Page:Notes by the Way.djvu/290

 220

��NOTES BY THE WAY.

��Fifty- Second Keport.

��Increase in

post cards

and parcel

post.

��Carelessness of the public.

��Foreign

postage :

Napoleon

III.

��Imperial Penny Postage.

��1847 this amounted to 10,600?., which in 1848 was reduced to 5,745?. In 1849 there was a profit of 322?. ; in 1850, of 3,236?. ; while in 1856 the profit amounted to 22,674?. The Report contains an appeal to the Metropolitan Board of Works to improve the nomenclature of London.

The Fifty-Second Report of the Postmaster-General shows the net revenue for the year ending the 31st of March, 1906, from the postal and telegraph services combined, to be 4,514,207?. If the interest on the capital expended on the purchase of the telegraphs be taken into account, the net profit was 4,235,724?., or 604,944?. more than in the previous year. The total number of letters delivered amounted to 2,707,200,000, showing, on a population of 43,321,928, an average to each person of 62. The newspapers delivered amounted to 185,400,000, being an average of 4'3 to each person ; and the number of express deliveries was 1,578,746. The number of telegrams was 89,478,000 ; this, although showing an increase on the previous year, is not so high as it was in 1900-1 or 1902-3, when there was a considerable increase. This diminu- tion is no doubt due to the use of the telephone.

The number of post cards has increased from 336,500,000, which gave an average of 8'5 to each person in 1896-7, to 800,300,000 in 1905-6, giving an average of 18" 5 to each. The parcel post has increased from 63,715,000 in 1896-7 to 101,682,000 in 1905-6 ; this, after paying 55 per cent on railway-borne parcels to the companies, amounting to 996,449?., yields as the Post Office share 1,142,224?.

The carelessness of the public with regard to letters with valuable contents is surprising. The number of letters with valuable contents with no address at all amounted to 4,599 ; one of these contained cheques to the value of 2,500?., while the others totalled in cash and bank-notes 9,966?. In addition to these there were 320,041 registered letters insufficiently addressed ; these contained 16,887?. in cash and bank-notes, and 656,845?. in bills, cheques, money orders, and stamps.

As regards foreign postage, the 2%d. rate to France was introduced on the 1st of January, 1876. The previous rates were 3d. for a third of an ounce, and 3d. for each additional third. It should not be forgotten that to Napoleon III. was due the reduction of the postage between England and France from 8c?. to 4d. This was done by the postal treaty of the 1st of January, 1855. France was the first country to make the change, the others retaining their old charges of 8d. and more.

The Report contains good information as to the development of Imperial Penny Postage, which now extends, so far as outward letters are concerned, to the whole of the Empire (with the excep-

�� �