Part 13 (1/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration]
CHAPTER IX.
POST-OFFICE--TELEGRAPH--TELEPHONE--PHONOGRAPH.
Rowland Hill and Penny Postage--A Visit to the Post-office--The Post-office on Wheels--Early Telegraphs--Wheatstone and Morse--The State and the Telegraphs--Atlantic Cables--Telephones--Edison and the Phonograph.
THE STORY OF ROWLAND HILL AND PENNY POSTAGE.
The story of Penny Postage and its inception by Sir Rowland Hill is full of romantic interest, and that great social reform, introduced more than fifty years ago, has unquestionably spread its beneficial influence over every country in which a postal system of any kind exists.
The Hill family were, we know, in those bygone days far from being well off, and were often hard put to to find the money to pay the high postage on letters which they received. Born in 1795, Rowland Hill was considerably past middle life before he entertained any idea of practising his reforming hand on the Post-office, and had pa.s.sed a busy existence chiefly as a schoolmaster, in which capacity he had indulged in many schemes, scholastic and otherwise, with more or less success. At the time that his attention was first directed to Post-office matters, he was employed as Secretary of the Commissioners for the Colonisation of South Australia. He was no doubt attracted to the subject of postal reform by the frequent discussions which were then taking place in parliament in regard to the matter. Mr Wallace of Kelly, the member for Greenock, who was the champion of the cause in the House of Commons, was fierce in his denunciation of the existing abuses and irregularities of the post, and subsequently proved a strong and able advocate of the scheme for postage reform.
Once arrested by the subject which has since made his life famous, Rowland Hill went to work in a very systematic manner. Firstly, he read very carefully all the Reports relative to the Post-office; then he placed himself in communication with Mr Wallace and the Postmaster-general, both of whom readily supplied him with all necessary information. In this manner he made himself acquainted with his subject, with the result that, in 1837, he published his famous pamphlet on _Post-office Reform: its Importance and Practicability_, the first edition being circulated privately amongst the members of parliament and official people; while some months later a second edition was published which was given to the public.
We have to remember that at this time the postage charges were enormously high, that they depended not upon weight alone, but also upon the number of enclosures, and that they varied according to distance.
Thus, for example, a letter under one ounce in weight and with one enclosure (that is, sheet or sc.r.a.p of paper) posted in London for delivery within the metropolitan area, or even, we believe, fifteen miles out, cost 2d.; if for delivery thirty miles out, 3d.; eighty miles out, 4d.; and so on. Again, as showing how the charges according to enclosure operated, a letter with a single enclosure from London to Edinburgh was charged 1s. 1-1/2d.; if double, 2s. 3d.; and if treble, 3s. 4-1/2d. Moreover, the charges were not consistently made, for whereas an Edinburgh letter (posted in London) was charged 1s. 1-1/2d., a letter for Louth, which cost the Post-office fifty times as much as the former letter, was only charged 10d.
The public, however, found means of their own of remedying the evil, which, if not wholly legitimate, were under the circ.u.mstances to be regarded with some degree of leniency. Letter-smuggling was a not unnatural result of the high and disproportionate charges referred to, and was almost openly adopted to an extent that is hardly credible.
Thus, many Manchester merchants--Mr Cobden amongst the number--stated before the Post-office Inquiry Committee appointed in 1838, their belief that four-fifths of the letters written in that town did not pa.s.s through the Post-office. A carrier in Scotland confessed to having carried sixty letters daily for a number of years, and knew of others who carried five hundred daily. A Glasgow publisher and bookseller said he sent and received fifty letters or circulars daily, and added that he was not caught until he had sent twenty thousand letters otherwise than through the post! There were also other methods of evading the postage rates at work. Letters were smuggled in newspapers, which in these days pa.s.sed free within a stated period through the post, the postage being covered by the stamp-duty impressed on the papers. Invisible ink, too, was used for inditing messages on the newspapers themselves; while the use of certain pre-arranged codes on the covers of letters was likewise systematically adopted, the addressees, after turning the letters over and learning from the covers all they desired to know, declining to take in the letters on the ground that they could not afford to pay the postage.
The system of 'franking' letters in the high-postage days led to an appalling abuse of that privilege, which belonged to peers and members of the House of Commons. It was no doubt originally allowed to enable members to correspond with their const.i.tuents; but under the circ.u.mstances it is perhaps not surprising that the plan soon became abused, and was ultimately used to cover all kinds of correspondence, not only members' but other people's as well. At one time, indeed, all sorts of curious packages pa.s.sed free under the franking privilege, such as dogs, a cow, parcels of lace, bales of stockings, boxes of medicine, flitches of bacon, &c. Sometimes, indeed, franked covers were actually sold; and they have even been known to be given in lieu of wages to servants, who speedily converted them into ready money.
