HUMOURS OF THE AMERICAN POST-OFFICE.
Jr the postal arrangements of a country were taken as the stand- ard of its civilization,—and many worse standards have been proposed,—it might be a question whether to place Iceland high or low in the list, but the United States would certainly stand among semibarbarous communities. The Icelanders have two curious practices, which seem to.claim for them a position near the top, or near the bottom. The whole work of the post-office is done gratuitously ; which implies a very high state of organiza- tion. But, before the ordinary six-weeks mail for Denmark is transmitted, it is closed for two days, in order that the clerks may have time to make out a list of all the letters with their super- scriptions in alphabetical order to accompany the mail to Copen- hagen. This looks slow, but the United States emulate it in all particulars. Before a mail is despatched, a way-bill is made out and to effect it the post-offiee LS closed two hours before the mails are dispersed. Way-bills for a hundred millions of letters! " The identical way-bill," says Mr. Miles, " sent by Governor Lovelace, one hundred years before the American Revolution, would scarcely require to be altered, except in the spelling of the words, to be'adapted to the pre- sent state of postal affairs in these days of lightning telegraphs, balloons, and locomotives, in the year of grace 1855."
It might be supposed that this way-bill would be a security against the loss of letters; and yet Mr. Miles tells us, that, to his knowledge, cart-loads of "rubbish"—" electioneering speeches and other franked mutters "—have been sold for waste paper; the packets being found to contain " large numbers of letters." We mentioned last week the advantage which an ingenious Yankee Measor discovered in this destruction of letters—the encourage- ment to revenue by requiring people to write again ; but not- withstanding that direct stimulus, experience of America shows us that one of the busiest communities in the world with the same population as this country scarcely writes one letter to our four.
The most curious arrangement which they have in that Model Republic is the combination of regular posts and private posts, with a blending of the principles of premium and punishment for private enterprise. A law in Congress declares, that every street and alley in New York is a mail-route, and thereby makes all letter-transportation by such leivate parties over such highways illegal. Yet the public establishment cannot get on without pri- vate assistance. A man cannot have his letters in New York without he hires a private box at the post-office, at a charge so various as to range from one dollar to even twenty-six dollars a year. A merchant who does not hire a box for his letters to be placed in at the post-office will sometimes find himself for seve- ral hours behind his neighbours in the receipt of his cor- respondence. "The New fork Post-office has about 4200 private boxes, and in these are put the letters of some 12,000 persons. These twelve thousand names have all to be remembered by the sorting-clerks in the sorting of every mail that arrives. No one person can ever learn all these by heart ; and if he could, there are changes occurring every single day." If complaints are made that letters are uncertain or delayed, the official reply is, you do not have q hired box. The excuse for the charge upon the boxes is a want of fads-4 is another means of extracting money from the citizen ; as if the Government of the Model Republic were not the,strvant of its own citizens, but the dictator—the Czar, levy- ing its contributions for the sake of revenue, and not executing duty for the sake of the service. New York, with 750,000 people, asks in vain for a second post-office, while in London there is ,lust one hundred post-offices for the same proportion of people ; Berlin has ninety, and Paris several hundreds. But the commercial capital of the Model Republic cannot muster two ! The United States declare that they cannot afford to have a great and suffi- cient post-office ; and they avow, by their arrangements, that they cannot manage state business unless private persons will as-. sist them. The distribution of letters is in part carried on by private persons, of course at an extra charge. But that is the smallest evil : a large number of errand-boys, clerks, and ser- vants, are corrupted ; and numbers are convicted of crime every day, from the temptation afforded by this irregular private posting.
The strangest thing of all in connexion with this supplemental service is, that while the Union cannot get on without private posts—while the citizens encourage private posts by employing them—while they have express companies established for the business of conveying letters from California to Oregon or the At- lantic States, and their express-men are distributing letters all over New York and its vicinity—the State steps in and declares these express companies illegal. Only it makes distinctions : where the post-office could very easily expand itself into a machi- nery for collection and distribution, as in New York, the private companies are recognized and authorized ; but where the State might find some difficulty in supporting the expense, as in the long routes to Oregon or California, there the express-companies are mulcted in fines and costs to the amount of thousands of dollars !
"The author of this little treatise was sent out to California and Oregon in charge of the mails, as mail-agent ; and being hound by his oath of office to search the vessels diligently, wherever he travelled, to see if there were any letters conveyed illegally, did so, and in two instances made seizures of letters that were in the hands of express agents, on the way to an important Past-office and seaport-town that had no legal conveyance or delivery of mails by any post-office contract or mail-route. It was a case of an important pat-office without any supply of mails except by accident, or by express. These cases are looked after sharply, but far more profitable mail-routes in cities are entirely overlooked." Call you this intelligence ? or " flogging creation " P—It looks to us more like flogging the Union for the amusement of the ci- tizens. And this happens in a republic where the State post-office in many respects fills a place subordinate to the private posting. The excuse is, that the public cannot afford either to expand the post machinery or to forego the prohibitory taxes upon using the post. " To my certain knowledge," says Mr. Miles, " letters on postal affairs of great importance are often in our Post-office de- partment several weeks, waiting for an answer. This is in con- sequence of a press of business, and an insufficient number of clerks ; matters that the head of the department cannot always control being restricted by law." In England we find that we cannot afford to do without a post; for we perfectly understand that the advantage which the community derives from the Post- office is not the revenue accruing to the State, but the utility ac- cruing to industry and commerce. It looks like a great joke, that the Model Republic, which can- not extend a post-office machinery over a great town—which can- not keep enough clerks to do the business of conveying and dis- tributing its own letters, though every commercial man knows that the letters are the electric fluid of business—which cannot let a private citizen have his communications in time unless he can pay a sum ranging from one to- twenty-four dollars a year for his letter-box—which cannot carry its mails from one part of the Union to another—should prosecute citizens for their adroitness in executing duties neglected by the State : but the joke is a grave one. Again, we say, it enables us, who so often compare ourselves disparagingly with the Americans, to appreciate the real advan- tages that we have acquired. It has its solace also for the Yan- kees. In Mr. Miles's description, the post-office is like an insti- tution which we might have fancied for Ireland, and in the most reckless and pauper-stricken regions of that island : yet we have no question as to the extent, power, natural riches, and expand- ing commerce of the Union, developed so far with such a post- office. Now let us imagine the United States endowed, through public men such as Mr. Miles and the concentrated resolve of its citizens, with a post-office commensurate to its requirements, and then let us ask what would be the industrial activity and com- merce of the Union.
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