MAN OF MANY JOBS.

North Otago Times, 2 December 1911, Page 1 (Supplement)

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, Ho will insure your life, give you a little bank, to hoard your pennies in, take care of your savings, sell you an annuity, a postal order or a foreign draft, invest your sparo capital In a nice little Government bond, and pay a w ee,t 'y pension to your aged, mother or aunt.

He carries letters and other mail matter, transmits telegram?, cablegrams, and wireless messages, maintains an cnormoiiß stafl ot messenger boys, and conducts an express company business lor 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 tho current through his cable.ductß.

He will sell you a license lor a dog, a carriage, a motor-car, a private brewery, B male servant, a gun, or a family coat-ot-arms. or he will put in your telephone and take core of your hollos. 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 tlnn anybody else in tho United Kingdom, employs far more people than any individual or corporation (212,364 at the last report), prosecutes more malefactors every day than tho public prosecutor, and sends ou.t every week more apologies for himself and explanations ot his actions than all the rest of the British population combined.

Some tirao ago the engineering stafl of the Post Office wanted to trim some trees down in Sussex. The Postmaßter-General notified their owner, Sydney Buxton, saying they would ■ be trimmed. Sydnoy Buxton did not want 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, howover, there was no difficulty, because at that time Sydney Buxton and tho Postmaster-General were tho same person.—"Telephone Review."