The History of the Post Office Part 11

The merchants now urged that this might be altered. Did not Sir Harry Furness, they asked, during the last war obtain permission to have his letters delivered immediately after the arrival of a mail? And was not this permission afterwards revoked on the ground that it had led to abuse? Matters were better managed abroad. At Amsterdam, for instance, if a mail arrived as late as nine o'clock in the evening, the letters were delivered to those who might call for them at any time before midnight, or else sent out for delivery early the next morning. At Rotterdam--this also was urged as an instance of better management--the English letters were never delivered till twelve hours after the mail had arrived, about which time those which had come by the same mail would be in course of delivery at Amsterdam. Equality of treatment was thus secured, and neither city had priority of intelligence. At Hamburg, again, as soon as a mail arrived--if in the day, a notice to that effect was fixed up at the Post Office and at the Exchange, the letters being delivered about three hours later; and if at night, the clerks were called out of bed, so that the letters might be sorted and ready for delivery the first thing in the morning. Sundays, moreover, were not excepted. As regards foreign gazettes, too, these all over Europe were delivered within a quarter of an hour after their arrival; yet in London the merchants had to wait for them many hours. And this was all the more hard to bear because the clerks in the Post Office, to whom gazettes were addressed, received them at once and communicated the contents to their friends. What could be more calculated to promote fraudulent insurance, one-sided bargains, and a system of overreaching generally? Such was the representation made by the merchants; and they concluded by asking that henceforth, except on Sundays, no longer interval should be allowed to elapse between the arrival and delivery of a foreign mail than was absolutely necessary for the purpose of sorting.

The postmasters-general had no choice but to refuse the request. To have granted it would have defeated the object with which the Treasury were maintaining an office of their own within the Post Office building.

About this time, three or four years short of the middle of the century, the Post Office got into disgrace with travellers. Under the provisions of the numerous Turnpike Acts which had recently pa.s.sed, the trustees of the roads were to measure distances and to erect milestones; and on these provisions being carried into effect the statute mile proved to be shorter, much shorter, than the reputed or Post Office mile.[48] So great indeed was the difference that the Post Office may be said to have been almost ridiculously out of its reckoning. Thus, from London to Berwick-upon-Tweed the distance, according to Post Office computation, was 262 miles; according to measurement, it proved to be 339 miles. To Holyhead the actual distance proved to be 269 miles; the Post Office had computed it at 208 miles. To Manchester the distance, according to the Post Office, was 137 miles; the actual distance was 165. Bristol, which proved to be 115 miles from London, had been reckoned as 94; Birmingham as 89 instead of 116; Warwick as 67 instead of 84; and so it had been throughout the kingdom. In every case the Post Office mile proved to be an unduly long one; and of course, as soon as milestones were erected authoritatively recording the statute miles, the postmasters charged accordingly. This change excited many murmurs. The traveller to Warwick who, at the rate of 3d. a mile, exclusive of a guide, had hitherto paid for the use of a horse 16s. 9d., had now to pay 21s. To Birmingham he had now to pay 29s. instead of 22s. 3d.; to Bristol, 28s. 9d. instead of 23s. 6d.; and so on.

[48] This, although unknown probably to the postmasters until now, was no new discovery. As far back as 1674 John Ogilby had called attention to the erroneous reckonings in vogue. Ogilby had been commissioned by Charles the Second to survey and measure the princ.i.p.al roads of England, and having performed his task he published the result of his labours in a large folio volume. In the preface to an abridgment of this work, published in 1711, he thus wrote: "The distances are all along reckoned in measur'd miles and furlongs, beginning from the Standard in Cornhil, so that the reader must not be surprized when he finds the number of miles set down here exceed the common computation. For example, from London to York are computed but 150 miles, whereas by measure the distance is 192 miles. And computation being very uncertain, it must be granted that no exactness could be observed but [by] adhering constantly to the standard-mile of 1760 yards, which contains eight furlongs."

