§ MR. HENNIKER HEATON (Canterbury)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, in view of the large sum annually paid for the hire of horses and mail carts to convey the mails to and from the central office at St. Martin'sle-Grand, London, and the consequent addition to the traffic of the streets, whether his attention has been called to the method recently introduced into the United States of exchanging mails between various points in the great cities by overhead electric cars; and further, whether he has observed the system of forwarding telegrams from district post offices to the central offices in London in pneumatic tubes, and whether he will cause inquiries to be made as to the expediency of effecting the exchange of the whole of the mail matter referred to by means of an extension of the pneumatic tube or the electric car system: and, whether any scheme is now being considered for the conveyance of mails from the General Post Office, London, to the principal Metropolitan railway stations by electric cars.
§ MR. HANBURYThe Postmaster General is aware that the United States Post Office has made certain experimental arrangements for the conveyance of mails with the companies running electric and cable cars over the street railways in several American cities, and it is, of course, also within his cognizance that telegrams are forwarded from the district post offices in London to the Central Telegraph Office, St. Martin's-le-Grand in pneumatic tubes. If any system of street railways should be established hereafter in the Metropolis, or if any system of pneumatic tubes should be successfully inaugurated for commercial purposes, the question of utilizing such lines and tubes for the conveyance of mails would receive the Postmaster General's best consideration.