Chap. VII Street Life — The Post-office
LONDON AND THE OCEAN.—HOW YOU MAY ATTACK THE REPUTATION OF EITHER.—THE METROPOLIS “EN NEGLIGEE.”—THE POST-OFFICE.—THE MODERN LETTER-WRITER.—MONEY ORDERS.—PENNY STAMPS, THEIR USE AND ABUSE.—JOHN BULL AND THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER.—HOW MR. BULL IMPOSES UPON THAT RESPECTABLE FUNCTIONARY.—WHAT IS A NEWSPAPER?—THE GREAT HALL OF THE POST-OFFICE AT SIX P.M.
“Did you ever see the ocean?” said I, some time ago, to a Vienna friend, as by accident we met in Cheapside. Not far from the spot where from Newgate-street the passenger turns off to the Bank, there is a crossing of some of the most crowded streets. We stood on the pavement waiting for an opportunity, or a stoppage among the vehicles, to make a rush to the opposite side. “Well,” said I; “Did you ever see the ocean.”
“In a way!” replied my countryman, producing a cigar; and in a moment a match-seller was by his side offering his inflammable wares. “In a manner,” repeated my countryman, as he lit his cigar. “Of course I did not come by land from St. Stephen’s Place, in Old Vienna. I did cross a piece of salt water as far as I can remember; but that confounded sea-sickness got hold of my stomach, and made me blind to the marvels of the ocean. And—between you and me—I can’t say I was much taken with what I could see. I’ve read a deal about the sea, the wide and open sea, and all its glories. But it’s all humbug, that’s what it is; or, if you would rather, it’s poetic fancy. Water, after all, is but water. And, as for the sharks, you can’t see them. There wasn’t even such a thing as a storm. The lakes of Ischl are quite as green as the channel, and, perhaps, a shade greener. And last year, when I was on the Platten Lake, on my honour! I could not see to the opposite shore. Water, after all, is but water; and a few miles, more or less, make no difference that I can see. Besides, you only see a certain portion. That’s my opinion.”
O good and honest Viennese! I stopped my countryman, who was just taking a desperate leap into the road. No doubt he would have reached the opposite pavement in safety; but I stopped him, for I wanted a pretence for shaking hands with him. A Berlin man would never have deigned to declare that the ocean is a humbug, even though he had never gone beyond the bridges of the Spree or Havel river at Potsdam. Humbug has no existence for the real Berlin man, who has been reared in the superlative; and, besides, how can a Berliner, with all his contempt for authority, ever plead guilty to considering an important phenomenon, one which has been established ever since the days of the Great Elector, with less poesy than Henry Heine, and with less interest than Alexander von Humboldt. A Berliner would certainly have held forth on the “absolute idea,” or the “relative nothing,” or the “subjective view of space”; even though he never felt anything like the meaning of those hard words, and even if, within his secret heart, he had thought exactly as the Viennese did before he got sea-sick. There are things which a Berliner would rather die than say in public.
But my readers are justly entitled to ask what could induce me to connect Cheapside with the first impressions which a continental mind receives of the sea. The association of the two ideas is not by any means so absurd as some very sapient Germans may think. The first impressions which London makes on the stranger’s mind are similar to his first impressions of the sea. They are not overwhelming. “A town, after all, is but a town”; that’s what my Viennese friend would say. “There are as fine houses in Vienna and Berlin, and some are more imposing. Brewer’s drays, foot-passengers, cabs, omnibuses, and policemen—we have them all. A town, after all, is but a town. A few miles, more or less, make no difference. You can’t see it all at once!”
But it so happens that my countryman, thanks to the intervention of some friends, gets a place as engineer, at Folkestone. Between ourselves, he is a refugee. But what German, of our days, is not a refugee, or likely to be one? The Germans are a nation of traitors just now; therefore.... No offence.
