Chapter XIV: Travelling

1. Visit and inspect each Money Order and Savings Bank Office in your Division and make a report thereon to the Postmaster General on the printed forms, as often as occasion serves, but at least once every year.

2. Visit and inspect every other office in your Division as often as circumstances permit.

3. Do not, unless with good and sufficient reason, pass a Post Office without calling and inspecting it.

4. Keep before you a memorandum of cases requiring personal investigation, so that in travelling you may be able to attend to as many of these cases as may be in the direction of your journey.

5. In travelling ascertain, as far as you are able, if the service on the several routes over which you pass is in every respect satisfactorily performed, and make memoranda in your Pocket Memorandum Book of any irregularities which you may observe, or of any changes which you may think desirable.

6. Note and take down particulars of any locality at which it is likely a Post Office may be required, so that when applied for, you may be able to report thereon.

7. In visiting a Post Office the following points should engage your attention:

1. Is the office provided with--

A Sign?
A Letter-box?
Pigeon-holes for letters and papers for delivery and despatch?
Other necessary fittings?
Forms and other necessary equipments?

2. Is it conveniently situated and provided with proper
accommodation for the public?

3. Are the Postmaster and his assistants duly sworn, and do they
understand their duties?

4. Has the Postmaster proper stamps and material for post-marking
letters, &c., and obliterating the stamps thereon?

5. Are the Letter Bills properly post-marked and fyled?

6. Are the Registered Letters and Mail Key kept in a safe place?

7. Are the letters and papers for delivery properly post-marked?
Are they all intended for the delivery of the office? Are they
sorted into the proper boxes? Are there any which should have been
sent to the Dead Letter Office?

8. Are the newspapers for delivery all sorted in their proper
pigeon-holes.

9. Are all letters and papers posted for despatch as well as for
delivery at the office properly pre-paid by stamp?

10. Are the entries in the Book of Mails sent and received, and
the Registered Letter Books properly made?

11. Are the instructions and circulars received from the
Department properly fyled?

12. Are the notices sent for exhibition to the public properly
posted?

13. Is there a notice posted in the lobby indicating the office
hours and the times at which mails are closed and received?

14. Is the Postmaster supplied with postage stamps sufficient to
meet the requirements of the public?

15. Are the mails regularly received and despatched, and the
provisions of the contracts under which the office is supplied
properly carried out?

8. In the event of the office being a Money Order Office ascertain--

1. If the entries in all the books are properly made.

2. Whether the Cash Book at Offices where a Cash Book is kept is
made up to date, and whether the date of the Deposit Receipts
agree with the date for which credit is taken therefor.

3. Whether the Postmaster has in hand the balance due on Money
Order Account.

4. Whether all the numbers of the Money Orders taken from the
Order Book are properly accounted for.

9. You should take every opportunity of ascertaining and noting down the character and standing of the several parties employed in the Postal Service. The information thus obtained may be of value.

10. You should also take every opportunity of collecting accurate information in regard to the settlement of the country, the position of Post Offices, roads and distances, and with this object you should carry a map of the section of country through which you pass, and mark thereon as much as you can of the above information.