The King's messengers fought hardest against the innovation, but without success. Finding the expense of their journeys to Berwick and Holyhead appreciably increased, they appealed to the Treasury for redress, and the Treasury invited the postmasters-general to explain under what authority they had raised their charges. The postmasters-general replied, as they had replied scores of times before on occasions of complaint from the public, that they had really nothing to do with the matter; that it was the postmasters who made the charges; and that in the opinion of the Attorney-General these officers were clearly ent.i.tled to be paid according to the new measurements. It had been expressly provided by Act of Parliament that all persons riding post should pay after the rate of 3d. for every British mile, and the British mile was a known statute measure common to all His Majesty's dominions. The Treasury were not satisfied, and insisted that the King's messengers should be charged according to the old scale. But this, as the postmasters-general pointed out, was not feasible, the Act of Parliament by which they were governed making no exception in favour of particular persons, but on the contrary enacting that all persons without distinction should pay at the rate of 3d. a mile.

At the headquarters in Lombard Street it was long feared that, on finding that the reputed mile exceeded the statute mile, those postmasters whose remuneration had been fixed according to the distance over which they carried the mails would claim an increased mileage allowance; but this, to their credit be it said, they never did. Such forbearance, however, had one ill effect. It tended to perpetuate error.

For many years afterwards two sets of distances remained in vogue, the one right and the other wrong; the new set applicable to travellers, and the old set to mails and to expresses sent on the service of the State.[49]

[49] This explains why in the Road Books of the time the distance between two places is stated differently in two parallel columns under the initials C and M, the one being the computed and the other the measured distance.

The feeling against the Post Office, which had long been gathering force, now displayed itself in a remarkable manner. It had been the constant and uniform practice ever since the Post Office was established to charge letters containing patterns or samples with double postage. To this the merchants now demurred. They did not deny that such letters if weighing as much as an ounce should be charged as for an ounce weight; but they contended that if weighing less than an ounce they should be charged as single and not double letters. This contention was founded on the wording of the Act of Anne, which, after prescribing the postage which "every single letter or piece of paper" not being of the weight of one ounce was to pay, enacted that "a double letter" should pay twice that amount. Was a letter to be charged double because it had in it any enclosure--a sample of grain, for instance, or a pattern of cloth or of silk? or to const.i.tute a double letter must not the enclosure be of paper?

This question the merchants now resolved to try; and accordingly at Bristol, at Manchester, and at Cirencester proceedings were commenced against the local postmasters for demanding and receiving more than the legal postage. It affords striking evidence of the widespread dissatisfaction then existing that in 1753 a practice as old as the Post Office itself should have been challenged for the first time, still more that it should have been challenged at three separate places, distant from one another, simultaneously. The action against the postmaster of Cirencester came on first. It was tried at the Gloucester a.s.sizes before a special jury, when a special verdict was found upon the words of the statute, whether a letter containing a pattern or sample and not being of the weight of one ounce ought to pay double or single postage. The postmasters-general, anxious to avoid a multiplicity of suits, now opened communications with the merchants of Bristol and Manchester.

Would it not be well that their suits should be abandoned? One special verdict would serve as well as a hundred such verdicts would do to settle the point of law between the Crown and the subject. Having succeeded in one county, what more could they expect in another? Or what advantage would follow that had not been already secured? These overtures came too late. The merchants were determined to fight to the bitter end. The suits came on both at Bristol and at Manchester; and at each of those places a special verdict was given in almost identical terms with that which had been returned at Gloucester.

Meanwhile the attorneys both in London and the country had pa.s.sed resolutions to the effect that, if the point of law were decided in the merchants' favour, they would refuse to pay double postage on letters containing writs. The postmasters-general became alarmed. Single instead of double postage on letters containing writs as well as patterns and samples meant, according to the most moderate computation, a reduction of the Post Office revenue by 10,000 or 12,000 a year. This was a serious reduction, and how to prevent it was the question to which the postmasters-general now addressed themselves. It is characteristic of the time that the first expedient they devised with this object was simply to refuse to carry any more letters containing patterns and samples unless the senders of them should agree beforehand to pay double postage. They argued that, in view of the importance to the merchant to have his letters carried, any unwillingness on his part to enter into such an agreement would be easily overcome. A notice to give effect to their intention was already prepared; but before issuing it they took the precaution to consult the Attorney-General. His advice to them was that, admirable as the expedient might be, it was distinctly illegal.

