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

It will be perhaps interesting at this stage to trace the travels of a letter to the furthest point in the British Isles. On this route we can bring out clearly the fact that in many parts of Great Britain and Ireland the Post Office, in spite of mail trains and ingenious mechanical contrivances, is still dependent on quite primitive means for conducting its business. Moreover, directly we get away from the main lines of traffic, considerations of weather still affect postal operations almost as much as they used to do in the old coaching days. Let us address a letter to the Muckle Flugga Lighthouse, which is situated to the north of the island of Unst in Shetland. Let us post the letter at King Edward's Building on a Sunday night at 6 P.M., and given favourable conditions of weather it will be delivered at the Muckle Flugga Lighthouse on Thursday morning. The letter is sorted into the Scottish division, is subsorted into a pigeon hole, and afterwards into a bundle labelled “Aberdeen forward.” The bundle is dropped into a bag inscribed with the words “London to Aberdeen,” and one of the familiar red vans conveys the bag to the London terminus. On Sunday nights this would be Euston. The bag is handed over to the sorters in charge of the Travelling Post Office, on which there is a mail carriage which runs direct to Aberdeen. Aberdeen is reached at 7.35 on Monday morning. So far the process of the letter has been simple and rapid.