Page:The life and letters of Sir John Henniker Heaton bt. (IA lifelettersofsi00port).pdf/246

 out that this action was utterly indefensible. I asked him to remember that he makes a profit of from £10,000 to £12,000 a year on lost postal orders, but not satisfied with that he levies a heavy commission on poundage of postal orders not presented for payment within three months. No Shylock of modern times charges interest on money deposited in his keeping. Yet on presenting these two postal orders for 3s. 6d., each drawn on November 5, 1890, the Post Office offered to pay them if 7s. 2d. was first paid for poundage! The holder had inadvertently left them in his desk, and found them two years ago. I had to tell our Postmaster-General that no Levantine Greek had ever dreamt of such rapacity as exhibited by his department in this case—that is charging 100 per cent. for keeping the man's money and profiting by it.

I am glad to say Lord Stanley passed an Act last Session abolishing for ever the charge, and only exacting one extra poundage for a delayed postal order. I have relieved my pocket-book of my old friends, the two postal orders, and gone for ever is another legitimate grievance.

October 24th, 1904.

In looking over old papers of H. H.'s it is remarkable to see how greatly the relations between him and the postal officials were softened under the mellowing influence of time. Where there was at first only bitterness and strife—"the severe, the ascetic, the impregnable Mr Cecil Raikes"—at the end we find no small degree of mutual sympathy and the respect of worthy antagonists. It may be that the great factor—in public not less than in private life—personal acquaintance had something to do with the