Her Majesty's Mails

A PROVINCIAL POST-OFFICE. Thirty years ago the arrangements in the north country town of the district to which our imaginary letter was addressed, and which we are engaged to visit, were of the most primitive kind. It has always been an important town. Even anterior to the first establishment of the British Post-Office, it was the first town in the county in which it stands. Subsequently, it was on the direct line of one of the principal mail-routes in the kingdom, and now, in these days of railroads, it is a kind of junction for the district. Postally speaking, it was, and is, a place of importance, including within its boundaries nearly a hundred villages, all deriving their letter-sustenance from it. At the period of time in question the post-office was situated in the most central part of the town, the outside of the building partaking of the ugly and old-fashioned style of the shops of that day. It was then considered quite sufficient for the business of the place that there should be a small room of about twelve feet square devoted to postal purposes; that there should be a long counter, upon which the letters might be stamped and charged, and a small set of letter-boxes for the sorting processes. Added, however, to the proper business of the neighbourhood, there used to be a kind of work done here which was confined to a few towns only on the line of mails, selected for this supplementary business on account of their central positions. The mail-coaches, as they passed and repassed northwards and southwards, stopped here for half an hour until certain necessary sorting operations could be performed with a portion of the letters. In this way our particular town held the style and designation, and with it the prestige, of a "Forwarding Office."