POST OFFICE SERVICE

Marlborough Daily Times, Volume X, Issue 314, 4 May 1888, Page 3

POST OFFICE SERVICE

The number of -women now employed throughout the British Post Offices, as telegraphists, counter women, sorters, etc., according to the Postmaster-General’s report, is 2981. There are 720 female

clerics in the central establishments of London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, and 36 women thus employed throughout the provinces. Mrs Fawcett tells that until Mr Fawcett was Postmaster-General, the nomination of daughters of gentlemen to these female clerkships was difficult to obtain, and three of these nominees competed for each appointment. Mr Fawcett never stopped until the appointmeuts were thrown open to unrestricted competition, and the nomination 1 system was entirely abolished. Competitors are restricted by three j conditions only—that their age be | no less than eighteen or more than twenty, that they be unmarried or widows, that they be duly qualified in respect of health and character. Arithmetic, English composition, geography and history are the subjects of the competitive examination. Of these, arithmetic is the most important. Good hand-writ-ing, in order to keep up the neat book-keeping to the standard of excellence which is the pride of the Post Office, is also necessary. When Mr Fawcett first became Postmas-ter-General the initial salary of the second-class female clerk in the saving banks was £4O ; by his urgent appeals the initials salary was raised, gboy on d his expectations, to £65 for London clerkships, with a yearly increase of £3 to £BO. In Edinburgh and Dublin the salary begins at £55 and rises to £7O. Promotion to a higher class of service obtains higher salary. The highest salary earned by women in the General Post Office is £3OO. It is satisfactory to find that in the Government reports the work of the women clerks is referred to as particularly good, and equal to that of the men, their salaries, being, however, but one third of what is paid to men.