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

Let me begin with India. There had been, previous to our occupation of that country, many attempts made at establishing postal organisations; but like those in our own land previous to the seventeenth century, they were maintained not for the public but for the use of the Government. Not until the East India Company ceased to be, and the English Government took over the whole business of administration, was a really efficient postal service organised. The broad lines of the British postal system are followed in India, though the postal and telegraph administrations are separated. In the annual report you will find elaborate tables of Post Office figures, and records which have been beaten, and until you come to the section dealing with the postal incidents during the year you might fancy you were reading a report of the British Postmaster-General. It is the table of incidents which reveals to us what service in India means to the postal servant. The figures and official language of the report do not hide from us the enormous difficulties in working the service in an immense country of over 150 separate languages, where railway journeys are reckoned by days, and where caste enters even into Post Office questions. One of the special Indian conditions is the prevalence of plague; post offices are sometimes removed temporarily from this cause, and accommodation is found in tents. Money is given to officers who have displayed special courage in the face of exceptional risks, or it is given to the surviving representatives of men who died of plague while in the execution of their duty.