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

Photo Clarke & Hyde. THE PARCEL POST HOSPITAL. This is a section of the Parcel Post Hospital. The official is busy packing up again a parcel which has been carelessly posted. The baskets are behind him, and all manner of strange articles are sometimes found loose in them. Rats are occasionally very troublesome visitors in the Sorting Office: they are doubtless attracted by the many toothsome morsels contained in the parcels. It would seem, therefore, that cats should form a portion of the staff of every Parcel Office. The cat, however, is an animal capable of rapid demoralisation. It has been found from experience that a lazy cat will find it less irksome to feed off a pair of partridges or a pair of soles not properly packed than to wait and watch in holes and corners for rats. Besides, rats are everyday food. I am afraid that when the only thing which can be delivered to the addressee is a label with the intelligence on the back, “Found loose in Parcel Office,” the cat knows something of the contents. What is the answer of the Department to unreasonable people who, not satisfied with the explanation on the label, demand their parcels? Something to this effect: “Exhaustive inquiry has been made, but the parcel cannot be traced. There is no legal obligation to pay compensation for any loss or damage to unregistered parcels, but the Postmaster-General voluntarily, and as an act of grace, has seen fit to pay compensation in this particular instance up to cost price of the goods.” Such compensation in unregistered parcels must never exceed £2.