Now my friend passes his leisure hours on the beach. He looks at the dark waters, and the white spray, and the waves which break at his feet. The waves come and go, and keep coming and going, alternately large and small, fast and slow. At one point they shoot smoothly over the yellow sand; at another they break with a thundering motion against the granite blocks of the jetty, flinging their spray over the stone parapet; and where my friend sits, the waves wash up shells and curious stones, and strange sea-weed, and withered leaves of sub-marine plants and shrubs; and the tides turn, coming in and going out, and the demon of the storm disports itself in the blackened air. The sea is dark and seething, and the fishing-boats, with their masts creaking and groaning, hasten up and down the waves to the gates of the harbour. The water in the very harbour is moved to and fro in violent convulsions; monster clouds, fringed with lightish gray, are driven landwards day and night; are confounded in the gloomy tints of the ocean, which groans and raves, and engulphs its victims, until its strength is exhausted. And the moon breaks through the clouds, preaching peace with her pallid demure face; and the waves are converted by the sentimental saint, and again rush playfully along the sand of the beach; and again they wash shells, and curious stones, and strange sea-weed, and withered leaves of sub-marine plants to the feet of my friend, who, overwhelmed with the spectacle, sits staring on vacancy.
“But you are quite wet, and really you look very sentimental, my dear countryman from the banks of the Danube! Water, after all, is but water! I hope you haven’t seen a shark? The lakes of Ischl are just as green as the sea, and perhaps a shade greener. A few miles more or less—what does it matter? A good deal of humbug about it, isn’t there?”
“You are malicious, Doctor. On my honour, very malicious! One ought to look at that pool for a year or so to know what it really is.”
Pilgrim from the land of passports, when you come to this giant town, in which traffic built its living dykes in every street then do not, in the name of all that is candid, be ashamed to appear, for three days at least, as an unfeeling callous creature. Make no secret of your thoughts. A few houses more or less cannot make an impression on a truly reasonable man!
But, friend stranger, stand for an hour or two leaning against the iron gate of Bow-church, Cheapside, or take up your position on the steps of the Royal Exchange. Do, as my countryman does in lonely Folkstone; let the waves of the great city rush past you, now murmuringly, now thunderingly, now fast, now slow, as crowds press on crowds, and vehicles on vehicles, as the streams of traffic break against every street corner and spread through the arterial system of the lanes and allies; as the knot of men, horses and vehicles get entangled almost at every point where the large streets join and cross, to move and heave and spin round, and get disentangled again, and again entangled. After such a review only can you realise the idea of the greatness of London.
It is said of a stranger, who came to London for the first time and took his quarters in one of the most crowded city streets, that he remained standing at the door the whole of the first day of his London existence, because he waited “until the crowd had gone.” A man who would do that ought to rise and go to bed with the owl. It is this which, after a prolonged stay in London so moves our admiration, that there is no stop, no rest, no pause in the street-life throughout the busy day.
In smaller towns, too, there are occasions or times when the streets are crowded in the extreme. The trottoirs of the Paris Boulevards are charming places, and on a beautiful evening they are as crowded, and even more so than the pavements of the London streets. But the crowding on the Paris trottoirs lasts a few hours only during the usual promenade time. London street-life is not bound to time; it is not confined within the narrow limits of a few hours. Indeed there is not a single hour in the four and twenty, in which any one of the principal London streets can be said to be deserted. For when the denizens of the far West retire to rest, at that very hour does the street-life dawn in the business-quarters of the East.
Early in the morning, before the chimneys of the houses and factories, of the railway-engines and steamers, have had time to fill the air with smoke, London presents a peculiar spectacle. It looks clean. The houses have a pleasing appearance; the morning sun gilds the muddy pool of the Thames; the arches and pillars of the bridges look lighter and less awkward than in the daytime, and the public in the street, too, are very different from the passengers that crowd them at a later hour.
Slowly, and with a hollow, rumbling sound do the sweeping-machines travel down the street in files of twos and threes to take off every particle of dust and offal. The market-gardener’s carts and waggons come next; they proceed at a brisk trot to arrive in time for the early purchasers. After them, the coal-waggons and brewer’s drays, which only at certain hours are permitted to unload in the principal streets of the city. At the same time, the light, two-wheeled carts of the butchers, fishmongers, and hotel-keepers, rattle along at a slapping pace; for their owners—sharp men of business—would be the first in the market to choose the best and purchase at a low price. Here and there a trap is opened in the pavement, and dirty men ascend from the regions below; they are workmen, to whose care is committed the city under-ground, which they build, repair, and keep in good order. Damaged gas and water-pipes, too, are being repaired, and the workmen make all possible haste to replace the paving-stones and leave the road in a passable condition. For the sun mounts in the sky and their time is up. They return to their lairs and go to sleep just as the rest of the town awakens to the labours of the day.
