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

Leather is used very much in postal appliances, and a large staff is employed making and repairing articles. Powerful sewing-machines are employed for the purpose. One curious industry is the making of the little felt and leather carriers which are used for the transmitting written telegrams and other papers through the pneumatic tubes. These are made by women. There are, as I have already pointed out, miles of these pneumatic tubes under the streets of London. Here is a paint shop, also a smith's shop with steam blast and hammer. Basket-mending is very much in evidence. The Post Office uses thousands of baskets, many of which used to be made in prisons. The bulk, however, come from contractors, but the mending is done here. When the articles have been tested the Stores undertake the delivery throughout the country. One of the burning questions of the Post Office is the supply of telegraph poles. In the Post Office Circular of the 8th December 1908, the Postmaster-General invited his staff throughout the country to acquaint him of any promising sources of home-supplied timber. There was a time when the needs of the British Post Office were met solely from Norway. From the Norwegian forests came the poles which supported the overhead telegraphs of the United Kingdom. But at the present time there is a shrinkage in the supply from that quarter. The Post Office requires 40,000 poles per annum. Sweden has supplied us, and now Russia with her interminable and primeval forests sends us the poles. There are virgin forests in Russia in the White Sea Hinterland, but these are very dense, and it is sometimes very difficult to get out of them anything longer than 40 feet. The timbers used for telegraph “arms” are, however, imported from Australia.