This abuse, taken together with the illicit traffic in letters, so openly and widely carried on, formed of course a most important argument in favour of the proposals for cheap postage formulated by Rowland Hill, and no doubt did much to damage the cause of his opponents. But there is one other abuse to which Londoners were subject which may just be mentioned. At that time the Twopenny Post was in operation in the English metropolis, and would have fairly served the inhabitants in postal matters if it had not been for the practice which existed of allowing commercial houses and other firms who were willing to pay for the privilege to have their letters picked out from the general heap and delivered by special postmen, and so enable them to get their correspondence an hour earlier than those who did not pay the 'quarterage,' as it was called, of five s.h.i.+llings (per quarter), and which, it appears, went into the pockets of the postmen concerned, many of whom, we are told, and it can easily be understood, thus made incomes of from three to four hundred pounds a year. However beneficial such a system was to commerce and trade in London, it operated most unfairly on ordinary correspondents, and it was certainly not the least of the evils which the introduction of Penny Postage swept away.
It is not necessary to enter at any length into all the arguments that weighed with Rowland Hill in propounding his great scheme. It need only be very briefly stated that the great point to which he applied himself was the cost to the Post-office of receiving, transmitting, and delivering a letter. Having roughly and, as subsequently proved, not inaccurately calculated the average postage at sixpence farthing per letter, he then went to work to ascertain the expenses of management; and the result of his investigations showed that, no matter what distance had to be traversed, the average cost of each letter to the government was less than one-tenth of a penny! From this there was only one conclusion that could well be forced on his mind, and that was a uniform rate of postage. Having solved this great problem, there were many other matters of adjustment and improvement to which his attention had to be given. He was, for example, not long in deciding that the charge according to enclosures was an iniquitous one, and that a just and fair tax could only be made according to weight. Then, again, he clearly saw that the principle of throwing the postage on the recipients of letters was an improper one, while it was also a burden on the Post-office employees. The prepayment of postage became necessarily a feature of his plan; but he experienced some difficulty in arriving at a feasible method of adopting it. At first he considered that this might be carried out by payment of money over the counter; but he subsequently came to the conclusion that the purposes of the public and the Post-office would be better served by the use of some kind of stamp or stamped covers for letters, and this arrangement he brought forward and fully explained before the Commissioners of Post-office Inquiry, referring to it as 'Mr Knight's excellent suggestion.' Charles Knight had suggested the idea of stamps for prepayment in 1833-34. The following extract from the Commissioners' Report, which gives a brief description of the proposed arrangement, may perhaps be read with interest at the present time:
'That stamped covers, or sheets of paper, or small vignette stamps--the latter, if used, to be gummed on the face of the letter--be supplied to the public from the Stamp-office, and sold at such a price as to include the postage. Letters so stamped to be treated in all respects as franks.
That each should have the weight it is ent.i.tled to carry legibly printed upon the stamp. That the stamp of the receiving-house should be struck upon the superscription or duty stamp, to prevent the latter being used a second time. The vignette stamps being portable, persons could carry them in their pocket-books.'
The proposed arrangement met with approval from the Commissioners, and also from the Committee on Postage in 1837 and 1838; and, in consequence, the Penny Postage Act of 1840 contained a clause providing for the use of such stamps and stamped covers.
Such were the main points of Rowland Hill's plan, which was so logical and reasonable in all its features, and so intelligible to the popular mind, that it can be readily understood how heartily it was embraced by the general public. But popular as his scheme was with the ma.s.s of the people, it encountered the bitterest opposition from many quarters; and in successfully carrying it through, Rowland Hill had, like most other great reformers, to overcome huge difficulties and obstacles. It is very amusing at this distance of time, when we have become so accustomed to the immense advantages of Penny Postage as to view them almost as part of the ordinary conditions of life, to recall some of the arguments used fifty years ago against the measure. Lord Lichfield, as Postmaster-general, in adverting to the scheme in the House of Lords, described it thus: 'Of all the wild visionary schemes which I have ever heard of, it is the most extravagant;' and endorsed this statement six months later when he had given more attention to the subject, being 'even still more firmly of the same opinion.' On a subsequent occasion he contended that the mails would have to carry twelve times as much in weight as before, and therefore the charge would be twelve times the amount then paid. 'The walls of the Post-office,' he exclaimed, 'would burst; the whole area in which the building stands would not be large enough to receive the clerks and letters.' Outside the Post-office, too, as well as by both the government and opposition, much animosity was exhibited against the proposal.
