The post office and its story an interesting account of the activities of a great government department

The competitions arranged of late years by magazines and newspapers in the shape of missing words, Limericks, and puzzles have been felt nowhere more keenly than in the Postal Order branch. Some years ago a member of the staff in a private letter gave her experiences of a time of stress of this kind. “We are at present inundated with Pearson's Weekly. It is like the charge of the Light Brigade. Bundles to the right of us, bundles to the left of us, upstairs and downstairs. Pearson says in some interview that one of his female clerks counts the Postal Orders at the rate of 14,000 an hour with very few mistakes. The ordinary rate for the Post Office clerks who have had a good deal of experience, and who do it all day long, is between 3000 and 4000 per hour, and there are very few mistakes. I think any one who tried to count more than that would be a raving lunatic soon, and at any rate would not be able to continue at that speed (viz. 14,000 an hour) for six or seven consecutive hours. On one Tuesday morning a postmaster sent his ordinary requisition for a fortnight's supply, and over and above this asked for 250 at 1s. for some gentlemen who had already paid for them and wanted them urgently by Wednesday. When the competitions were announced to end several postmasters wrote asking for their stock to be taken back, as they were now overstocked. We ourselves helped to swell the number, and we have won occasionally, so that on the whole we don't mind the rush very much. There was one gentleman we heard of who having already sent up several words in one competition, thought of another at the last moment. He rushed out to the nearest post office, and asked a flaxen-haired damsel behind the counter for the necessary shilling Order. She had a scared look in her face, and she did not reply to the gentleman. She simply called out despairingly, 'Father, here's another,' and fled. And the father put the shutters up, turned the gas out, and the word never reached Pearson's.”