The Life of Sir Rowland Hill and the

78 LIFE OF SIR ROWLAND HILL. [1847-8
by
It may be added that this expectation
the event.
was confirmed
" March 8th, 1848. The Postmaster-General, in speaking of the
many improvements which I have effected, remarked the singular
absence of all complaints from the public, though some [of the
improvements]
are more or less restrictive."
Among the means formerly taken to account for the
existence of a revenue under what it regarded as the
ruinous system of penny postage, the Post Office had
uniformly maintained that a large profit was obtained
in the Money Order Department. A return now
made to Parliament showed that, so far from this
being the case, the expenditure of the previous year,
the last before that department came under my con-
trol, exceeded the receipts by about .10,000.
A summary of the improvements effected thus far
in this department will be found in a letter addressed
by me to the Postmaster-General on January 3rd, 1849,
which is given in the Appendix.
Some incidents of the years 1847 and 1848, which
for convenience I have hitherto omitted, are yet worthy
of record :
Carelessness in Remittance.
"
May 27th, 1847. Mr. Ramsey (missing-letter clerk) brought me
a packet containing whole bank-notes to the amount of ^"1500, so
carelessly made up that they had all slipped out ; and to add to the
carelessness the packet was imperfectly addressed to some country
house in Herefordshire, no post town being named. It had found
its way, after much delay, into the post office at Ross, and had been
sent to London by the postmistress.
are not infrequent"
Instances of such carelessness
I may add that, some years afterwards, there was
sent to the office for the book-post a large sum in
bank-notes, the ends of the packet being left open,
according to book post rule, so as to expose the