Lab
Library
Journal
Shop
Sign in
to keep
Share image
1
435
Her Majesty's Mails
·
William Lewins
259
In
the
letter-room
the
officers
are
no
less
busily
engaged:
a
number
of
them
are
constantly
at
work
during
the
hours
of
the
despatch,
in
the
operation
of
placing
each
letter
with
the
address
and
postage
label
uppermost,
so
as
to
facilitate
the
process
of
stamping.
In
the
General
Post-Office
the
stamping
is
partly
effected
by
machinery
and
partly
by
hand,
and
consists
simply
in
imprinting
upon
each
letter
the
date,
hour,
and
place
of
posting,
while
at
the
same
time
the
Queen's
head
with
which
the
letter
is
ornamented
and
franked
gets
disfigured.[154]
It
will
easily
be
imagined
that
a
letter
containing
a
box
of
pills
stands
a
very
good
chance
of
being
damaged
under
this
manipulation,
as
a
good
stamper
will
strike
about
fifty
letters
in
a
minute.
Unpaid
letters
are
kept
apart,
as
they
require
stamping
in
a
different
coloured
ink
and
with
the
double
postage.
Such
letters
create
much
extra
labour,
and
are
a
source
of
incessant
trouble
to
the
Department,
inasmuch
as
from
the
time
of
their
posting
in
London
to
their
delivery
at
the
Land's
End
or
John
O'Groat's,
every
officer
through
whose
hands
they
may
pass
has
to
keep
a
cash
account
of
them.
The
double
postage
on
such
letters
is
more
than
earned
by
the
Post-Office.
All
unfastened
and
torn
letters,
too,
are
picked
out
and
conveyed
to
another
portion
of
the
large
room,
and
it
requires
the
unremitting
attention
of
several
busy
individuals
to
finish
the
work
left
undone
by
the
British
public.
It
is
scarcely
credible
that
above
250
letters
daily
are
posted
open,
and
bearing
not
the
slightest
mark
of
ever
having
been
fastened
in
any
way;
but
such
is
the
fact.
A
fruitful
source
of
extra
work
to
this
branch
of
the
office
arises
through
the
posting
of
flimsy
boxes
containing
feathers,
slippers,
and
other
récherché
articles
of
female
dress,
pill-boxes
containing
jewellery,
and
even
bottles.
The
latter,
however,
are
detained,
glass
articles
and
sharp
instruments
of
any
sort,
whenever
detected,
being
returned
to
the
senders.
These
frail
things,
thrown
in
and
buried
under
the
heaps
of
correspondence,
get
crushed
and
broken,
yet
all
are
made
up
again
carefully
and
resealed.
Marker
Marker
Fine marker
White-out
Fine white-out
Circle
Paint
Unmarker
Hand
Scalpel
Dice
Sieve
Purify
Undo
Redo
Start over
