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

CHAPTER V THE TRAVELLING POST OFFICE Something of the old romance of the service lingers about the Travelling Post Office. To those who work it there is always a possibility of adventure, not to mention the risk to life and limb, while to those who watch its operations there is that indefinable element which makes an appeal to the imagination. Moreover, in more than one of its features it links up our time with the old mail coach days. There are pictures in existence of the mail coach passing through a village or hamlet, and the mail bag is being handed out from the upper windows of the local post office to the guard of the coach. The driver is reducing his speed while the exchange is taking place, and the suggestion of the picture is that no time is to be lost. The same idea is carried out to-day by means of mechanical appliances. Indeed, so soon as the mail train came into being, the minds of officials were at once exercised how to maintain the old system of exchange under altered conditions. The early effects were scarcely ingenious, and were obviously dangerous. The experiment was tried of hoisting up the bags towards the railway guards on long poles, but after one guard had had his eye poked out, and others had suffered from severe falls while endeavouring to secure the bags, it was felt that the business placed too severe a strain on human endeavour. Under this clumsy arrangement it was necessary for the train to reduce its speed, and it was not only, I am afraid, to preserve the guards from injury, but also to prevent delay during the process of exchange, that the efforts of inventors were directed. But before I proceed to describe the ingenious apparatus which is in operation to-day, and which is on practically the same lines as that invented more than seventy years ago, I must deal with the Travelling Post Office itself.