Towns > Edinburgh > 1846-1975 - Post Office Edinburgh and Leith directory > 1865-1866

482 POSTAGE DIRECTORY — DELIVERY.
3. All notices which, by the standing orders of either House of Parliament, are required
to be served on or before the 15th December, must be posted on or before the 12th
December, unless the 12th falls on a Sunday, when they must be posted not later than
the 11th ,• but those notices which, by the same order, may be served later than the
15th, may be posted after the 12th of that month.
4. The postages chargeable on these notices must be prepaid by stamps ; the registration
fee of sixpence on each notice being paid in the usual manner.
5. The notices must be posted at the Post-Office window, accompanied with duplicate lists
of the addresses ; the letters being arranged, for the convenience of comparison, in the
order of the list. These lists are examined by the officer in attendance at the window ;
and if each list correspond with the address, he will sign and stamp every sheet of
each list. One of the duplicate lists will then be returned to the person who brought
the letters, and the other forwarded to the Secretary, General Post-Office, London.
The hours for receiving both Parliamentary Notices and the undermentioned Voting Notices
are the same as those for the registry of ordinary letters, unless the Parliamentary Notices be pre-
sented at such a time as to interiere with the ordinary duties of the office ; in which case the Post-
master may appoint any other time within the next twenty-four hours for receiving the same ;
providing that, when the notices are to be served on or before 15th December, such arrangement
do not delay the posting beyond the 12th.
Whoever sends Parliamentary Notices should, if possible, arrange on the day before with the
Postmaster as to the most convenient time for posting them, and state the probable number.
Voting Notices.
On prepayment of the postage and of a registration fee of twopence, a notice belonging to any
one of the classes enumerated in the Act 6 Vict. c. 18 (relating to votes for members of Parlia-
ment) can be sent through the post with the securities for their safe delivery enjoined by law,
provided it be brought duly directed, open and in duplicate, to a Postmaster of an office where
Money-Orders are issued or paid. On receiving the notice, the Postmaster has to compare it with
the duplicate, and if the two agree, the latter will be stamped and returned to the bearer.
PolLbooks.
When a poll-book is presented by any returning officer to be forwarded by post, the Postmaster
is required to give to such officer an acknowledgment thereof in writing, stating therein the time
when he received it.
No registration fee is demanded for poll-books, and prepayment of the postage is optional, vrith-
out regard to weight.
lll.-DELIVERY.
Letter-carriers and Rural Messengers are prohibited, under pain of dismissal, from demanding
or receiving any payment beyond the postage on letters, newspapers, &c., which they are required
to collect or deliver; or from distributing any letters, newspapers, &c., whether before beginning
their rounds, whilst on their rounds, or after they may have completed them, except those which
have been regularly posted.
Delivery at Window.
Except where the number of daily deliveries is considerable, and where, therefore, the Surveyor
considers such a regulation unnecessary, letters are delivered at the window after the arrival of
every mail (within office hours) as soon as they can be sorted. In all cases, however, when there
is a corresponding delivery by Letter Carriers, the window delivery (whether to the holders of
private boxes or to the public generally) does not begin till the Letter-Carriers have left the office,
nor is it allowed in any way to delay the departure of the Letter-Carriers.
In order to prevent the additional trouble which is sometimes caused by letters being directed
to a Post-Office, although for persons residing within a free delivery from such office, but who have
no private box, a postmaster is authorised, when such letters arrive by a mail for which there is a
delivery from house to house, to refuse to deliver them at the window, and to send them out by
the Letter Carriers, except letters addressed to the military in barracks.