Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057352).pdf/452

 444 SUL the requisite arrangements, the main principles laid down for their guid- ance being that the thána and tahsil officials should, as far as possible, be relieved of postal duties that a system of independent rural offices should be established, and that there should be a postal delivery in every village. Simultaneously therefore with the introduction of the revised assess- ments into any pargana or tabsil a postal scheme satisfying the above condition was introduced therein, and at the end of last year was in opera- tion throughout the whole district with the exception of pargana Chanda. The working of the scheme was originally placed in the hands of the district officer, but in 1871 with a view to the improvement of the postal service, the district post establishment throughout the province was rcorganized as a separate institution, and the control and management was formally transferred to the Chief Inspector of Post-offices in Oudh. Certsin modifications of previously existing arrangements naturally sug- gested themselves in the substitution of a single homogeneous scheme for one composed of sections constructed independently of cach other and at different periods to keep pace with the revision of assessment. The system as it at present stands may be briefly thus described. There is an Im- perial office at the civil station, which forms the connecting link between the internal and external postal lines; and rural offices have been fixed at the headquarters of each tahsil and at such other places within it as offer themost convenient sites, viz.,Ramnia, Amcthi, Gauriganj, Píparpur, Musafir- khana, Jagdíspur, Kishni, Gaura Jámún, Kádipur, Dostpur, Kuraibhár. At Khairabad, Hanománganj, and Munshiganj ofices have recently been abo- lished; at these places letter-boxes will continue to be kept up. The neighbouring stations with which Sultanpur is connected by Im- perial lines are those of Allahabad, Lucknow, Fyzabad, and Raė Bareli, communication with which is effected by means of foot runners; any more expeditious meaus of transit for the mails being still among the desiderata of the future, and dependent on correspondence with a concomitant increase of the postal revenues. The transmission of mails from one rural office to another is carried on by the same means. For the delivery of letters each office bias attached to it the requisite number of peons or rural nessengers; to each of these a separate circle is allotted, within which it is his duty to distribute the incoming letters so received from the Postmaster. He is also furnished with a "travelling letter-box," so that he may at the same time collect any letters intended for outward despatch. The agency employed is of a mixed character, partly imperial and partly local. The imperial office at Sultanpur has been already mentioned; others were placed some years ago at Jagdispur and Dostpur, and others have recently been placed experimentally af Amethi and Musáfirkhana. All charges connected with these are mct from the imperial revenues. The local agency consists of all but that just described; the income, from which the cost it entails has to be defrayed is derived from two sources, viz., the special cess levied expressly for this purpose and a subvention