Should they, then, bring one of the special verdicts on to be argued in Westminster Hall and abide by the judicial decision? To this the Attorney-General could raise no objection, but he warned them that the decision was pretty sure to be against the Crown. Driven thus into a corner, the postmasters-general adopted a most questionable course. They advocated the pa.s.sing of an Act which should declare a letter containing any enclosure, even though not of paper and not weighing as much as an ounce, to be a double letter; and this advice was followed. In a bill then before Parliament, having for its object to prevent the fraudulent removal of tobacco, a clause was inserted which effectually prevented the merchants from sending their patterns or samples and the lawyers their writs for single postage.[50]

[50] 26 Geo. II. cap. xiii. sec. 7.

It would be difficult to conceive a more irritating course. No doubt there was precedent for it. Early in the reign of George the First an Act had been pa.s.sed enacting that bills of exchange written on the same piece of paper as a letter, and also letters written on the same piece of paper and addressed to different persons, should be charged as distinct letters: and, possibly enough, it might have been difficult to explain why a bill of exchange should pay double postage and not a pattern or a writ. It is also true that the fact of three several judges and three several juries in distant parts of the kingdom having been unable to agree as to the intent and meaning of a statute implied a real doubt. And yet it can hardly be denied that to solve that doubt by the brute force of an Act of Parliament, instead of bringing one of the special verdicts before the Courts to be argued, was a most provoking step. Nor would it have been calculated to appease the merchants if they had known, as the postmasters-general knew, that the entire rates of postage, as they then existed, rested on no legal sanction. The existing rates were imposed by the Act of Anne; and that Act imposed them for a period of thirty-two years, a period which had now expired, and after which it was expressly provided that the former and lower rates were to revive. It is true that early in the reign of George the First a further Act had pa.s.sed, making perpetual the Post Office contribution of 700 a week to the Exchequer; but by a clumsiness of legislation, which is not unknown even in our own day, the latter Act, while making perpetual both the contribution and the power to levy it, had omitted to re-enact the rates out of which the contribution was to be paid. Virtually, therefore, these rates had lapsed through effluxion of time.

And what during the last forty or fifty years had the Post Office done--done, that is, independently of Allen--to promote the public convenience or to make amends for so much that had given offence? It had done four things, and, so far as we are aware, four things only. It had introduced the contrivance, with which we are all familiar, of external apertures in Post Offices, so that letters could be posted from the outside. It had brought the system of expresses up to a standard which, compared with what it was at the beginning of the century, might perhaps be considered high. It had, indirectly, been the means of eliciting from the Courts of Law an important decision. And it had accelerated the course of post between London and Edinburgh. In 1758 the time which the mail took to accomplish the distance was, at the instance of the royal boroughs, reduced between London and Edinburgh from 87 hours to 82, and between Edinburgh and London from 131 hours to 85.

The date at which apertures on the outside of Post Offices were first introduced is unknown to us even approximately. All we can do is to fix two distant dates at one of which the contrivance existed, and at the other it existed not. On the 3rd of November 1712 Oxford, the Lord Treasurer, received an anonymous letter, and, being anxious to discover the writer, he invoked the a.s.sistance of the postmasters-general with a view to ascertain where and by whom it had been posted. Any such inquiry at the present time would be absolutely futile. One hundred and eighty years ago the postmasters-general, after an interval of twenty-four hours, were able to reply not only that the letter had been posted "at the receiving office of Mrs. Sandys, a threadshop two doors within Blackfryars Gateway," but that it had been posted "by a youth of about seventeen years old, in a whitish suit of cloathes, who was without a hat." It is difficult to believe that apertures can have existed then, and that the letter was not posted inside the office. That in 1757 the contrivance had come into existence, though possibly in a rude form, is beyond question. In that year an unfortunate woman was put on her trial for stealing a letter, and the sender was called upon to prove the posting. "On Tuesday the 7th of December 1756," he said, "I put this letter into the Post Office at the house of Mrs. Jeffreys at Bloomsbury, at about nine o'clock at night.... There is a window and a slip to put it into a little box from out of the street. I was not in the house. It is a very narrow box, and I was afraid my letter was gone down to the ground.[51] I asked Mrs. Jeffreys if my letter was safe after I had dropped it into the slip. She said your letter is safe and gone into the box." If the value of a contrivance depended upon the amount of ingenuity displayed in devising it, these apertures would be hardly deserving of mention; but in view of the convenience they afford, this short notice of them may not perhaps be considered out of place.