If, however, the opposition against the introduction of Penny Postage was strong, the advocacy of the plan was no less powerful, while, moreover, it was thoroughly backed by popular opinion. Complaints as to the high rates of postage flowed in, and parliament was nearly inundated with pet.i.tions in favour of the scheme, which also received much literary support. The Mercantile Committee during all the time of agitation actively spread information of the progress of the measure, with a view to rouse the public to a sense of its importance. The _Post_ circular kept circulating; and handbills, fly-sheets, and pictorial ill.u.s.trations were freely distributed. One print took a dramatic form, representing 'A Scene at Windsor Castle,' in which the Queen, being in the Council Chamber, is made to say: 'Mothers p.a.w.ning their clothes to pay the postage of a child's letter! Every subject studying how to evade the postage without caring for the law!'--(To Lord Melbourne): 'I trust, my lord, you have commanded the attendance of the Postmaster-general and Mr Rowland Hill, as I directed, in order that I may hear the reasons of both about this universal Penny Postage plan, which appears to me likely to remove all these great evils.' After the interview takes place, the Queen is made to record the opinion that the plan 'would confer a great boon on the poorer cla.s.ses of my subjects, and would be the greatest benefit to religion, morals, to general knowledge, and to trade.' This _jeu d'esprit_, which was published by the London Committee, was circulated by thousands, and proved extremely useful in bringing the burning question home in an attractive form to the ma.s.ses of the nation.
The agitation as to Rowland Hill's scheme lasted for two years, and with such vehemence that the period has become an epoch in the history of this country. The end of the story of this memorable reform is soon told; for an agitation which may be said to have shaken the nation to its core and was felt from end to end of the kingdom could have but one conclusion, and that a successful one. A Parliamentary Committee was appointed to inquire into the whole matter; and after a session of sixty-three days, reported in favour of Penny Postage. That was in August 1838. Next year a Bill for Cheap Postage pa.s.sed through parliament with slight opposition; and on the 12th of November 1839 the Treasury issued a Minute authorising a uniform rate of fourpence for inland letters. This was, however, merely a temporary measure, in which Rowland Hill concurred, and was resorted to chiefly to accustom the Post-office clerks to a uniform rate and the system of charging by weight. The full measure of the Penny Postage scheme was accomplished a few months later on, when, on the 10th of January 1840, the uniform rate of One Penny for letters not exceeding half an ounce in weight was officially introduced.
Such in brief is the story of Penny Postage, which has caused such a revolution not only in the postal arrangements of this country, but in the conditions of all sections and grades of society. In the first year of its operation the number of letters posted was more than doubled, the number sent in 1840 being 169,000,000, as against 82,000,000 posted in 1839, including 6,500,000 letters sent under the franking privilege, which was abolished with the introduction of the Penny Postage system.
In 1851 the number of letters posted in Great Britain and Ireland had risen to 670,000,000; while in 1895 the quant.i.ty sent reached the fabulous number of 1771 millions, or about forty-five letters per head of the population. This refers to letters pure and simple. If we take into account post-cards, newspapers, book-packets, &c., the aggregate number of postal packets posted in 1895 will be found to fall not far short of 1134 millions. Truly may it be said that the results of Penny Postage have been stupendous. But more than this; the net revenue derived from postage has long, long since exceeded that which accrued under the old system.
The story of Penny Postage would be incomplete if we did not add a word as to how the great reformer fared at the hands of his country. With the introduction of his scheme he of course became a.s.sociated with the Post-office, although at first he held a Treasury appointment, from which, however, after about three years' service, he was dismissed on the ground that his work was finished. Public indignation was aroused at this treatment of one who had already done so much for his country; and the nation seemed to think that the right place for Rowland Hill was at the Post-office, where further useful reforms might well be expected to follow from one who had begun so well. At all events, in 1846 he was restored to office, being appointed Secretary to the Postmaster-general, and eight years later he became Chief Secretary of the Post-office, an appointment which he held for ten years, when, from failing health, he retired with full pay into private life, full of years and honours. Soon after his dismissal from the Treasury, a grateful country subscribed and presented him with the sum of fifteen thousand pounds; and on his retirement, parliament voted him the sum of twenty thousand pounds. In 1860 he received at Her Majesty's hands the dignity of Knight Commander of the Bath; and both before and after his retirement he was the recipient of many minor honours. In 1879 Sir Rowland Hill was presented with the freedom of the City of London; but he was an old man then, and only lived a few months to enjoy this civic honour. He had a public funeral, and was accorded a niche in the temple of fame at Westminster.
A VISIT TO THE POST-OFFICE.
Without a personal visit to the Post-office, it is perhaps difficult to gain any correct impression of its immensity, or of the perfect discipline and order which prevade the buildings devoted to postal and telegraphic work. It is a visit which should be made by every one interested, if possible. They would then marvel that we get our letters and papers in the short time we do, if they were to see the thousands upon thousands that are poured into St Martin's-le-Grand day by day. The General Post-office never sleeps save on Sunday between twelve and half-past one. The work is never at a standstill.
We began our visit to St Martin's-le-Grand by inspecting what is known as the 'blind' department, where letters with indistinct, incomplete, and wrongly spelt addresses are puzzled out by those specially trained in solving such mysteries. Sc.r.a.p-books are kept in this department, into which the curious and amusing addresses originally inscribed on the face of letters transmitted through the Post-office are copied and preserved.