Her Majesty's Mails

CHAPTER VI. THE TRANSITION PERIOD AT THE POST-OFFICE. It must not be supposed that the improvements in mail-conveyance were the only beneficial changes introduced into the Post-Office during the fifty years which we have designated as the mail-coach era. It is true that, compared with the progress of the country in many other respects, the period might be termed uneventful. Still, there are incidental changes to chronicle of some importance in themselves, and likewise important in their bearing on the present position of the Post-Office. If we retrace our steps to the year 1792, we shall find, for instance, that in that year an entirely new branch of business was commenced at the General Post-Office. We refer to the origin of the Money-Order establishment. The beginnings of this system, which, as the reader must be aware, has of late years assumed gigantic proportions, were simple and unassuming in the extreme. The Government of the day had expressed a desire for the establishment of a medium by which soldiers and sailors might transmit to their homes such small sums as they could manage to save for that purpose. Three officers of the Post-Office jointly submitted a scheme to make a part of the Post-Office machinery available in this direction, and a monopoly was readily conceded to them. The undertaking was further favoured with the sanction of the Postmasters-General. The designation of the firm was to be "Stow & Co.," each of the three partners agreeing to find a thousand pounds capital.