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

The first floor is entirely devoted to the treatment of correspondence for the Colonies and abroad. About 900 officers of all grades are employed upon the work and about 400,000 articles are despatched weekly. The work is brought up by lifts from the eastern platform. The principle here is also continual subdivision, and there are upwards of 1000 different post offices for which direct bags are made up nightly in the Foreign Section. A striking feature of this section to the visitor is the varied colouring of the big mail bags intended for over-sea mails. If the foreign sailor cannot read he can appreciate colour, and he will know the destination of a mail bag by its colour. A band conveyor from east to west conveys the bags from the Foreign Section to the top of a special shoot at the west end of the building, whence they are shot down to the departure platform on the ground floor. All the letters everywhere are “stepping westward,” and everything goes even on the busiest night with something like the regularity of clock work. Photo Clarke & Hyde THE BLIND SECTION. These men are dealing with badly and insufficiently addressed letters. They have directories in front of them, and every effort is made to put the letters into circulation again. An interesting feature of the Sorting Office is the Blind Section. Here at all hours of the day you will find a row of men sitting at a long table over which is a bookshelf full of up-to-date directories, guides, and other manuals of topographical information. These men are doing their best to put in the way of delivery the imperfectly and indistinctly written packets. If they fail the letter goes to the Returned Letter Office to submit to more expert treatment. Experience counts for much with these men. The badly spelt addresses are perhaps the easiest of these puzzles. “Saintlings, Hilewite,” is at once decided to be “St. Helens, Isle of Wight” “Has bedallar— such” even a schoolboy would recognise as Ashby-de-la-Zouch; but it requires the specialist in puzzles addresses to arrange for the delivery of a letter addressed simply as 25th March to Lady Day, the wife of the judge of that name.