Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/600

Rh 578 P O S T-O F F I C E [BRITISH COLONIES. establishment of improved mail-coaches and of well-organized mail- routes, under John Palmer of Bath ; (1821) first conveyance of mails by steam-packet ; (1830) first mail-coach by railway ; (1834, August) postage stamp invented at Dundee by James Chalmers ; (1835) establishment of the overland route to India, mainly by exertions of Lieutenant Waghorn ; (1837) Sir R. Hill s postal reform initiated ; (1838) establishment of postal money-order office ; (1840, January) general and uniform penny post (per half ounce) established; (1855, March) first street letter-box put up in London ; (1855, June) book-post organized ; (1856) metropolitan postal dis tricts established and Postal Guide issued; (1861) postal savings banks instituted ; (1870) transfer of telegraphs to the state ; (1870) postal cards introduced ; (1870) improved postal treaty with Napoleon III. concluded ; (1871) postal unit of charge reduced to one penny per ounce ; (1874) International Postal Union estab lished at Bern ; (1875) further consolidation of the post-office statutes; (1881, January) postal orders issued; (1883, August) parcel post established ; (1884, October) entrance of the Australian colonies into the Postal Union. Bibliography. John Hill, Penny Post, or a Vindication of the Liberty of every Englishman incarrying Letters, against any Restraint of Farmers of such Employ ment, 1659; &quot;The Case of the Officers of His Majesty s Penny Post,&quot; in the Ninth Report of the Commissioners on the Post-Office Department, 1698; &quot; Post- Office, &quot; in Reports on the Revenues of the Crown, 1811 sq. ; &quot; Post-Office,&quot; in Re ports of the Commissioners of the Revenue Inquiry, 1826-30; Reports of the Com missioners ... on the Management of the Post-Office, 1835-38; Rowland Hill, Post- Office Reform: its Importance ami Practicability, 1837 (three editions in 1837; reprinted in the Postal Gazette, 18S4) ; Reports of [Commons ] Select Committee on Postage, 1837-38 ; Papers issued by the Mercantile Committee on Postage, 1839 ; Post Circular, ed. by Henry Cole ; Correspondence on Post-Office Reform, ed. by R. Hill, 1843 ; R. Hill, State and Prospects of Penny Postage ; Reports of Postmaster- General, 1855-84 (annually); Post-Office Gu ide (quarterly, by authority), 1856-85 ; Postal Official Circular (a. revised re-issue of an earlier publication entitled Daily Packet List), 1858-85 ; W. Lewin, Her Majesty s Mails: an Account of the British Post-Office, 1864 ; R. Hill, History of Penny Postage (appended to G. B. Hill s Life of Sir R. Hill), 1880; P. Chalmers, The Penny Postage Scheme of 1837 : was it an Invention or a Copy? 1881, and The Position of Sir R. Hill made plain, 1882 (with many other tracts by the same author during 1SS2-84); Pearson Hill, A Reply to Mr Chalmers; Henry Fawcett, The Post-Office and Aids to Thrift, 1881. BRITISH COLONIES AND DEPENDENCIES. Australia Australia and New Zealand. In 1873 there were 2668 post- and New offices open; 38,930,852 letters (including South Australian and Zealand. New Zealand packets) and 22,018,483 newspapers and packets were transmitted ; 303,741 money orders, amounting to 754,847, were issued ; there were 185,202 depositors in the post-office savings banks, whose deposits amounted to 2,081,288 ; over 20,559 miles of telegraph lines were open ; 2,100,272 messages were transmitted, from which an income of 211,276 was derived, while the expendi ture (exclusive of South Australia) amounted to 186,681. Western Australia is omitted from these figures owing to the inadequacy of the Government returns. These figures, compared with the population of 1873, show that over 18 letters and over 10 news papers and packets per head were transmitted ; that money orders were issued to 1 in about every 7 persons, at an average value of nearly 2, 10s. per order ; that deposits in the post-office savings banks averaged a little over 1 in 11 of the entire population, at an average value of 11, 4s. per deposit ; that of telegraph messages there was about one to each person. In 1883 there were 4410 post-offices open ; 123,614,387 letters and post-cards, 10,434,461 packets, and 60,889,570 newspapers (in cluding South Australian packets) were transmitted ; the revenue of the postal department amounted to 1,057,100, and the expendi ture to 1,287,679 ; 783,701 money orders were issued, amounting to 2,608,915 ; there were 254,510 depositors in the post-office savings banks, and their deposits amounted to 4,537,706 ; there were over 57,174 miles of telegraph, and 7,083,163 messages were transmitted, the value of which was estimated at 476,683; the expenditure of the telegraph departments amounted to 345,590, but it must be explained that the Victorian, South Australian, and West Australian expenditures were included in those of the postal departments. These figures, compared with the population of 1883, show that there were transmitted per head nearly 40 letters and post-cards, and over 23 newspapers and packets ; to every third person a money order was issued, at an average value of about 3, 6s. 6d. per order; the number of deposits in the post-office savings