Her Majesty's Mails

FOOTNOTES: [206] The average weight of inland letters is now about a quarter of an ounce; that of colonial letters about a third of an ounce; of a foreign letter also about a quarter of an ounce. The average weight of newspapers is about three ounces, and of book-packets ten ounces. [207] With charges extremely low, the Post-Office is victimized by all kinds of craftiness. The dodging of the proper payment is sometimes quite ludicrous. Hundreds of newspapers, for instance, are annually caught (and we may reasonably assume that thousands more escape) with short loving messages deftly inscribed between their paragraphs of type, or letters, different descriptions of light articles, and even money curiously imbedded in their folds. Almost everybody might tell of some adventure of this kind in his experience not only before penny-postage, but even after it. [208] Moneys accruing to the revenue from lapsed orders are allowed to go into a fund for assisting officers of the Post-Office to pay their premiums on life assurance policies. No officer, however, can be assisted to pay for a policy exceeding 300l. [209] This prohibition does not extend to Christmas gratuities.