§ CAPTAIN DONELAN (Cork, E.)To ask the Postmaster-General whether auxiliary rural postmen who perform five hours duty daily, or less, and who are beyond the age limit, are 947 eligible to qualify for appointment as rural postmen under any regulations now in force; and, if such privilege does exist, was it in operation in 1890–91.
(Answered by Lord Stanley.) The class of rural postmen is recruited alternately from ex-soldiers or ex-sailors and from boy messengers who pass through the assistant postmen's class. Auxiliary postmen as such have no claim to appointment as rural postmen, but they are occasionally appointed under exceptional circumstances. A man who is beyond the age limit is not, therefore, excluded from appointment, if he was within that limit when he was first employed by the Post Office and has rendered continuous service since that time. These conditions were in operation in 1890–1.