VISCOUNT BANGORasked the Postmaster General, Why the Clerks in the London District Post Offices are forbidden to communicate the Place of Residence of People in their respective Districts to Persons applying to them for such Information?
§ LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYreplied, that the main duty of the clerks in question was to secure the safe transmission of the letters which passed through their hands to those persons to whom they were addressed, and that it was manifest that to answer all the idle inquiries made—and made sometimes with improper motives—with respect to the place of residence of people living in their respective districts would be to interfere very much with the proper discharge of their business, as well as to act in contravention, to some extent, of that secrecy which they were required to observe. More than that, the only way in which these clerks would be enabled to give the information referred to as a general rule, would be by looking for it in the Post Office Directory, by turning over the pages of which excellent work the persons requiring it would have it equally in their power to obtain that information for themselves.