The new system of promotion by merit worked far better than that of the Commissioners' examinations for admission to the Civil Service. As regards the letter-carriers, it has always been found that the men best fitted for this duty were those whose previous life had inured them to bodily labour and endurance of all kinds of weather. The new educational requirements in many instances excluded these people, while giving easy admission to shopmen, clerks, servants, and others accustomed to indoor and even sedentary life, who were little fitted to perform a postman's rounds. The Duke of Argyll, then Postmaster-General, requested the Commissioners to adopt a somewhat lower standard of acquirement. At the same time he authorised the subjection of candidates for the office of letter-carriers to a stricter test as regards bodily strength, with the result that about one man in every four was rejected. By these means, and the greater attention paid to the laws of sanitation in offices and private dwellings, the health of the department gradually reached a high standard. That the plan of confining admission to the service to candidates who have passed the Civil Service examinations is not without its drawbacks, is seen by the following extract from a Report by Mr Abbott, Secretary to the Post Office in Scotland. “Considering,” he says, “the different duties of the account, the secretary's and the sorting branches, I am inclined to believe that the examination should have more special reference to the vacancy the candidate is to fill than to his general knowledge on certain subjects proposed for all in the same class, more especially as regards persons nominated to the sorting office, where manual dexterity, quick sight, and physical activity are more valuable than mere educational requirements.”[208]