; so much so, in fact,
that the Postmaster-General, in his report for 1861, appealed to the
public on the subject. It would appear that the practice of using
another person's embossed envelope is on the increase. When such a
letter, according to the arrangement, is forwarded to the supposed
writer, it has frequently fallen into the wrong hands (the master and
merchant instead of the clerk or other servant), and grievous complaints
have been made on the subject. The remedy, of course, lies with
letter-writers themselves. If there are no outward marks to indicate the
sender, the letter is then opened, and, if a suitable address can be
found inside, the letter is inclosed in the well-known dead-letter
envelope and forwarded according to that address. If a letter should be
found to contain anything of value, such as bank-notes, drafts,
postage-stamps, the precaution is taken of having a special record taken
of it, and it is then sent back as a registered dead letter. Money to
the value of 12,000_l._ or 14,000_l._ is annually found in these
returned letters. Of this sum about 500_l._ per annum falls into the
public exchequer, on account of no address being found inside, and no
inquiry being made for the missing letters. A vast number of bank
post-bills and bills of exchange are likewise found, amounting in all,
and on the average, to something like 3,000,000_l._ a-year. These bills,
however, as well as money-order advices, always afford some clue to the
senders, even supposing no address should be given inside the letter,
and inquiries are set on foot at the bankers and others whose names may
be given in the paper transactions. Forty thousand letters reach the
English returned branch each year containing property of different
kinds. Many presents, such as rings, pins, brooches, never reach their
destination, and are never sent back to the sender, because they are
often unaccompanied with any letter. These articles, of course, become
the property of the Crown.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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