[51] The box into which the letters fell was at this time an open one, _i.e._ without a cover and movable. It was not until 1792 that the letter-box was closed, fixed, and locked.

The Rebellion of 1745, while disarranging the posts, brought into vogue the system of expresses; and this system once established was not long in extending itself. An express cost 3d. a mile, and, no doubt, travelled faster than at the beginning of the century. The roads had since been improved; and it may well be believed that the postmasters, as their custom increased, kept better horses. It was probably the speed of the express as compared with the tardiness of the post which induced the wealthy, about the middle of the last century, largely to employ this mode of conveyance for their letters. It had indeed one drawback, a drawback such as in our own time has attended the use of telegrams. It was apt to excite alarm. "Let me," writes the good-natured Charles Townshend to his sister-in-law, Lady Ferrers, under date September 1759--"Let me now desire you to conclude whenever you receive an express that it brings you good news, for otherwise I shall be obliged to defer one day sending you any such account if it should not come to me on a post day, least the express should alarm you. I should not chuse to detain you one minute from the news I know your heart beats for, and yet I should not chuse to frighten you by the sudden manner of its arrival, for which reason I desire you will remember to receive whatsoever express I send with confidence and as a friend."

But the purpose for which an express might be employed was jealously restricted. A man might employ an express to carry a letter; but woe betide him if he employed the same agency for the purpose of disseminating news. The licensed carriers at Cambridge had recently been prosecuted and the postmasters on the Great West Road taken severely to task for doing this very thing. What are we to think of the intolerable state of bondage in which men were content to live when even the gentle Allen could give the following instruction? "At every stage," he writes to one of his surveyors, "you must forbid the deputies to send any express except to the General Post Office in London, unless it be for His Majesty's immediate service; and all other intelligence must be conveyed either by the common post or particular messenger."

In the middle of the last century, and for about thirty years before and after, the mails were being continually stopped and robbed by highwaymen. The reward which the Post Office offered on these occasions for the apprehension of the robber was invariably 200, this being in addition to the reward of 40 prescribed by Act of Parliament; and if the robbery took place within five miles of London, there was a third reward of 100 by proclamation. Numerous and diverse as the robberies[52] were, there is only one of which we propose to speak; and in this case an exception may well be made on account of the important decision which it was the means of evoking from the Courts. A highwayman had stopped the Worcester mail at Shepherd's Bush and rifled it of its contents. Finding himself in possession of a large number of Bank of England notes he adopted a novel expedient for disposing of them. He hired a chaise and four and proceeded along the Great North Road as far as Caxton, pa.s.sing the notes as he went; and in order to give himself a wider field of operations he took the precaution of going one way and returning another. To Caxton he went through Barnet, Hatfield, Stevenage, and Bugden, and he returned by way of Royston, Ware, and Enfield. Except at Barnet, which was probably thought to be dangerously near to London, there was hardly a postmaster along the whole line of road who had not one or more of the notes pa.s.sed upon him. The question now arose who was to bear the loss,--the person by whom the notes had been sent by post or the postmasters who had changed them into cash. At the present time the law on the subject is so well ascertained that no doubt could exist as to the answer; but such was not then the case. In order to try the point, it was arranged that the notes should be stopped, and that the sender of them should bring an action against the Bank of England to recover their value. The trial came on before the King's Bench in 1758, and, after learned pleadings on both sides, the Lord Chief Justice p.r.o.nounced the decision of the Court. This was that any person paying a valuable consideration for a bank note to bearer in a fair course of business is unquestionably ent.i.tled to recover the money from the Bank.

