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

The Post Office has from the earliest times drawn upon the boy population of this country to do a large portion of its work. The postboys were carrying letters across country three hundred years ago, though in many cases the term “boy” was merely an official designation, and the individual was nearer his second than his first childhood. The labour is cheap— that of course is an advantage in the eyes of the Treasury— but there is also a peculiar fitness in the employment of the young in work which above all things demands quickness, alertness, and a capacity for endurance. We are approaching the end of our story, and it may not be out of place in this last chapter to say a few words concerning the Post Office as a whole, worked not by machinery but by human beings. Now what is called “the system” in human concerns influences more or less every individual. If you are a grocer “the system” is with you; the custom, the habit, and the public opinion of your trade will grow upon you, and your individuality and personal enterprise may in the end be crushed by “the system.” So it is in the Post Office; nearly all the irritation which the public exhibits occasionally towards the Department is due to the fact that the official they have been dealing with is controlled by “the system.” And the larger, the more powerful the body, the greater is the power of “the system” over the individual. The outward and visible sign of the domination of “the system” is “red tape,” and it is found in the grocer's shop as well as in the Post Office.