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

The General Post Office has altered very much in its methods since those days, but the care with which it evidently sifted a claim for increase of pay two hundred years ago is equally marked to-day if we are to believe the almost unanimous verdict of Post Office servants. Certainly this particular concession does not appear to have been extravagant. We are reminded indeed of the waiter's remark to David Copperfield, “Never mind the ink; I lose by that.” The Bristol Post Office has advanced since those days. Even so late as 1855, the staff numbered only 80; at the present time it is considerably over 1500. The smaller towns show similar increases in proportion to their population. Even where the population is stationary, there is increase: the post office is more in request by the inhabitants. Rarely, indeed, is there a tale to tell of decline. There is one curious instance in recent years of a Head Office being reduced to the rank of a sub-office on account of bad times, and it is curious because the explanation lies back in the mail coaching days. Bawtry is the first town in Yorkshire, on the Great North Road, and it was here that in olden times the High Sheriff of the county was accustomed to meet kings and queens on their journey to the north, welcome them to Yorkshire, and escort them through the county. The town flourished in the coaching days: it has a magnificent wide street, fine old inns, but it never adapted itself to the modern conditions. Scarcely a house has been added to the town during sixty years. Nevertheless Bawtry struggled gamely on as a Head Post Office on the strength mainly of its former importance, and possibly because of a sentimental objection at headquarters to deal hardly with a town distinguished in Post Office history. But facts had to be faced, and in the Post Office Circular of the 13th March 1900, sentence was pronounced in these cold words: “On and from the 15th March Bawtry will be reduced to the rank of a railway sub-office under Doncaster.” “The calamity of railways” had been Bawtry's misfortune, and there was something distinctly cruel in her new designation.