Her Majesty's Mails

25. In sending postage-stamps in letters, care should be taken to use thick envelopes, so that enclosures of this kind may neither be seen nor felt. It is easy to feel a quantity of postage-stamps in a letter sent in a thin and crisp envelope, and some official becoming aware of this may not be able to resist the temptation to appropriate them. 26. No enclosures whatever should be sent in newspapers impressed with the regular newspaper-stamp. Even an old address of such a newspaper should be carefully cut out. It is not enough that it be obliterated with the pen, as the rules forbid writing of any kind in addition to the mere address.[194] With newspapers stamped by the ordinary postage-label the arrangements are quite different. Any printed paper or manuscript may be folded up with the newspaper on which an ordinary penny-stamp is placed, provided the total amount of the package does not exceed four ounces. The old address (supposing the newspaper has circulated through the post before) may be left on or not at the discretion of the sender, as this does not interfere with the regulation that nothing in the packet shall be of the nature of a letter. On the other hand, any sentence or message written in ink or pencil on any part of the paper makes the packet liable to the unpaid letter-rate of postage. 27. When any letter, book-packet, or newspaper is lost, miscarried, or delayed, inquiry should be made as soon as evidence has been obtained that the article in question was really posted. The postmaster of the town should be informed by the complainant of every particular relating to the missing letter, &c. the day and hour of its posting, the office at which and the person by whom this was done. In cases of delay or mis-sending, the covers ought to be produced in order that the office stamps on them may indicate the exact place where the delay has been occasioned. Correspondence on the subject of the complaints will subsequently be carried on between the applicant and the Secretary's department in England, Scotland, or Ireland, as the case may be.