Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - X. Internal Communications - 4. Post Service. By R. Lundgren
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
post service.
633
to Denmark) — Hälsingör to Hamburg and was conveyed by a mounted
messenger. But it can by no means be said that there hade been created
an official Swedish postal service with the establishment of this post.
Such a service was not established until Axel Oxenstierna, the Swedish
Chancellor some few years later, who was greatly interested in the matter,
took the business in hand and, after various difficulties had been overcome,
succeeded in getting the Regency acting for Queen Christina to issue on
February 20, 1636, an edict respecting "Post-Bådhen" (Post-service),
whereby certain farms adjacent to the public highways, in consideration
of being relieved from a number of public burdens, and, at a later date,
also of receiving a certain fee from the postal revenjies, were assigned the
task of attending to the conveyance of the public post.
At a distance of every two or three Swedish miles there was thus appointed
a "post-farmer" who was obliged for this service to have two post-boys, and who,
either personally or by means of these latter servants, had to convey the post to
the next post-farmer. During the first few years of this public postal-service,
foot-messengers exclusively were employed. As early as 1645, however, mounted
messengers are mentioned, the mail-cart service coming into use later on. The
post was conveyed once a week between Stockholm and the southern, western,
and northern parts of the country. In 1645 a postal service was established
along the Gulf of Bothnia, too, and via Torneå to Finland. By degrees,
sea-post connections with Gottland, the Baltic provinces, and abroad were established,
by means of placing post-yachts on various lines. From 1662, we find a number
of the more important mails of the country increased to bi-weekly ones. It
was not till 1810 that the mail-service between Stockholm and Gothenburg was
extended to four trips per week, and fifty years later the point was finally
reached — partly by the employment of railway facilities — of being able to
arrange a daily despatch of mails between the capital and the second city of the
Kingdom. The number of post-offices amounted during the first few years to
no more than 29, but by 1668 had increased to 78. — At first the postage was
always the same for all distances — 2 ore silver (corresponding to about 16 ’6 ore
of the present Swedish currency) — but it was soon graduated.
Even if the Swedish postal service, in conformity with its origin, was from
the very first considered as a branch of the public service, it was not before
the year 1677 that this view was fully established, the State from that time
taking over in perpetuity the direction of the service and receiving all the
revenues from the business. Before this date, the service had been in part
leased or hired out to private individuals, but it seems, however, as if it had
the whole time been under the superintendence of the Chancery, which issued
the necessary directions to the head of the service, who, in official documents,
is sometimes called Post Master, sometimes General State Post Master or Post
Director. From 1697, the immediate management of the service was placed in
the hands of the office of a Chief Post-Director, although the Chancery did
not relinquish its supreme control.
Remarkably enough, the postal institution was greatly favoured and protected
during the reign of Charles XII. In 1704 were issued, from the military camp
at Yaroslav, instructions to the Post Office service, which were only superseded
159 years later by the Instructions for the present Post Office Board. The
"Instructions for Postmasters", issued in 1707, which were in many respects of
merit, have also, in certain of their chief features, remained in force until our
own times. During the last years of the reign of Charles XII, a royal ordi-
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
