Her Majesty's Mails

For the purpose of receiving bags, a large strong net is fixed to one side of the van, to be drawn down at the proper moment; and close to the door, on each side of it, securely fixed to the carriage, are hollow iron bars, inside each of which, working by means of a rope and pulley, an iron arm is fixed, upon which the bags to be delivered, securely strapped in a thick, leathern pouch, are suspended. Where the exchange has to be effected at the station we are nearing, the arrangements are just the counterparts of this. A net is spread to catch each pouch from the extended arm of the carriage, and pouches are hung from iron standards in the ground of sufficient height for the net in the train. The operation itself is just commencing. The door is pushed back into the groove in which it works, and then the sorter, touching a spring that holds up the net, it is loosened from its supports, and projects over the carriage-sides; the iron arm, acting on its pulley-rope, is drawn round into the carriage, where the pouch is rapidly fastened to it by means of a catch or spring--but in such a manner that a touch from the net-apparatus at the station will bring it off--and then let down, remaining by virtue of its own weight at right angles to the door. A moment of waiting, and then all the machinery acts its assigned part properly; the pouch disappears from the arm (or arms, if the bags have been heavy enough for two to be used), and at the same moment another descends into the post-office net, and all is over and quiet as before. We mean, of course, comparative quiet, as much as is possible amid the din and endless rattle of a train speeding at the rate of forty miles an hour.