[52] Among these robberies there was, so far as we are aware, only one which possessed any feature of interest; and in this case the interest was of a psychological nature. Gardner, a postman, was stopped by three highwaymen on Winchmore Hill, and, on his refusing to give up his letters, they murdered him. Atrocities of this kind had been frequent, and executions had failed to check them. But the resources of civilisation were not exhausted. Lord Lovell--or the Earl of Leicester, as he had now become--waited upon the King and procured His Majesty's a.s.sent that, after execution, the highwaymen's bodies should be hung in chains. To be hanged was one thing; after hanging, to have one's body suspended in chains was another. This was an indignity to which no respectable criminal should be called upon to submit. Such would seem to be the idea conveyed in the following letter which Leicester received:--

To the Right Hon. the EARL OF LEICESTER, at HOLKHAM, NORFOLK.

THURSDAY, _Oct. 1753_.

MY LORD--I find that it was by your orders that Mr. Stockdale was hung in chains. Now, if you don't order him to be taken down, I will set fire to your house and blow your brains out the first opportunity.

Stockdale was clerk to a proctor in Doctors Commons.

An important legal decision, with which the Post Office had only the remotest concern, an improved system of expresses following as a natural consequence from circ.u.mstances over which the Post Office had no control, a simple contrivance to facilitate the posting of letters, and an acceleration of the mail between London and Edinburgh--this as the record of forty or fifty years' progress is a.s.suredly meagre enough; and yet we are not aware of any omission. The plain truth is that during these years, except in the matter of bye and cross-post letters, the Post Office had retrograded rather than advanced. The rates of postage were higher now than at the beginning of the century. More, probably, than one-half of the public Acts of Parliament which pa.s.sed during the reigns of the first two Georges were Acts for repairing and widening the roads. The roads had kept steadily improving; and the posts had failed to keep pace with them. While travellers travelled faster than in the reign of Queen Anne, letters were still being conveyed at a speed not exceeding five miles an hour. The friendly relations which had existed between the postmasters-general and the merchants existed no longer.

These had been replaced by feelings of estrangement and animosity. Under Cotton and Frankland and under Frankland and Evelyn the Post Office enjoyed a reputation for personal integrity; but even this claim to distinction had now disappeared. Barb.u.t.t, the secretary, had recently retired under a cloud. Bell, the comptroller of the inland office, had been arrested on a charge of fraud.[53] Denzil Onslow, the receiver-general, had been declared a defaulter to the amount of 10,000; and Stone, Onslow's successor, after two or three years' tenure of the appointment, had died in debt to the Crown. The Post Office, when George the Third ascended the throne, was thoroughly discredited, and, despite Allen's exertions, men were beginning to ask themselves, Why c.u.mbereth it the ground?

[53] Elsewhere we have expressed a desire to avoid, as far as possible, the use of technical terms, and the propriety of this course will probably not be disputed when we state that the charge against Bell was that having "crowned the advanced letters" he failed to account for the proceeds. An "advanced" letter was one on which the postage had been advanced, a letter which, having been undercharged in the country, was surcharged in London. To "crown" a letter was to impress it with the stamp of the Crown, denoting that the surcharge had been made.

Virtually, therefore, the charge against Bell was that he had embezzled the surcharges.

Allen died in 1764, leaving behind him a name which is still venerated, and justly venerated, in the city of Bath. For many years before his death he is reputed to have made out of his contract with the Post Office not less than 12,000 a year; and the greater part of this n.o.ble fortune he spent in acts of benevolence. As early as 1735 riches must have come pouring in upon him, for in that year he built for himself the stately house of Prior Park, not indeed for ostentation's sake, but in order to prove that the stone dug from his quarries on Combe Down was not the sorry stuff which interested persons in London had represented it to be. That house still stands; but, as was said at the time--and the statement holds good to this day--"his charity is seen further than his house, though it stands on a hill, aye, and brings him more honour too."

