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THE POST-OFFICE.

READER, if you be not entirely "used up," and can still relish a minor excitement, take a stroll through the General Post-office some Saturday evening, just as the clock is upon the strike of six.

The scene is much more exciting than half the émeutes which take place on the continent; considerably cheaper, and much more safe. Stand aside amid the treble bank of spectators on the right hand, and watch the general attack upon the letter-takers. A stream of four or five hundred people, who run as Doyle's pencil only can make them run, dash desperately towards the open windows of the receivers. Against this torrent a couple of hundred who have posted, dodge and finally disappear. Wave after wave of people advances and retreats, gorging with billets the capacious swallow of the post. Meanwhile, a still more active and vigorous attack is going on in the direction where newspapers are received. A sashless window-frame, with tremendous gape, is assaulted with showers of papers, which fly faster and thicker than the driven snow. Now and then large sackfuls, direct from the different newsvenders and publishing offices, are bundled in and bolted whole. As the moments pass, the flight of

B

papers

grows thicker; those who cannot struggle "to the fore" whiz their missiles of intelligence over the heads of the others, now and then sweeping hats with the force of round shot. Letters struggle with more desperate energy, which is increased to frantic desperation as the clock slowly strikes, one-two-three-four-five-six; when, with a nigh miss of guillotining a score of hands, with one loud snap all the windows simultaneously descend. The post, like a huge monster, has received its full supply for the night, and, gorged, begins, imperceptibly to the spectators, in quiet to digest.

If we enter behind the scenes, and traverse what might be considered the vast stomach of the office, we shall perceive an organization almost as perfect as that which exists in the animal economy, and not very dissimilar to it. The huge piles of letters, and the huger mountains of newspapers, lie in heaps-the newly-swallowed food. To separate their different atoms, arrange and circulate them, requires a multiplicity of organs, and a variety of agents, almost as numerous as those engaged in the animal economy-no one interfering with the others, no one but is absolutely necessary to the well-being of the whole.

So perfect is the drill, so clearly defined the duty of each member of the army of seven or eight hundred men the stranger looks down upon from one of the galleries, that he can only compare its noiseless and unerring movements to the action of some chemical agency.

Towards the vast table upon which the correspondence of two millions of people for two days is heaped and tossed, a certain number, performing the functions of the gastric juices, proceed to arrange, eliminate, and prepare it

for future and more elaborate operations; certain others take away these eliminated atoms, and, by means of a subterranean railway, transport them to their proper office on the opposite side of the building; others, again, like busy ants, carry the letters for the general delivery to the tables of the sorters, when in a moment the important operation of classing into roads and towns, sets all hands to work as busily, as silently, and as purposefully as the restless things we peep at through the hive-glass, building up their winter

sweets.

In an hour the process is complete; and the thoughts of lawyers, lovers, merchants, bankers, swindlers, masters, and servants, the private wishes of the whole town, lie side by side, enjoying inviolable secrecy; and, bagged, stringed, and sealed, are ready, after their brief meeting, for their final dispersion over the length and breadth of the land.

All the broad features of this well-contrived organization, its economy and power, the spectator sees before him; but much as he is struck thereby, it is only when he begins to examine details, and to study the statistics of the Postoffice, that he sees the true vastness of its operations, and estimates properly the magnitude and variety of its functions, as the great metropolitan heart of communication with the whole world.

As we pass the noble Post-office at St. Martin's-leGrand, with its ranges of Ionic columns, its triple porticos, and its spacious and elegant quadrangle-a worthy outward manifestation of the order, ingenuity, and intelligence that reign within—we cannot help contrasting its present condition with the postal operations of two or three centuries

ago, the noble oak of the present, with the little acorn of

the past.

No truer estimate of the national advance can be obtained than by running down the stream of history in relation to any of our great institutions which deal with the needs and wishes of the masses of the people; and in no one of them is our advance more clearly and correctly shown than in the annals of the Post-office. They form, in fact, a most delicate thermometer, marking the gradual increase of our national vitality, and indicating, with microscopic minuteness, the progress of our civilization.

In early times, the post was a pure convenience of the king, instituted for the purpose of forwarding his despatches, and having no dealings with the public whatsoever. Instead of St. Martin's-le-Grand being the point of departure, "the court," wherever it might happen to be, "made up the mails." How these mails were forwarded may be imagined from the following exculpatory letter written by one Brian Tuke, "Master of the Postes," in Henry the Eighth's time. It would appear that Cromwell had been pulling him up rather sharply for remissness in the forwarding of despatches. The worthy functionary states that:

"The Kinges Grace hath no moo ordinary postes, ne of many days hathe had, but betwene London and Calais.. For, sir, ye knowe well, that, except the hackney horses betwene Gravesende and Dovour, there is no suche usual conveyance in post for men in this realme as in the accustomed places of France and other parties; ne men can keepe horses in redynes withoute som way to bere the charges; but when placardes be sent for suche cause (to

order the immediate forwarding of some State packet,) the constables many tymes be fayne to take horses oute of plowes and cartes, wherein can be no extreme diligence.”

We should think not, Master Tuke. The worthy postmaster further shows how simple and rude were the arrangements of that day, by detailing the manner in which the royal letters were conveyed in what we should have considered to be one of their most important stages:

"As to postes betwene London and the courte, there be nowe but 2; wherof the on is a good robust felowe, and was wont to be diligent, evil intreated many tymes, he and other postes, by the herbigeours, for lack of horse rome or horsemete, withoute which diligence cannot be. The other hath been the most payneful felowe, in nyght and daye, that I have knowen amongst the messengers. If he nowe slak he shalbe changed, as reason is.”

This was in the year 1533. In the time of Elizabeth and James I., horse-posts were established on all the great routes for the conveying of the king's letters. This postal system was, of course, a source of expense to the Government-in the latter reign of about £3,400 annually. All this time subjects' letters were conveyed by foot-posts, and carriers, whose expedition may be judged of by the following extracts from a project for "accelerating" letters by means of a public post first started in 1635 :

:

"If (say the projectors) anie of his Mats subjects shall write to Madrill in Spain, hee shall receive answer sooner and surer than hee shall out of Scotland or Ireland. The letters being now carried by carriers or footposts 16 or 18 miles a-day, it is full two monthes before any answer from Scotland or Ireland to London."

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