Another Letter from St. Leonards appeared in the Hastings News of Nov 23rd, of which the following is a copy:- “Sir, - As you are generally accurate in your statement of facts, there is, no doubt some good reason for your giving the number of missent letters annually at 16.000, instead of 12,000, as stated in the ‘Memorial’. But put them at which number you will, I do not think much of a case can be made out of it. There are now several deliveries a day, and the inconvenience of a few hours delay is in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred not worth consideration. In really urgent cases of life or death, most people now have recourse to the cheap telegram. Add, that by far the most numerous sufferers – namely the west-enders, whose letters are mis-directed “Hastings” are content to suffer; they are indeed as bad as that base ‘knife-grinder’, the British people whom all the eloquence of Mr. Bright cannot lash into a becoming sense of the cruel wrongs they are daily enduring. But were the case of missent letters as strong as it is weak, it surely ought not to prevail against the express wishes of so large a portion of the population and a prescription of so many years standing. It is currently reported, however, that the Post Office is not the real question. ‘Verbum sap’ as Punch says. If so, nothing can be more absurd than the movement. Suppose Mr. A. B. is ordered by his physicians to go to St. Leonards – not Hastings. He looks at a house, say, in Eversfield place, and is then told it is Hastings. The result would be that he either would go beyond the Archway and take a house which does not contribute to the rates of Hastings, or go off to Torquay or Bournemouth, and be lost to the place altogether. I do not allude to the general arguments against any change which have been ably stated, nor should I have called attention to the subject at this time of day but for the fallacy of these statistics of mis-sent letters, as if they really involved 12,000 cases of inconvenience or serious delay. In conclusion, I may add that as far as my personal convenience is concerned, my views are quite disinterested, for I happen to be so located that the proposed site for a common Post Office would suit me perfectly well; but I have always considered this agitation as a piece of selfish, meddling impertinence, and as such I feel called upon to resist it by word and deed. I am, your obedient servant, “Lucanus An Appulus Anceps[1]” “St. Leonards-on-sea, till further orders” “21st November, 1860”
The Editor of The News explained that the fortnights official return gave the number of 660, which is at the rate of 17,160 for 52 weeks. This was the Editor’s mode of reckoning, but if he had known that the total number of letters of all kinds in one fortnight was no criteria for other fortnights of the year – the letters passing throught the post-office at some periods of the year being -
- ↑ ‘Lucanus An Appulus Anceps’ is apparently from Horace, who was born on the borders of Lucania and Apulia. Anceps literally means ‘two-headed, uncertain, unfixed’, reflecting the writer’s position between Hastings and St. Leonards -Transcriber
