The post office and its story an interesting account of the activities of a great government department

The halt for refreshments was always an annoying necessity to Hasker. A guard had attempted to hurry out the passengers as well as the driver. And the passengers had complained. “Sir,” wrote Hasker, “stick to your bill and never mind what passengers say respecting waiting overtime. Is it not the fault of the landlord to keep them so long? Some day when you have waited a considerable time (suppose five or eight minutes longer than is allowed by the bill), drive away and leave them behind.” We can imagine a guard acting on this instruction and losing his tips! The guards were expected to be as regular as clock-pieces, but even Mr. Hasker had sometimes to reckon with them as human beings. “The superintendents,” he writes in another memorandum, “will please to observe that Mr. Hasker does not wish to be too hard on the guards. Such a thing as a joint of meat or a couple of fowls or any other article for their own family in moderation he does not wish to debar them from the privilige of carrying.” But he was against the guards assisting the poachers. Even in those days Post Office servants were obliged to give written explanation of their misdeeds, and they occasionally scored against their fault-finders. A mail guard had been reported for impertinence by certain contractors who were notorious for the indifferent lights with which they supplied their coaches. The mail guard admitted his offence, “but,” he slyly added, “perhaps something may be said for the feelings of a guard that hears the continual complaints of passengers against bad lights and the disagreeable smell of stinking oil, especially when through such things the passengers withhold the gratuity which the guard expects.” There is some dignity in this way of putting the matter.