One of the rules of the Parcel Post is that living creatures are not to be sent without the Postmaster-General's direct sanction, but in the express service by messenger all the way, this is allowed. Dogs on chain and cats in baskets and other live stock are sent out in charge of express messengers. On one occasion a man who had lost his way in London went into a post office, paid the express fee, and asked to be taken to his destination by Express Post. This was at once arranged. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration] _Photo_ _Clarke & Hyde._ THE CUSTOM HOUSE OFFICERS AT WORK. Dutiable articles sent through the Post Office are opened and examined by the Custom House officials. Cigars, wines, cigarettes, etc., are shown here. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ It may seem strange to have Customs officers working in a Parcel Sorting Office, but these individuals may be seen at all hours of the day at Mount Pleasant, at Liverpool, and other seaports. The officials are present at the offices to examine parcels coming into the United Kingdom from abroad. All parcels from the Colonies or foreign countries are liable to Customs examination, and every parcel coming into the country has therefore to be accompanied by papers declaring the contents of the parcel. Many tales could be told of the discrepancies between declared and actual contents: the smuggling habit seems to be ingrained in the human race. It is a melancholy fact that a large number of the public cannot be trusted to send a parcel honestly, that a still larger number cannot be relied on to address one correctly, and that a yet larger number cannot pack a parcel. If the faults of the public in these respects could be remedied to any great extent, the force at Mount Pleasant could be reduced considerably, and there would be a substantial gain to the revenue. CHAPTER VII MOTOR MAILS In my first chapter I made a point of the fact that at the moment when travelling by mail coach had reached its highest point of excellence the coming of the railway gave the death-blow to the whole system. The long-distance traffic of this country was in the course of a few years diverted from the main roads, and for thirty years these thoroughfares, save for the local traffic between neighbouring places, were silent and unused. Nowhere was this revolution more noticeable than in the district round London. The Great North Road was perhaps the busiest of all the coach routes, and in 1832 no fewer than between fifty and sixty coaches, twenty of them mail coaches, ran on this road alone. At Barnet, the first stage out of London, the double trips resulted in a coach passing through the town in one direction or the other every quarter of an hour.