The Life of Sir Rowland Hill and the

1847] THE POST OFFICE A VAST MACHINE. 53
Society at Liverpool to a public dinner, I took opportunity,
in my speech of thanks, to explain to a certain
extent the duties and powers of the Post Office, mis-
apprehension as to which led then, and doubtless
leads still, to unprofitable correspondence, withdraw-
ing attention from practical improvements
to futile
discussion. I found it particularly necessary to show
why suggestions, however valuable, cannot be suddenly
adopted, since, in so vast and complex a machine as
the Post Office, which must not for one hour be
arrested in its motion, it is indispensable to make
such preliminary examination and complete arrangement
as will yield full security that the change will
throw nothing out of gear, but work smoothly from
the first. I showed that, while some of the improvements
called for by my Liverpool friends seemed
feasible, others could not be made.
Thus,
it had been demanded that letters should no
longer be carried past the office from which they were
to be distributed to some office further on, whence
they would have to return, but that the distributing
office should receive them at once. This demand,
not then new, nor yet worn out, I had to meet by
showing that the letters for one office were at such
times mixed up with those for other offices, and
therefore could not be dropped in passing, while the
delay in sorting could not be absolutely prevented
unless every post town in the United Kingdom made
up a bag for every other post town, which, as there
were then about one thousand post towns in all, would
involve the daily despatch, transmission, and opening
of a million of bags in each direction, an immense
majority of which would contain no letters whatever.
At the same time I assured my auditors that I should
do my
best to render the Post Office as useful as