Besides these, there are a great many other classes whose avocations compel them to take to the street by break of day. At a very early hour they appear singly or in small knots, with long, white clay pipes in their mouths; as the day advances, they come in troops, marching to their work in docks and warehouses. Ill-tempered looking, sleepy-faced barmen take down the shutters of the gin-shops; cabs, loaded with portmanteaus and band-boxes, hasten to deposit their occupants at the various railway-stations; horsemen gallop along, eager for an early country-ride; from minute to minute there is an increase of life and activity. At length the shops, the windows and doors of houses are opened; omnibuses come in from the suburbs and land their living freight in the heart of the city; the pavements are crowded with busy people, and the road is literally crowded with vehicles of every description. It is day and the hour is 10 A.M.
Long before this, hundreds of high chimney-towers have belched forth their volumes of thick black smoke, and that smoke obscures the horizon with long streaks of black smut, and mixes and becomes more dense as the millions of chimneys on the house-tops contribute their quota, until a dusky atmosphere is formed, which intercepts the rays of the sun. Such is London by day. That is the enormous city with her deep grey robe of smoke and fog, which she spins afresh every morning, and silently unravels during the hours of the night, that she may, as Penelope of old, keep idlers and courtiers away from her gates.
We are still at the point where Newgate-street opens into Cheapside. It would almost seem as if the whirlpool of human beings that turn about in that locality, had made us giddy, for our thoughts took their wayward flight across the Thames, up to the clouds, and through the gully-holes into the recesses of the city under-ground. We ought now to proceed on terra firma, and with this laudable resolution, we turn to the left, and stop in the front of the post-office at St. Martin’s-le-Grand.
The existing arrangements of the English post-office, and the penny-postage, which, in 1840, was introduced by Rowland Hill, have proved so excellent in their results, that the majority of continental states have been induced to approximate their institutions to Mr. Hill’s principle. Men of business and post-office clerks are not yet satisfied; they desire a system of cheap international postage, and it is devoutly to be hoped that those pious wishes will, in the end, be gratified. But the majority of the continental governments hesitate before they commit themselves to an experiment, which, in the most favourable case, only promises a future increase of revenue, while in every case it is certain to entail losses on the present. In England, however, the experiment has been made, and the system works well and pays. And the arrangements of the post-office have been brought to a degree of perfection unknown even to the wildest dreams of the boldest political economist of the last century.
With the general penny postage for England, Scotland, Ireland, and the Channel Islands—with a regular, rapid, and frequent transmission of the mails from and to the provinces, there is, moreover, an admirable system adopted for the distribution of letters throughout the metropolis. London is divided into two postal districts: one of them embraces the area within three miles from the Chief Office at St. Martin’s-le-Grand; the second district includes those parts of the town which lie beyond the three miles’ circle.
The postage, of course, is the same for either district; but the difference lies in the number of deliveries. In the inner circle there are not less than ten deliveries a day.
The construction of the houses contributes much to the efficiency of the system. The postman’s functions are here much easier than those of his continental colleagues. He is not required to go up and down stairs, he gives his double knock; and as the majority of letters are inland letters, and as such prepaid, no time is lost with paying and giving change. The frequency of letter-boxes at the house doors tends still more to simplify the proceeding.
At the time of the great Exhibition, these letter-boxes gave occasion to many a comical mistake. Many of our continental friends entrusted their correspondence to the keeping of private boxes, under the erroneous presumption that every door-slit, with “Letters” over it, stood in some mysterious connexion with the General Post Office. But when once properly understood, the practical advantages of these private letter-boxes were so apparent, that they moved all our stranger friends to the most joyful admiration. The system however is nothing without the prepayment of letters, without the English style of buildings, and the English domestic arrangements, according to which each family inhabits its own house. The South-German system of crowding many families into one large house, and dividing even flats into separate lodgings, places insuperable difficulties in the way of any such arrangement, even if the Germans, generally, could be induced to prepay their letters. And the Paris fashion of delivering all the letters at the porter’s lodge, is disagreeable, even for those who are not engaged in treasonable correspondence, and who have no reason or desire to elude the vigilance of the police.