In 1742 Allen served as Mayor of Bath; and in 1745, the year of the Rebellion, he raised a company of volunteers, which he clothed at his own cost. At Prior Park he dispensed a more than decent hospitality, numbering among his guests Pitt, Pope, and Fielding, Charles Yorke, and Warburton. Fielding has immortalised Allen's character but not his name in the person of Squire Allworthy; and Pope has immortalised both his name and his character in the lines--

Let humble Allen, with an awkward shame, Do good by stealth and blush to find it fame.

Among Post Office reformers Allen stands absolutely alone in one particular. His connection with the Post Office, long as it endured, was not abruptly terminated. This we attribute partly to a natural sweetness of disposition, which provoked no enemies, and still more to that which on the part of reformers is the rarest of virtues, an entire abnegation of self. So long as a thing which he thought desirable was done, he cared not that others received the credit.[54]

[54] Of Allen's personal appearance the only account, so far as we are aware, is to be found in the correspondence of Samuel Derrick, Master of the Ceremonies at Bath. Derrick writes, under date May 10, 1763: "I have had an opportunity of visiting Mr. Allen in the train of the French Amba.s.sador. He is a very grave, well-looking old man, plain in his dress, resembling that of a Quaker, and courteous in his behaviour. I suppose he cannot be much under seventy."--Vol. ii. p. 94.

CHAPTER XI

LEGISLATION AND LITIGATION

1764-1782

Brighter days were in store for the Post Office, but not yet. Meanwhile the clouds grew darker and darker. During the twenty years that followed Allen's death, partly as the result of ill-considered legislation and still more through the incompetence and helplessness of its rulers, the Post Office sank to a depth which, in England, probably no other public inst.i.tution, or at all events none that still exists, has ever reached.

In 1764 and 1765 two Acts of Parliament were pa.s.sed, one having for its object to prevent the abuses of franking, and the other to improve the posts. It would be hardly too much to say that both of these Acts had an exactly opposite effect to that which was intended. The first, far from preventing the abuses of franking, largely extended them; and the second imposed a deplorable restriction, a restriction for which any little advantages conferred at the same time afforded very inadequate compensation.

Under the Act of 1765, to take the later one first, the postage rates were reduced for short distances. Since 1711 the charge for carrying a single letter had been 3d. for eighty miles or under. Now it was to be 1d. for one stage and 2d. for two stages. For longer distances the charge was to remain unaltered. The speed of the post was raised from five to six miles an hour. Power was given to the postmasters-general to erect penny Post Offices in country towns; and--a provision which we have p.r.o.nounced deplorable--the weight to be carried by the penny post was restricted to four ounces. Compensation for losses by the penny post had long ceased to be given.[55]

[55] _The Present State of Great Britain and Ireland_, published in 1742, states that at that time compensation was still given for losses sustained in the penny post. The words are: "If a parcel happen to miscarry, the value thereof is to be made good by the office, provided the things were securely inclosed and fast sealed up under the impression of some remarkable seal." This is an error; and that an error should be made on the point serves to confirm the view that little was known of the Post Office and its doings even 150 years ago. That compensation was not at that time given for losses is beyond all question. It happens that in that very year, 1742, a Mr. Vavasour appealed to Whitehall to grant him compensation for the loss of bank notes to the amount of 20 which had been stolen from a letter in its transit through the post; and the postmasters-general, after stating that no precedent existed for granting compensation, implored the Treasury not to create one. "All persons," they write under date the 4th of August 1742, "that for their own convenience send notes or bills of value by the post inclosed in letters do so at their own risque without any foundation that we know of for recovery of this office in case they should be stolen or lost by robbery or other accidents. And this we take to be not only reasonable but just in all construction of law." Again, in 1778 an action for compensation was brought against the Post Office, and Lord Mansfield, after delivering the unanimous opinion of the Court of King's Bench that the postmasters-general were not responsible for losses sustained in their department, proceeded to observe that no similar action had been brought since the year 1699. Giles Jacob, in his _Law Dictionary_, published in the last century, gives this account of the matter: "It was determined so long ago as 13 Will. III., in the case of _Lane_ v. _Cotton_, by three judges of the Court of King's Bench, though contrary to Lord Chief Justice Holt's opinion, that no action could be maintained against the postmasters-general for the loss of bills or articles sent in letters by the post."

