Page:The Post Office of Fifty Years Ago.djvu/91

Rh manifest that errors must frequently arise. There is also an obvious danger of extensive frauds on the Revenue from collusion between some of the Deputy Post-masters and those whose duty it is to charge them with the postage. The examination of each letter by a candle too, by revealing the contents, creates temptations to theft, which have too often been irresistible. In the Appendix will be found some proofs that the dangers here contemplated exist in practice.

This liability to error and fraud renders it highly important that some sufficient check on the operations under consideration should be practised. The fact is, however, that no such check exists, the only security being in the conscientiousness of the Deputy Post-masters, whose duty it is, on receipt of their bags, to examine the charges placed to their accounts, and to correct any error which they may discover.

Mr. D. W. Stow, an officer of the Post Office, when asked by the Commissioners of Revenue Inquiry, "What is the longest operation in preparing the letters for delivery, the stamping, sorting, or taking the accounts?" replies, "Taking the accounts, because it leads to a difference very often which might retard the operation: the stamping is a mere mechanical thing, as well as the examination."

There can be no doubt that the chief sources of