Page:The Post Office of Fifty Years Ago.djvu/137



The following extracts are from the Eighteenth Report of the Commissioners of Revenue Inquiry.

"It is also to be observed, that upon the taxation of letters in the evening there is no check, there being no examination similar to that which takes place in the morning in the Inland Office, and the duty of the tellers being confined to a computation of the general amount of the postage chargeable against each Deputy Post-master.

"The species of control which is exercised over the Deputy Post-masters is little more than nominal; and its defectiveness will be more fully seen hereafter from the necessary remarks upon the practice incidental to it in other offices. We therefore felt the more desirous to ascertain what degree of protection this portion of the revenue had derived from the practical conduct of the business relating to it in the Inland Department. An examination of the letter bill books, for this purpose, disclosed a series of inaccuracies, in the charges raised against the Deputy Post-masters in that department, far exceeding that frequency of