sight that this question has been determined by the practice.
But as the financial scheme of the letter post rests on the fact that
the actual transportation of the letters occupies, as regards expense, a
quite subsidiary place,[664] it is difficult to discover any special
relation between the letter post and a business which is really part of
the general transport industry. It may in some instances be advantageous
to utilize for parcels the service provided for the transmission and
delivery of letters. An organization reaching to all parts of the
country is ready to hand, and one which, in rural districts especially,
is often not employed to its full capacity. It may therefore in some
cases manifestly be economical to give additional work to the service;
but, at the same time, the provision of a service for parcels may in
other cases add unduly to the cost of the general service--as, for
example, when it becomes necessary to make special arrangements on
account of occasional variations in the numbers of parcels.[665]

In any case, a postal service should be limited to parcels of moderate
size and weight, because the Post Office, as at present organized, is
for the most part adapted to the handling of packets which can be
delivered by foot-messengers. In rural districts this is almost
universally the rule.[666] It is frequently necessary in the towns to
separate entirely the parcel post traffic from the ordinary light letter
post traffic (except in those parts of the service where the parcel post
traffic is very restricted), to provide a separate staff, and to furnish
different equipment.[667] In effect, two establishments are maintained.
A separate parcel staff could, of course, collect and deliver traffic of
any dimensions or character. But difficulties would arise in regard to
the transportation from town to town of heavy parcels,[668] and in rural
districts their distribution could not be undertaken without a
reorganization of the general arrangements of the mail service. Any sort
of regular house-to-house delivery would be enormously expensive. To a
large extent--in the United Kingdom at any rate--such a service would be
a duplication of services already provided by railway companies, and
consequently economically wasteful.

The transportation of parcels is, indeed, in many aspects a service more
appropriate to the railways than to the Post Office. The Post Office,
for example, is handicapped as compared with the r