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

In the Foreign Parcel Post the objections are more detailed. For instance, you must not send to Belgium any game out of season, and arms and ammunition are refused by this and most other countries. Cuba dislikes naturally dead animals and insects, and Denmark objects to any potatoes which come from North America. The Falkland Islands put in a protest with which we shall sympathise against “shoddy and disused clothing”: to receive it would obviously imply that in the Islands you can wear anything. Greece wisely suspects sausages, and Persia declines all “articles offensive to good manners or to the Mussulman religion.” Persia evidently wishes by her regulations to give the impression that she is highly sensitive to comme il faut. A Tom Tit's nest was built in the bottom of this letter-box and three young birds were successfully reared in it. Have I not made out my case, that the Post Office Guide is almost as interesting as Bradshaw? At any rate there is no doubt that, from the point of view of the long-suffering official, the British public are in need of a Postal Guide. I am quite sure that in the eyes of the average counter clerk the British public is the most over-rated institution in the country. There seems at times no limit to its wrongheadedness and obtuseness on postal matters. There is, I am afraid, very often a great deal of truth in the charges that are often brought against postal counter clerks, especially female clerks, for incivility. I am not defending them— I have suffered myself; but a great deal too much is made of single instances, and I am convinced that in the vast majority of cases the charge does not apply. There are four classes of public servants who have my special sympathy: policemen, railway officials at big passenger stations, omnibus conductors, and Post Office counter clerks. They are all answering foolish questions the whole day long.