Such was the end of Dockwra's post as Dockwra had established it. With that eminent man it had been an object of the first importance that the penny post should carry up to one pound in weight; and now the weight was to be reduced to four ounces. And why? Because the penny post was little used for packets and parcels above four ounces? Exactly the contrary. It was because packets and parcels above four ounces were being largely sent by the penny post that the limit of weight was to be reduced.[56] These missives had been found a little inconvenient to manipulate and it was resolved, therefore, to exclude them. Such was the wretched policy of the time. Even in matters vitally affecting their own interests the public had as yet no voice and their wishes were not considered. On account of some trifling inconvenience, which a very little amount of ingenuity would have sufficed to overcome, the inhabitants of London and its suburbs were now deprived of accommodation which they had enjoyed uninterruptedly for eighty-five years.

[56] The reason for the provision was thus given in the preamble: "Whereas many heavy and bulky packets and parcels are now sent and conveyed by such carriage which by their bulk and weight greatly r.e.t.a.r.d the speedy delivery thereof...."--5 Geo. III. cap. xxv. sec. 14.

In 1764 franking became for the first time the subject of Parliamentary enactment. To send and receive letters free of postage had been a privilege enjoyed by members of the two Houses of Parliament from the first establishment of the Post Office; but whereas it had hitherto been a concession granted by the Crown, it was now to be a right conferred by statute. The reason will be obvious. The revenue of the Post Office had recently been surrendered to the public during the life of the Sovereign, in exchange for a Civil List charged upon the Consolidated, or, as it was then called, the Aggregate Fund; and the Crown, having dispossessed itself of all property in the Post Office, was no longer competent to remit postage without the authority of Parliament. The Act which was now pa.s.sed was designed to correct the abuses which experience had shewn to exist. The limits of weight and of time remained as before; that is to say, only letters not exceeding the weight of two ounces were to be franked, and these only during the session of Parliament and for forty days before and after. In other respects the conditions were slightly altered. Hitherto it had been enough, in the case of letters sent by a member, that he should sign his name on the outside; for the future not only was the outside to bear his signature, but the whole of the address was to be in his own handwriting. In the case of letters addressed to a member, none were to be exempt from postage unless directed to the place of his usual residence or to the place where he was actually residing, or, of course, to the House of Parliament. It had been hoped that these alterations of practice would check the abuses of franking. Vain expectation! No sooner had the concession been converted into a right than what little scruples existed before appear to have vanished, and franks were scattered broadcast over the country. Before eight years were over, the number of franks pa.s.sing through the London office alone had nearly doubled, the postage from which they carried exemption being in 1765, the first year after the change, 34,734, and in 1772, 65,053; and this, be it observed, was no mere estimate, but the actual result as ascertained by the careful examination of each letter.

Another effect of the change of practice was to embroil the Post Office.

The Post Office, in its efforts to protect itself against imposition, would charge letters when addressed to a member at a place where he was supposed not to be; and hence constant disputes and altercations.

Members, again, who were bankers or were engaged in trade insisted that letters addressed to them at their counting-houses, even though they did not reside there, should pa.s.s free. On these the Post Office claimed postage, and the members refused to pay it.