After all, Rowland Hill’s system of cheap postage is one of the best practical jokes that was ever perpetrated by an Englishman. This famous cheapness is nothing but a snare for the unwary, for the especial gratification of the Postmaster-General and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In no other country is there so much money expended on postage as in England. A letter is only one penny; and what is a penny? The infinitesimal fraction of that power which men call capital; that miraculous Nothing, out of which the world was made, and out of which some very odd fellows managed to make large fortunes, as it may be well and truly read in juvenile books of first-class morality. But what Londoner can condescend to establish his household arrangements on the decimal system, or on the theory of miracles? Consequently, he writes short letters to his cousins and nieces across the way, and to all his near and dear relations in Yorkshire and the Shetland Islands. It is an incontestable fact, that Englishmen spend more money in postage than the citizens of any other country.
And how cleverly does the Post Office contrive to facilitate the means of correspondence! Besides the large branch offices, there are above five hundred receiving-houses in London, all of them established in small shops, to induce you to enter; and that you may have no trouble in finding them, a small board with a hand, and the words “Post Office,” is affixed to the nearest lamp-post, so that you need only look at the lamp-posts to find the place for the reception of your letters. How simple, and how practical!
But there is more behind! Many a man thinks it too great a tax upon his time and patience to put the penny stamp on the envelope; the Postmaster-General steps in and saves him the trouble. He manufactures envelopes with the Queen’s head printed on them, and he sells them a penny a piece, so that you have the envelope gratis. They are gummed, too, and do not want sealing. You have nothing to do but to write your letter, put it into the envelope, and post it at the receiving-house over the way or round the corner. These are some of the sly tricks on which the Post Office thrives, so that, with its expenditure exceeding one million sterling, it manages to hand over a large sum of surplus receipts to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Nor ought it to be supposed, that, having attained so high a degree of perfection, the English postal administration reclines on its laurels. No! it strains every nerve to effect further improvements; and it has to deal with a public fully competent to understand its merits, and disposed to value them. The greatest praise of a public institution is to be found, not in the eulogies of the press, but in the readiness of the public to avail themselves of the advantages that institution offers, and the improvements and facilities it effects. And the English do this readily and joyfully, whenever their practical common sense becomes alive to the usefulness of an innovation.
In this respect, and in many others, the English Government is in a more favourable position than the continental governments. Its dealings are with a great and generous nation: great ideas find a great public in England. That is the reason why the continental estimates of men and affairs appear so small, compared to the one which the English are in the habit of applying. Particularly with respect to creating facilities to traffic, the Government may venture on almost any experiment. The public support every scheme of the kind, and the public support makes it pay. Take, for instance, the system of money-orders, which was introduced a few years back. Small sums under £5 are to be sent; and in spite of the enormous difficulties and expenses which the scheme had to encounter in its commencement, it is more firmly establishing from day to day; its popularity is on the increase, and above £8,000,000 was, in the year 1851, transmitted in this manner.
Let us now see how the Post Office deals with books, pamphlets, and newspapers. Political papers which publish “news,” says the act for that purpose made and provided—“political journals,” according to the continental mode of expression—pass from province to province free of postage, with only a small sum for transmission to the Colonies, that is to say, to the Cape and the Antipodes. The penny stamp, which each copy of a political journal is required to have, franks it throughout the whole of Great Britain and Ireland—not once, but several times. A letter stamp is blackened over at the Post Office, to prevent its being used again; but the newspaper stamp has nothing to fear from the postmaster’s blacking apparatus. I read my copy of the Times in the morning, and am at liberty to send it to a friend, say to Greenwich. That friend sends the same copy to another friend, say at Glasgow, Edinburgh, or Dublin; and the same copy, after various peregrinations through country post offices, and out-of-the-way villages, finds its way back to London to the shop of a dealer in waste paper. No charge is made by the Post Office for these manifold transmissions; and thus it happens that friends conspire together to defraud the Post Office, and that information finds its way from one end of the kingdom to another without any advantage to the public purse.
