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

Sir Rowland was a fighter and reformer to the last. Like all men who accomplish great things, he was exceedingly self-confident and impatient of opposition. The official mind works from precedent to precedent, and Sir Rowland proposed to make all things new. Effort after effort was made to push him aside without any lasting success. He was dismissed from the Treasury in the second year of penny postage, at a time when its very success seemed to depend on friends, not foes, directing the organisation. Thomas Hood wrote to him: “I have seen so many instances of folly and ingratitude similar to those you have met with that it would never surprise me to hear of the railway people, some day, finding their trains running on so well, proposing to discharge the engines.” It was more in obedience to the feeling of the country than to any liking for the reformer that the Government of the day appointed him to the Post Office four years after his dismissal from the Treasury. Sir Rowland was always perhaps a little uncomfortable as a Post Office chief. He was in the midst of men against whom he had been working for years, and there are many stories in existence of his caustic way of dealing with his staff. Anthony Trollope, who was in the service of the Post Office at the time, ventured one day to point out to Sir Rowland that the language in a certain report, if literally construed, might be held to mean what was not intended. Sir Rowland replied: “You must be aware, Mr. Trollope, that a phrase is not always intended to bear a literal construction. For instance, when I write to one of you gentlemen, I end my letter with the words, 'I am, Sir, your obedient servant,' whereas you know I am nothing of the sort.” Indeed nobody could have used this official phrase with less sincerity than Sir Rowland Hill.