The post office and its story : $b an interesting account of the activities of a great government departmentBennett, Edward
History
The post office and its story : $b an interesting account of the activities of a great government department
Bennett, Edward
Postal service -- Great Britain -- History
Much advance has been made in recent years in the development of Express
Delivery services. I do not think they are as well known as they ought
to be: they are not “spoken of highly in the advertisements,” only a
simple statement of what you can do when in a hurry appears in the Post
Office Guide. But the broad effect of the regulations is that with some
increase in your expenditure you can have practically a private postal
despatch and delivery service of your own. A special messenger will take
a message or packet for you direct to any distance at the rate of 3d. a
mile. Living animals, including dogs, may be sent by this means, also
liquids. This is only one way in which you can be independent of the
ordinary mail service. I suspect that many persons who have not a Postal
Guide in their possession are ignorant of the fact that a letter
weighing 4 oz. may be handed in at a passenger station for immediate
transmission by railway. This is a convenience to many people who have
lost the post and are near a railway station. Then you can use the
telephone to speed up your mail service. You can telephone a letter to a
post office, and it will be taken down in writing there and despatched
by express delivery.
If you lose your train at a big railway station the company will readily
provide you with “a special” at a cost prohibitive to most men's purses.
If, on the other hand, you lose the post, the Postmaster-General can at
once provide you with “a special” also, but it will only be at a cost
slightly in excess of the ordinary charge, and, unlike the case of the
railway train, your post “special” will probably arrive before the
ordinary mail.
There is one soul-stirring regulation for the Express Delivery services:
it is hidden away in small print at the bottom of a page. What would not
Selfridge's or Whiteley's make of such an announcement! “Postmasters may
arrange for the conduct of a person to an address by an express
messenger.” “To see a man home” is a duty which can now be vicariously
put on the Post Office.
But it is not my purpose to republish the provisions of the Guide in
these pages: I want only to suggest to my readers that they may lose
many opportunities to avail themselves of the various services through
ignorance. For, as I have already hinted, the Postmaster-General is like
“Bobs” in Rudyard Kipling's verses, “'E does not advertise,” and many of
the admirable things which he is prepared to do for the public remain
practically undeveloped because of his modesty. How powerful would be
the appeal to the public if he could follow the example of the
Bedminster Down Penny Bank and advertise the Post Office Savings Bank
with an effective poster such as the one on the opposite page.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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