Page:The life and letters of Sir John Henniker Heaton bt. (IA lifelettersofsi00port).pdf/324

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272
SIR JOHN HENNIKER HEATON

charge. Give no reasons. This complaint is as unreasonable as another which has reached me—namely, that the cost of postage of the "Nineteenth Century" to Canada is one penny, but that we charge 3d. for sending it to any part of England. From a Post Office point of view the colonists are spoilt children.

Sec.: A number of letters are from country people asking that letter-boxes be attached to all through trains, and even to tram-cars on the principal lines. Here is one of them:

With reference to the point I raised of a travelling post office on the mail train. If we could send off letters by the 2.20 p.m. train to the Continent we should save a day on the passage between London, Switzerland, Italy, and Southern France. It would mean that anyone writing to me in Lucerne and posting his letter om the train at six o'clock in the morning in the summer would secure my receiving it the next morning. I could then reply the same day and send my letter by the 2.20 p.m. mail train, and he would receive my reply on the morning after. If my letter had to wait till the next service it could not be delivered in Lucerne till one day later.

P.M.-Gen.: Point out that this would involve an expenditure of at least eighteenpence for each "travelling" letter-box, and regret that I cannot see my way to face this.

Sec.: We have repeatedly received the following suggestion:

Sir,—It would be a great convenience to the public to send the money with the postal or telegraph Money Order to the residence of the person to whom it is addressed: They do this, to the great convenience of