banks averaged about 1 in every 12 of the population, and their average value was over 17, 6s. per deposit ; the telegraph messages were transmitted at the rate of rather more than two messages to each person. Canada. Canada. During the year which ended on 30th June 1884 the number of letters conveyed by the mails throughout the Dominion of Canada was 66,100,000 as against 62,800,000 in the correspond ing year 1883 ; that of post-cards was 13,580,000 as against 12,940,000. The number of letters registered was 3,000,000 against 2,650,000. The number of money orders issued was 463,502, their aggregate value being 2,068,726. Of this amount 1,638,060 was for inland orders, 430,666 for foreign orders. The number of Canadian post-offices was 6837 against 6395 in 1883 ; the length of postal routes open was 47,131 miles, showing an increase over the previous year of 2488 miles. The distance traversed thereon by the mails in 1884 was 20,886,316 miles. Of the 6837 post- offices 866 were also money-order offices. In 1884 international money orders were extended to the principal countries of the Postal Union and to all British possessions abroad. In 1884 the amount of foreign money orders paid in Canada was 252,600. In 1884 the number of post-office savings banks was 343, the number of depositors accounts 66,682 (an increase of 5623 over 1883), and total amount in deposit 2,650,000. India. In order to illustrate the growth of the post-office in Indi; India we give the salient statistics for 1873 and 1883. In British India and the native states the total number of post-offices in 1883 was 5310, showing an increase of 2304 since 1873. In 1883 the number of letters of all descriptions that passed through the post- office was 135,709,147, in 1873 it was 83,127,098. Post-cards were not issued until 1880, when they numbered 7,471,984, which number had increased to 29,844,347 in 1883. In the last-quoted year 18,501,171 newspapers, parcels, and packets passed through the post and 10,030,216 in 1873. In 1883 2,565,904 postal money orders, representing a value of 6,468,418, were issued. Adding the number of money orders to the total of letters, newspapers, &c., for the year 1883 we obtain an aggregate of 186,620,569, equal to 73 per head of population. Post-office savings banks were opened in India on 1st April 1882 ; during the first year the deposits reached a total of 435,356, or including interest (4902) 440,258. Deposits amounting to 160,578 were withdrawn during the year, leaving a balance of 279,680 on 31st March 1883. The total length of Government telegraph lines increased from 46,386 miles in 1873 to 84,700 miles in 1883. The expenditure in both years under consideration exceeded the receipts : whilst in 1873 the figures were respectively 704,193 and 677,047, in 1883 they were 983,779 and 971,639. (E.ED.) UNITED STATES. The early history 1 of the post-office in the British Earl; colonies in North America has been briefly referred to histc above (pp. 565, 566). Benjamin Franklin was removed by the home department from his office of postmaster- general in America in 1774. On 26th July 1775 the American Congress assumed direction of the post-offices, re-appointing Franklin to his former post. Shortly after wards, when Franklin was sent as ambassador to France, his son-in-law, Richard Bache, was made postmaster- general in November 1775. In 1789 the number of post-offices was 75, in 1800 903, Gro^ in 1825 5677, in 1875 35,734, and in 1884 50,017. In 1789 the gross revenues of the postal service were $30,000, in 1800 $280,804. In 1860 the gross revenues had in creased to $8,518,067 and in 1875 to $26,671,218. In 1884 they amounted to $43,338,127&quot;08. In 1860 there was a deficit in the postal income of $10,652,542 59, occasioned through lavish expenditure and then existing abuses. Annual deficiencies had occurred for nine years previous to 1860, and continued for twenty-one years thereafter. In 1882 a surplus of $1,394,388-92 was shown, and in 1883 a profit of $1,001, 281 -83. The percentage of deficit continued steadily to decrease after 1860, and in 1882, for the first time in thirty-one years, the postal service ceased to be a burden upon the treasury. It is not to be doubted that adverse natural conditions operated for many years to prevent or to postpone this favourable result, among them the vast extent of territory embraced within the confines of the republic, entailing costly service over long routes, and the extraordinarily rapid development of the western States and Territories, conditions which militate against the United States in a comparison of the statistics of its postal service during that period with those of the service of countries having more limited areas. Until 1863 the rates of postage were based upon the distances over which the mails were conveyed. In 1846 these rates were not exceeding 300 miles, three cents ; exceeding 300 miles, ten cents. In 1851 the rates were reduced to three cents for distances not exceeding 3000 miles and ten cents for distances exceeding 3000 miles. The use of adhesive postage stamps was first authorized 1 For early statistics (1790-1856) of the United States post-office, see Ency. Brit., 8th ed., vol. xviii. pp. 419, 420.