Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

HIS MAJESTY’S MAILS. evenings, the Indian mail. The carriage of the mails by the packet service costs the Government nearly £25,000 a year, and in cases of delay the Post Office has the right to fine the contracting company £$ for twenty minutes, and £$ for every additional fifteen minutes. The London to Dover mail train has a sorting carriage attached every night, but on Fridays the number of bags carried is greatly in excess of other days. The bags of the Indian mail not infrequently number over 1,800, each one of which weighs on an average 50 lb. They do not all come down to Dover by the same train or cross by the same boat, but they unite at Calais, and cross the Continent to Brindisi in charge of a man from the London office. The total number of persons employed in the Post Office in the United Kingdom is over 173,000, of whom about 35,000 are women. Of these, by far the larger pro- portion deal with his Majesty’s mails, either solely or in addition to telegraph, money order, and savings bank duties. 1 he parcel post comes, of course, under our title, but it calls for no special treat- ment, as in so many ways the parcel is governed by the same conditions as the letter, and we have always included it in the term “ postal packet.” The number of parcels conveyed by the Post Office in one year, according to the most recent return, is 81,017,000, and a large number of these are carried on the back of the long-suffering- postman ; yet there are critics of the Post Office who have complained of the gait of the average postman; they have asserted that he does not carry himself well, that he seems depressed, and takes a cynical view of things. Both mentally and physically he seems overburdened with the responsibility and the weight of “ His Majesty’s Mails.” Edward Bennett. SHIPPING THE MAILS AT DOVER.