"The Bristol Royal Mail"

My Christmas present to myself this year was a copy of "The Bristol Royal Mail" by R.C. Tombs, published in 1900.  As well as details of the Bristol post, here are a few extracts that I found amusing, interesting or downright gruesome.

On Christmas:  "The inflow of Christmas cards is pretty evenly dispersed over the earlier days of the season, but the great rush comes on the night of the 23rd and the morning of the 24th of the month.  ...  The Christmas season is departmentally regarded as consisting of the days from the 20th of the month to Christmas Day, the 25th inclusive"

On Valentine's Day:  "One of the many changes that have taken place in the manners and customs of the people as affecting the Post Office is very noticeable as regards the observance of St. Valentine's Day.  Thirty years ago the votaries of the patron saint, in their thousands, vied with each other, year after year, to honour his memory, and make the Post Office the medium of sending to every close friend some kind of love token ... Only too often, however, the day was made the occasion to strike a blow at the fickly lover by means of some gross caricature.  On the eve of St. Valentine the energies of the staff were formerly greatly taxed to get rid of the enormous piles of packets which flooded the various receptacles in the city.  All this is, however, changed; the occasion now passes by almost unnoticed in the sorting office and by the postman."

On the Postal Service Staff:  "To become  a perfect all-round postal clerk a man must possess  intelligence, must be cool, fertile in expedient, have  a retentive memory, and withal be quick and active  He must know how to primarily sort, sub-divide,  and despatch letters. He must have a good  knowledge of Post Oflice circulation and be able  to bear in mind the names of the smallest  places—hamlets, etc.-in the kingdom, the varying  circulations for different periods of the day, and  the rates of postage of all articles sent through  the post. He must be able to detect the short-paid  letter, and to deal with the ordinary letter, the  large letter, the unpaid, the registered, the foreign,  the “dead.” insufliciently addressed, the oflicial,  the fragile, the insured, the postcard (single and reply), the letter card, the newspaper,  the book-packet, and the circular (the definition  of which is very difiicult).  He is responsible  for the correct sortation of every letter that he deals with, and he has to be expert in tying letters  in bundles. He has to cast the unpaid postage and  enter the correct account on the letter bill; take charge of registered letter bags and loose registered  letters, and advise them on the letter bill; see to the correct labelling, tying, and sealing of the mail bags  he makes up; checlr the despatch of mails on the bag list; dispose of his letters by a given time, the  hours of the despatch of mails being fixed. In consequence, he often has to work under great  pressure in order to finish in time. The postal clerk has to surcharge unpaid and insufliciently prepaid correspondence; to see that all postage stamps are  carefully obliterated, that the rules of the different  posts are not infringed; to attend to the regulations  relating to official correspondence. He has to decipher imperfectly and insufliciently addressed correspondence, search official and other directories  to trace proper addresses. In addition to all this  he has in turn to serve at the public counter, and there attend to money order, savings bank, postal order, and other items of business of the kind."

On the dangers associated with servicing the Post:  "It was on that  railway that in 1890 a sad occurrence happened at Watford, when a young man whilst in the discharge  of his duties as fireman lost his life. The deceased was leaning over the side of his engine, which was stationary, watching for the signals to be turned, when the day mail train from London dashed by.  The travelling Post Ofiice apparatus net which had  picked up a pouch at a point a few score yards away was still extended and it struck the unfortunate young man on the head, completely severing it from  the body. The poor fellow’s cap was torn from his  head by the apparatus net and fell into the travelling  Post Office carriages with the mail pouches much to the consternation of the travelling sorters, who found evidence of the mutilation on the apparatus framework. The net was only down for the short space  of ten seconds. The travelling oflicials first heard full details of the accident on their arrival at Tring, where the train next stopped."