The rural decime
Specific case of the rural decime
When the rural postal service was introduced and until 1 January 1847, a letter travelling between 2 rural districts, provided that it was posted to or bound for a commune without an office, was subject to an additional tax of 1 decime (10 c).
The amount of this tax, the additional rural decime, was fixed and was added to the postage of the letter. This tax was intended to finance the rural postal service.
The additional rural decime imprint could be in 2 colours; black if the letter was bound for a rural commune and red if it originated from a rural commune (circular no. 36 of 18 October 1834).
The additional rural decime seemed logical and justified when the rural districts were very far apart and were not part of the same Postal District of a head post office. However, when the local letter was bound for a town in another rural district of the same Postal District, the cost of postage (postage + rural decime) became prohibitive.
The radius of a rural district was around ten kilometres: “a commune could not be served directly by the post office on which it depended if it was more than 10 to 12 km away...”, according to the rules of the Post Office.
This distance was both short and long (let's not forget that most people travelled on foot) and in any case did not necessarily justify an additional tax in the eyes of private individuals.
The additional rural decime used correctly
1836: Letter posted at AVESNES for EPPE-SAUVAGE. The commune of EPPE-SAUVAGE depended on the post office station of TRELON which itself depended on the head post office of AVESNES. The additional rural decime is justified here because the letter circulated from one rural district to another and was bound for a commune with no post office.
1836: Letter from LILLE to PONT A MARCQ. This rural commune depends on the SECLIN post office station (opened in February 1830), which depended on the LILLE head post office. This letter therefore circulates between 2 rural districts and is addressed to a rural commune with no post office. The additional rural decime is therefore justified. The rural decime imprint is in black ink, which means that the letter is addressed to a rural commune.
Back of the letter
Without going back over the operation of the rural decime, it appears that the application of this tax was difficult for clerks in charge of letter taxation. On numerous occasions, the Administration reacted to complaints from users concerning abusive taxation. The post offices were warned on several occasions. But apparently the problems continued for a long time.
The additional rural decime ceased on 1 January 1847.
Corrected errors
1837: The rural decime had to be applied to letters circulating between two rural districts and coming from or going to a commune without an office.
In this case, the letter was given to the rural postman during his round to TEMPLEUVE (OR stamp) and was to be sent to BERSEE. These two towns were part of the rural district of the PONT A MARCQ post office. The rural decime therefore did not apply, and the error was corrected by a stroke of a pen.
1840: Letter mailed in the village of BERMERAIN (letter-stamp K) for SOLESMES. The postman first applied the stamp of the rural decime and then, realising his mistake, masked it with the imprint of the CL stamp. BERMERAIN is part of the rural district of SOLESMES, so the rural decime does not apply.
1839: Letter from the village of HAUSSY to SOLESMES. Here also the rural decime had been applied by mistake and then masked. It seems that the SOLESMES office had some problems understanding whether or not the rural decime should be applied.
Most of the time, rural decime errors were corrected, as they were often careless mistakes. The rural decime stamp was very similar to the CL stamp. The clerk responsible for taxing the letters had to juggle with several stamps, which may or may not have been applied to the outgoing letters. He could therefore make mistakes, especially when there was a large flow of mail.
Some errors were not corrected, causing accounting problems for post offices.
Let's not forget that letters were sent postage due, so it was the post office of arrival that collected the tax from the addressee and added the additional rural decime if necessary. Local letters were frequently addressed to businesses, civil servants or lawyers who were familiar with postal rates and refused to pay more than necessary.
Taxes to be collected, including the rural decime, were recorded in advance in accounting registers. When a recipient rightly refused to pay the additional rural decime tax because it was incorrectly applied, 2 things could happen:
- either the addressee simply refused the letter, which was returned to the sender at the post office's expense (since it did not collect postage on the letter).
- or the addressee refused to pay the additional rural decime, the postman would return the letter to the office. On returning to the office, the tax, and the account books had to be corrected. The letter therefore had to be resubmitted.
If the errors were repeated, the addressee could lodge a complaint with the Administration, which would then “warn” the post office manager.
These errors could also be found in the account books, which were regularly checked by Post Office inspectors. In this case, the manager who was responsible for his accounts had to justify himself.
Nevertheless, it should be noted that local letters often went unnoticed by the authorities (even if there were accounts), because they circulated within the rural district of the same office. The post office was then the creator of the tax as well as its collector.
1839: Letter mailed in the village of MONS EN PEVELE to PONT A MARCQ. The rural decime was applied by mistake instead of the CL stamp. The correction was made by crossing out the rural decime stamp.
Uncorrected errors
1840: Letter written in HASPRES for the priest of the village of ESCARMAIN.
The stamp letter H does not correspond to the village of HASPRES which, moreover, depends on the post office of BOUCHAIN and not SOLESMES. It therefore seems that the sender of the letter, who lived in HASPRES, wanted to save the addressee 10 c (the rural decime). He therefore mailed his letter in SAULZOIR (letter with H stamp) 3 km from HASPRES.
However, this was without taking into account the difficulties encountered by the clerk in charge of taxing at the SOLESMES post office. The latter nevertheless applied the additional rural decime in an unjustified manner.
Misuse of the rural decime
1830: Postage due letter from BAILLEUL to STEENWERCK. Only the rural decime imprint is present on the letter. The colour code is correct, as the black ink means that the letter is addressed to a rural commune. It is the use of the rural decime that is incorrect, as it simply represents the postage and not an additional tax.
The rural decime stamp was sometimes used for another purpose; as a local 1 decime tax stamp. This was the case for several post offices in different departments. It was more a matter of expediency than of policy, as it was forbidden by the Administration. This stamp had only one function: to represent an additional tax and not simply the postage of the letter.
Some post offices had used a "1" stamp made at their own expense to save time when taxing local letters. For this expense to be worthwhile, the number of letters to be taxed had to be sufficiently large.
Some Directors may have thought that it was not necessary to make a "1" stamp locally and that the rural decime stamp could effectively replace such a stamp.