I will quote an example of a trick which is still popular with many English families. Suppose a husband and father has reason to expect an addition to his family circle. His friends and relations are desirous to be informed of the event as soon as it shall have come off, but letters, however short, take time to write; and, after all, its a pity to pay so many pence for postage, and children, too, are very expensive creatures. The matter has been arranged beforehand. An old copy of the Times is sent, if the little stranger turns out a boy; if a girl, the father sends a copy of the Herald. The child is born, and the papers are posted. Letters of congratulation follow in due time. Her Majesty has gained another subject, but the Exchequer has lost a few pence. This method has not much political morality to recommend it; but it weighs very lightly on an Englishman’s conscience, since the proceeding, after all, is not downright illegal.
“The Chancellor of the Exchequer and I”—says John Bull—“are on the best terms; he cheats me whenever he can; he makes me pay in every conceivable manner; he taxes my wine, my tea, the sunlight, my horse, my land, and my carriage; he is always at it, and he squeezes me as I would an orange. That’s his right, and that’s why he is Chancellor of the Exchequer. How else could he manage to pay the interest on the national debt, and the army and navy estimates, and all the sundries? We, the nation, are the state, and that’s why we ought to pay. But in return, the right honourable gentleman must give us leave to cheat him whenever, as it will happen with the sharpest of financiers, his financial laws want a clause or two, and thus favour the operation. ‘Horses above a certain size are taxed to such and such an extent,’ says he. Very well! say I. But I move heaven and earth to produce horses under that size, and avoid paying the tax. Carriages with wheels above 21 inches in diameter are taxed. Very well. I get a small carriage made, one which suits the size of my pony. Newspaper advertisements pay a duty of eighteen-pence. Well and good. I advertise the birth of my child by means of an old copy of the Times. That’s fair dealing, which none can find fault with. The Chancellor of the Exchequer and I know what we are about. We are a couple of sly ones. John Bull after all pays for everything; but he fights for his money to the best of his abilities. Of course!”
Thus reasons the Englishman, whom the Germans love to consider as an adorer of the law.
The difference between the English adoration and the German contempt of the law, may be found in the fact, that an Englishman takes a delight in outwitting the law, if it can be done in a loyal and honest manner. The German believes he is justified in ignoring the law, since it was imposed upon him without his consent. In other words: the subject of an absolute government does not think the laws—except the laws of nature and morality—to be binding, because such laws were imposed by superior force. The citizen of a free country respects every law, because it presupposes an agreement to which he has either indirectly or directly assented. But let us return to the Post-office.
Though the newspaper-stamp franks the journals throughout England, still it has not been thought advisable to extend the privilege to the postal district within three miles from St. Martin’s-le-Grand. All journals posted within that circle must have an additional penny stamp. My copy of the Times goes free to Dublin; but if I address it to a friend in the next street, it pays the postage. But for this salutary regulation, all the news-vendors would post their papers, and the Post-office would want the means of conveyance and delivery for the loads of printed matter which, in such a case, would find their way into the chief office.
The advantages of the newspaper stamp are, however, large enough to induce its being solicited by papers, that are not by law compelled to take it. Punch, for instance, is not considered a political paper. To find out the reason why, is a task I leave to the principal Secretaries of State of her Britannic Majesty. The whole of England is agreed on the point that there is much more sound policy in the old fellow’s humped back than can be found in the heads of the Privy Council; and many an agitator in search of an ally would prefer Toby to the Iron Duke.C Punch, then, consults his own convenience and takes or refuses the stamp according to circumstances. And as Punch does, so do many other papers, whom the law considers as unpolitical.
We turn again to the General Post-office. It is a grand and majestic structure, with colossal columns in the pure Greek style; and with an air of classic antiquity, derived from the London atmosphere of fog and smoke. It is easy to raise antique structures in London, for the rain and the coals assist the architect. Hence those imposing tints! How happy would the Berliners be, if Messrs. Fox and Henderson, instead of constructing waterworks, could undertake to blacken the town, and give it an antique old-established, instead of its parvenu and stuck-up, appearance. They are sadly in want of London smoke and of some other English institutions which I cannot, for the sake of my own safety, venture to specify.
