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

If the high officials of the Post Office have included men who are known in other than Civil Service circles, this is equally true of the clerical establishment. Among them have been authors, artists, sculptors, and musicians. “The extra subject” may or may not help them in their official careers; it certainly enables them to sustain with greater philosophy the routine and the disappointments of office life. Mr. Alfred Parsons, R.A., was a Savings Bank clerk early in his career; so was during many years Mr. W. W. Jacobs, the author of Many Cargoes and Sea Urchins. A growing proportion of the permanent clerical staff consists of women. At present they are restricted mainly to the account work of the Department; they keep the ledgers of the Savings Bank, they do work in the Money Order and Postal Order offices, and in the Accountant-General's Department. Their scales of pay are as a rule considerably lower than those of the men clerks, and hitherto they have been employed by the State mainly on account of economy. But the women have great ambitions; they have an association, the chief demand of which is equal pay for men and women, and entrance to the Service by the same examination. The advance and success of the woman's movement have had a great influence on the ambitions and hopes of the women clerks, and female employment in the Post Office is probably entering on a new phase. The economical advantage to the State is already not so marked as it used to be, as the commencing salaries of large numbers of the male staff have been reduced, and there is one department at least where the women in their earlier years of service are paid higher salaries than are large numbers of the men. If this latter policy is pursued it means the beginning of a revolution and the upsetting of the old-fashioned social order. The women do their work excellently, and they only ask to be allowed to establish their claim to be able to perform the highest duties that are given to clerks in the Post Office. The women also, it will be seen, are becoming possessed by esprit de corps, the note of the permanent staff of the General Post Office.