But it was in Ireland that the rage for franking broke out into the wildest excesses. In 1773 an inspector of franks was sent to several towns on the cross and bye roads, in order that he might ascertain and report to the postmasters-general the extent to which the abuse had grown. This officer visited nine towns altogether, and was absent from Dublin for sixty-three days, being at the rate of seven days at each town. At Waterford, during his stay there, 588 letters pa.s.sed through the local Post Office purporting to be franked. The franks on only 354 of these were genuine; the rest were counterfeit. At Kilkenny there were 425 counterfeit franks to 510 that were genuine. At Clonmel, 526 counterfeit and 509 genuine. At Gowran, 212 counterfeit and 195 genuine; and so with the remaining towns. Altogether the number of letters with counterfeit franks was nearly as large as the number with genuine franks, and far exceeded all the other letters combined. However clear might be the evidence of fraud, and however conclusively it might be brought home to particular persons, it was of no use attempting to prosecute. Hear what Mr. Lees says on this point. Mr. Lees was Secretary to the Post Office in Ireland, and he had, under direction from Lord North, received instructions to take proceedings against a firm of solicitors in Londonderry who had been sending letters under forged franks. "A prosecution," wrote Mr. Lees, "will not be of the slightest avail. It has been tried over and over again, and, in the face of the clearest evidence, without success." "There is scarcely a magistrate to be found in Ireland who will take examinations on the Post Office laws; and certainly in no instance has this office prevailed in getting the bills of indictment found by a Grand Jury. This being so universally known, counterfeiting franks is drawn into such general practice that I believe there are very few merchants or attorneys' clerks throughout the kingdom who do not counterfeit in the name of one member or other. Nay, if I cla.s.sed with them almost every little pretty Miss capable of joining her letters, I should not exaggerate the abuse." "As I have observed," he wrote further on in the same letter, "in every town of consequence throughout the kingdom the members resident, under their address, cover the correspondence of the princ.i.p.al merchants.... The postage arising on counterfeit covers alone amounts to more than a third of the revenue of this office."

Under the terms of the Franking Act newspapers were to go free which should bear a member's signature on the outside or which should be directed to a member at any place of which he had given notice in writing to the postmasters-general. This provision seriously affected the Post Office, though in a different way from the liberties which were being taken with letters. From the first establishment of the Post Office the six clerks of the roads had enjoyed the privilege of franking newspapers, and the emoluments derived from this source, originally insignificant, had been continually increasing. In 1764 they were certainly not less than 8000 a year, and may have been more. The Franking Act sapped this source of emolument. No sooner had that Act pa.s.sed than the members served the Post Office with notice of the places to which they wished newspapers to be directed. These places did not in the first instance extend beyond the member's own residence and the residences of his const.i.tuents and friends; but after a while no such moderation was observed. The booksellers and printers, or news-agents as they would now be called, soon recognised the advantage it would be to them if they could get their customers' addresses put on the Post Office Register, and they experienced little difficulty in finding members who were ready to do them this service. There were four who were noted for their complaisance. These were Sir Robert Bernard, member for Westminster; Bra.s.s Crosby, member for Honiton and alderman for the City of London; Richard Whitworth, member for Stafford; and Richard Hiver.[57] These four members in little more than eighteen months served upon the Post Office no less than 744 separate notices. Altogether, at the close of the year 1772, there were 2024 such notices registered in Lombard Street, of which 765 were on behalf of const.i.tuents and friends, and 1259 on behalf of printers and booksellers.

[57] For what const.i.tuency Richard Hiver sat we have been unable to discover. His name does not appear in the return of members of Parliament presented to the House of Commons in 1878.

As the natural result the clerks of the roads found their emoluments rapidly dwindling. Heretofore they had been, virtually, the great news-agents of the kingdom. Enjoying, in common with a few clerks at Whitehall, the exclusive privilege of sending newspapers through the post free, they had been exposed to little, if any, compet.i.tion; but now that in the matter of postage the terms were equal, the advantage was all on the side of the private dealer. The private dealer procured his newspapers in the open market, whereas the clerks of the roads were required to procure them from a particular officer designated by the postmasters-general; and this officer was authorised not only to charge for the newspapers he supplied 1-1/2d. a dozen more than he gave for them, but to retain as his own perquisite one out of every twenty-five copies.