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. CHAPTER XII. PUBLIC OFFICE: ITS BUSINESS--THE SAVINGS BANK--PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONS. [Illustration: THE PUBLIC HALL, BRISTOL. _From a photograph by Mr. Protheroe, Wine Street, Bristol._] The public office of the Bristol Post Office is very commodious (50 ft. by 44 ft.), and affords ample counter accommodation to the citizens for properly conducting their Post Office business. It is markedly superior as regards size and fitting-up to almost any other provincial office, and indeed its equal in those respects is scarcely to be found in all London. In contrast to the spacious public hall of the Bristol Post Office and the civility of its clerks, the writer's first impressions of the postal service of his country were by no means of a pleasant character. When quite a small child, he was entrusted by his mother with the mission of conveying a small rose-coloured and delicately-perfumed letter to the Post Office in a world-famed Warwickshire town--an errand of which he was "no end" proud. Timidly he knocked at a little wicket in the window of the house to which he was directed. Almost immediately the wicket was thrown open, and a very red visage appeared. "What do you want?" "Will you put a stamp on this letter, sir, please?" "No! What the devil do you mean by bringing letters like this? 'Tisn't big enough. It'll get lost in some hole or corner." Frightened at this "Giant Grim," a hasty retreat was made, and the irascible old postmaster was left to do as he liked with letter and penny. The penny combined postage and Inland Revenue stamp was introduced in 1881. A new series of postage stamps was issued in 1884, and the present series in January, 1887.