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may mean. But thoy seldom charge less than 4d. or Gd. for
any parcel. Tho men arc usuully illiterate and slow in all
thoir proceedinbv. Their number is ofteu wry great, In tho
London Directory for 1876 there art‘ specified about 216 such
carriers; in Gltmgow, ~ome years ago, there were 117, and
many largo towns would each have 100 or mort local carriers.
All this 1 1 1 ~ of ~ conveyances, be it remembered, is in
addition to the vast number of private delivery carts employed
by tradesmen. Great establishruent~, sucll us Shoolbred’s,
hiurhhrdl :~ntl Sncllgrovc’s, IVhiteley’s, ltuple’s, Burton’s,
ctc., etc., have c:rcl1 tlleir own prccl dclirery cou~p:my, so to
sity. Sumo Iluuscs even have two dcli\.cries a d:ty in the metropoiitm~
districts. ’I’hc! itllmotlso cost of such delivery stnffd
would Ixa, tu n great extent, saved Ly n parcel post ; but it is,
of coursr, llot tu LC supposed that the ordinary tradespeople’s
&livery of nlent, vegctullcs, ctc., ~voulci be 1~111~11 affcctcd.
At first sight this nlnss of carrying arrnngclnellts seems to
be chaotic, but necessity is tlw mother of invention, and necessity
hnu obligccl these clis(*c,ullectcJ and often nntngonistic
bodies to work tvgetllcr to ;L ccrtaiu extant. W2len one carrier
gets to the cad of his tether llc nssumcs :I right to hand on his
prcel to ally other c:wrier IIC likes, who “pays out” the
cllarges :llreidy incurred, adds his own charge at discretion,
nnd recovers the smn-tot:ll from thc I~elplcss consignee.
\Vhet,hcr this practice is legal, in tho absence of any distinct
prior contrwt’, I :11n not able to say; but it is, at any rate,
sanctioned by forcc of habit and necessity. The larger parcel
companies, of course, hnve nrmngcmcuts nit11 each other, and
they often undertake to clcliver goods in distant towns at the
lowest rates, pnssing the parcels on from one to another.
One result of this multiplicity of carriers is that it is usually
impossible to ascertain what the converauce of a parcel will
cost. For traffic between the large t,omns, indeed, there are
definito tariffs published by the espress companies, but these
documents are not easily to be obtained. Between Nan-
Chester and London, for instance, tb parcel under 1 lb. may (or
lately might) Ire sent bp mail train for ‘id.; under 12 lbs., for
2s. From Gla:-go\v to LrjnJorl the rate was 8J. under 1 Ib.;
2s. Gd. under 19 lbs. Hut these charges include delivery only