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435
Her Majesty's Mails
·
William Lewins
303
In
all
this
consists
the
prose
of
Post-Office
life;
but
who
shall
describe
its
poetry?
Scarcely
a
day
passes
in
any
of
our
provincial
post-offices
without
some
incident
occurring
calculated
to
surprise,
amuse,
or
sadden.
Very
probably
within
a
few
minutes
one
person
will
have
come
to
make
a
complaint
that
a
certain
letter
or
letters
ought
to
have
arrived,
and
must
have
been
kept
back;
another
will
make
an
equally
unreasonable
request,
or
propound
some
strange
inquiry
which
the
poor
post-office
clerk
is
supposed
to
be
omniscient
enough
to
answer.
Most
often,
however,
the
cases
of
inquiry
disclose
sorrowful
facts,
and
all
the
consolation
which
can
be
offered--supposing
that
the
clerk
has
any
of
"the
milk
of
human
kindness"
in
him,
a
quality
of
mind
or
heart,
much
too
rare,
we
confess,
in
the
Post-Office
service--will
likely
be
the
consolation
of
hope.
The
official
sees
now
and
then
brief
snatches
of
romance;
perhaps
the
beginning
or
the
end,
though
seldom
the
transaction
throughout.
Amusing
circumstances
are
often
brought
out
by
requests
tendered
at
the
Post-Office,
that
letters
which
have
been
posted
may
be
returned
to
the
writers.
A
formal,
but
most
essential
rule,
makes
letters
once
posted
the
property
of
the
Postmaster-General
until
they
are
delivered
as
addressed,
and
must
not
be
given
up
to
the
writers
on
any
pretence
whatever.
One
or
two
requests
of
this
kind
related
to
us
we
are
not
likely
soon
to
forget.
On
one
occasion,
a
gentlemanly-looking
commercial
traveller
called
at
an
office
and
expressed
a
fear
that
he
had
inclosed
two
letters
in
wrong
envelopes,
the
addresses
of
which
he
furnished.
It
appeared
from
the
account
which
he
reluctantly
gave,
after
a
refusal
to
grant
his
request,
that
his
position
and
prospects
depended
upon
his
getting
his
letters,
and
correcting
the
mistakes,
inasmuch
as
they
revealed
plans
which
he
had
adopted
to
serve
two
mercantile
houses
in
the
same
line
of
business,
whose
interests
clashed
at
every
point.
He
failed
to
get
his
letters,
but
we
hope
he
has
retrieved
himself,
and
is
now
serving
one
master
faithfully.
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