MAN OF MANY JOBS.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XLIII, Issue 2286, 26 February 1912, Page 7

MAN OF MANY JOBS.

BRITISH POSTMASTER-GENERAL. The British Postmaster-General is what Londoners call a universal provider, a regular department store of public functions. He v.'ill insure your life, give you a little bank to hoard your pennies in, take care of yo : ur savings, sell you an annuity, a postal order or a foreign draft, invest your spare capital in a nice little Government bond, and pay a weekly pension to your aged mother or aunt. He carries letters and other mail matter, transmits telegrams, cablegrams, and wireless messages, maintains an enormous staff of messenger boys, and conducts an express company business for every sort of parcel, from a halfpenny packet up shipments of eggs, dressed poultry and fresh fish. He collects all the worn copper coins for the British Treasury. He has factories for making his supplies, and an electric central station of his own in London for lighting his offices, bringing the current through his cable ducts. He will sell you a license for a dog, a carriage, a motor-car, a private brewery, a male servant, a gnn. or a family coat-of-arms. or he will put in your telephone and take care of your hellos. At dinner the other night the Post-master-General confessed that he sometimes doubted whether he had any human personality at all. When he thought of his own functions, he said, he was appalled by them. In his official capacity he is responsible for more property than anybody else in the United Kingdom, employs far more people than any individual or corporation (212,364 at the last report), prosecutes more malefactors every day than the public prosecutor, and sends out every week more apologies for himself and explanations of his actions than all the rest of the British population combined. Some time ago the engineering staff of the Post Office wanted to trim some trees down in Sussex. The Postmaster-General notified their owner, Sydney Buxton, saying they would be trimmed. Sydney Buxton did not w T ant them trimmed, but the Postmaster-General was firm, and had the law behind him. When Sydney Buxton and the Post-master-General got together on this matter, however, there was no difficulty, because at that time Sydney Buxton and the Postmaster-General were the same person.—“ Telephone Review.”