Those who are not awed by the architectural beauties of the London Post-office, should enter and take a stroll down those roomy high walls, where on either side there are numbers of office windows and little tablets. How small are, in the presence of those tablets, all the ideas which Continentals form of a large central Post-office. They are so many sign-posts, and direct you to all the quarters of the world; to the East and West Indies, to Australia, China, the Canary Islands, the Cape, Canada, etc. Every part of the globe has its own letter box; and the stranger who, about six o’clock P. M., enters these halls, or takes up his post of observation near the great City Branch Office, in Lombard-street, would almost deem that all the nations of the world were rushing in through the gates, and as if this were the last day for the reception and transmission of letters.
Breathless come the bankers’ clerks, rushing in just before the closing hour; they open their parcels, and drop their letters into the various compartments. There are messengers groaning under the weight of heavy sacks, which they empty into a vast gulf in the flooring; they come from the offices of the great journals, and the papers themselves are sorted by the Post-office clerks. Here and there, among this crowd of business people, you are struck with the half comfortable, half nervous bearing of a citizen. Just now an old gentleman, with steel spectacles, hurries by, casting an anxious look at the clock, lest he be too late. Probably he wishes to post a paternal epistle to his son, who is on a fishing excursion in Switzerland, and the letter is important, for in it the son is adjured not by any means to discontinue wearing a flannel under-jacket. Or an old lady has to post a letter to her grand-daughter at school in the country, about the apple-pudding, for which the grand-daughter sent her the receipt; and what a capital pudding it was, and that the school must be a first-rate school—to be sure! And lo! just as the clock strikes, a fair-haired and chaste English woman, with a thick blue veil, makes her way to one of the compartments and drops a letter. Thank goodness, she is in time! Heaven knows how sorry the poor lad would have been if that letter had not reached him in due course. For an English lover, they say, is often in a hanging mood, especially in November, when the fogs are densest.
Now the wooden doors are closed; the hall is empty as if by magic, and the tall columns throw their lengthened shadows on the stone flooring.
This is the most arduous period of the day for the clerks within. All that heap of letters and newspapers which has accumulated in the course of the day is to be sorted, stamped, and packed in time for the various mail-trains. Clerks, servants, sorters, and messengers, hurry to and fro in the subterraneous passage between the two wings of the building. Clerks suspended by ropes, mount up to the ceiling and take down the parcels which, in the course of the day, were deposited on high shelves. And the large red carts come rattling in receive their load of bags, and rattle off to the various stations; the rooms are getting empty; the clerks have got through their work; the gas is put out, and silence and darkness reign supreme. Here and there only in some little room a clerk may be seen busy with accounts and long lists of places and figures. When he retires to rest, the work of the day has already commenced in the other offices. In this building, business is going on at all hours of the day and the night. The loss of a minute would be felt by thousands, at a distance of thousands of miles.
Hence does it happen that at no time is there a want of complaints about the Post-office clerks and post-masters, while the officials, in their turn, complain of the carelessness and negligence of the public. The public’s grievances find their way into the Journals, in a “Letter to the Editor.” The sorrows of the Post-office clerks obtain a less amount of publicity; but they may be observed on the walls of the great hall, where, daily, there is a list of misdirected letters, which have cost the post-men a deal of trouble. Directions such as—
“To Mr. Robinson,
“in
America.”
Or,—
“To Miss Henrietta Hobson,
“Just by the Church,
“in London.”
However rich (some may think), these are not by any means rare; and such small mistakes, I dare say, will happen in other countries besides England, wherever there are simple-minded people who put their trust in Providence and the royal Post-office. In Germany, where every man, woman, and child is registered by the police, the postman may, as a last resource, apply to that omniscient institution; but in England, where the chief commissioner of the police is so abandoned as to be actually ignorant of the whereabouts of honest and decent citizens, the Post-office is deprived even of this last resource. The case would be pitiable in the extreme, but for the comfortable reflection that in England the police do not interfere with the post. The convenience, on the one hand, is by far greater than the inconvenience on the other.
Notes
C The first part of this work left the press early in 1852, when the Duke of Wellington was still alive. It has not been thought convenient to alter this passage, and some others to meet the change of circumstances.—[Ed.]