Postal Orders were first issued in 1881, and from the first were a huge success. Nearly 650,000 were sold during the first three months, and the immediate effect was a reduction in the issue of Money Orders. The Postmaster-General in one of his reports was able to say that “Money Orders are often lost and often stolen, but the departmental check is so complete that not more than one in every hundred thousand of the Orders issued is paid to other than the lawful owner.” That was a proud but justifiable boast, but of course it is a different matter altogether with the Postal Order. Still its cheapness and handiness outweighed all risks, and its popularity has never diminished. The total number of Orders issued during 1910 was 125,855,000, and the commission on them realised £483,421. The competitions arranged of late years by magazines and newspapers in the shape of missing words, Limericks, and puzzles have been felt nowhere more keenly than in the Postal Order branch. Some years ago a member of the staff in a private letter gave her experiences of a time of stress of this kind. “We are at present inundated with _Pearson's Weekly_. It is like the charge of the Light Brigade. Bundles to the right of us, bundles to the left of us, upstairs and downstairs. Pearson says in some interview that one of his female clerks counts the Postal Orders at the rate of 14,000 an hour with very few mistakes. The ordinary rate for the Post Office clerks who have had a good deal of experience, and who do it all day long, is between 3000 and 4000 per hour, and there are very few mistakes. I think any one who tried to count more than that would be a raving lunatic soon, and at any rate would not be able to continue at that speed (viz. 14,000 an hour) for six or seven consecutive hours. On one Tuesday morning a postmaster sent his ordinary requisition for a fortnight's supply, and over and above this asked for 250 at 1s. for some gentlemen who had already paid for them and wanted them urgently by Wednesday. When the competitions were announced to end several postmasters wrote asking for their stock to be taken back, as they were now overstocked. We ourselves helped to swell the number, and we have won occasionally, so that on the whole we don't mind the rush very much. There was one gentleman we heard of who having already sent up several words in one competition, thought of another at the last moment. He rushed out to the nearest post office, and asked a flaxen-haired damsel behind the counter for the necessary shilling Order. She had a scared look in her face, and she did not reply to the gentleman. She simply called out despairingly, 'Father, here's another,' and fled. And the father put the shutters up, turned the gas out, and the word never reached Pearson's.”