The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance

And how does all the correspondence for the Secretary at headquarters find its way to its proper quarter for treatment? There is a branch called the Registry, in which every letter or communication of any importance is registered on receipt--that is, it receives a number, the name of the writer is indexed, and the subject of his letter recorded. The number of officers employed in the Registry is 73; and the original papers passing through the branch in the way stated exceed 320,000 annually. From this branch every morning the papers for treatment are distributed over the Secretariat, each officer receiving the papers proper to his duty. Nor does the business of the Registry end here, for every case--each separate set of papers on a subject is called a case--is recorded again whenever sent elsewhere, so that its destination can be traced. Were this not done, laggard postmasters, or persons acting from base or interested motives, might find it convenient not to return the papers, and so by silence end them. Sometimes a single case will go backwards and forwards thirty or forty times, yet its whole history of travel is recorded. This is the routine which some people call red tape. In dealing in this way with large masses of correspondence, each atom of which has to receive its due share of brain-attention, there is necessarily some degree of retardation; and it may be remarked that, between this process and the law in mechanics, under which, other things being equal, a gain of power is accompanied by a loss of speed, there exists a strong analogy. But by this classification and division of labour it is possible to bring about results which could not be achieved by a much larger staff under any plan of desultory working.