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POSTAL NOTES, MONEY ORDERS, AND
BANK CHEQUES.*
TEEBE can be little doubt as to the need felt by tho public for
more convenient means of remitting small sums of moncy by
post. The increase of correspondence between different parts
of the country is constantly multiplying tho number of small
debts, debts which cannot be paid by passing coin from hand
to hand. The practice is rapidly growing up of buying
supplies of draperies, teas, books, and numberless other commodities
from well-known firms, Bituated in R few of the larger
towns. Only a well arranged systen~ of parcel posts, as
pointed out in the article “A Stato Parcel Post,” in The
Contemporary Review (January, 1879, vol. xxxiv. p. 209),
is needed to develop this modo of trnffic immensely. But
even wit’h the present vexatious charges on small goods
traffic, the number of parcels distributed must bo very large,
and each parcel, as a general rule, necessitates n postal payment.
The facility of railway travelling, again, leads people
to reside further from their friends than in former days, and
multitudes of domestic servants, workmen away from home
in search of work, conlmercial travellers and tourists, require
either to receive or remit small sums of money.
The Poetal Money Order System is older than is generally
supposed, having existed in one form or other since 1792. In
its present form, however, the system dates only from the year
e “Contemporary Review,” July, 1880, vol. mviii. pp. 150-161.
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