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318
The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance
·
James Wilson Hyde
100
In
the
London
Metropolitan
district
there
are
employed
4030
postmen;
and
taking
their
daily
amount
of
walking
at
12
miles
on
the
average--a
very
low
estimate--this
would
represent
an
aggregate
daily
journeying
on
foot
of
48,360
miles,
or
equal
to
twice
the
circumference
of
our
globe.
Articles
of
many
curious
kinds
have
been
observed
passing
through
the
post
from
time
to
time,
some
of
them
dangerous
or
prohibited
articles,
which,
according
to
rule,
are
sent
to
the
Returned-letter
Office--the
fact
showing
that
the
Post-office
is
not
only
called
upon
to
perform
its
first
duty
of
expeditiously
conveying
the
correspondence
intrusted
to
it,
but
is
made
the
vehicle
for
the
carriage
of
small
articles
of
almost
endless
variety.
Some
of
these
are
the
following,
many
of
them
having
been
in
a
live
state
when
posted--viz.,
beetles,
blind-worms,
bees,
caterpillars,
crayfish,
crabs,
dormice,
goldfinches,
frogs,
horned
frogs,
gentles,
kingfishers,
leeches,
moles,
owls,
rabbits,
rats,
squirrels,
stoats,
snails,
snakes,
silk-worms,
sparrows,
stag-beetles,
tortoises,
white
mice;
artificial
teeth,
artificial
eyes,
cartridges,
china
ornaments,
Devonshire
cream,
eggs,
geranium-cuttings,
glazier's
diamonds,
gun-cotton,
horseshoe
nails,
mince-pies,
musical
instruments,
ointments,
perfumery,
pork-pies,
revolvers,
sausages,
tobacco
and
cigars,
&c.,
&c.
Occasionally
the
sending
of
live
reptiles
through
the
Post-office
gives
rise
to
interruption
to
the
work,
as
has
occurred
when
snakes
have
escaped
from
the
packets
in
which
they
had
been
enclosed.
The
sorters,
not
knowing
whether
the
creatures
are
venomous
or
not,
are
naturally
chary
in
the
matter
of
laying
hold
of
them;
and
it
may
readily
be
conceived
how
the
work
would
be
interfered
with
in
the
limited
space
of
a
Travelling
Post-office
carriage
containing
half-a-dozen
sorters,
upon
a
considerable
snake
showing
his
activity
among
the
correspondence,
as
has
in
reality
happened.
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