The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance

As the duties in the T.P.O. are for the most part performed during the night, the sorters employed have a great deal of night-work, and in some cases their terms of duty are very broken and irregular. Thus, with the hardships they have to endure in periods of severe frost, when no heating apparatus is supplied except a few warming-pans, they live a life of duty far removed from ease or soft idleness. The large pieces of leather with stout straps attached, already referred to, called pouches, are used as a protection to mail-bags which have to be delivered by what is commonly known as the apparatus. The mail-bags to be so disposed of are rolled up inside one of these pouches; the ends of the leather are folded in; the whole is bound round with the strong leather straps; and, the buckles being fastened, the pouch is ready for delivery. But, first, let the apparatus itself be described. This consists of two parts: an arm or arms of stout iron attached to the carriage, which can be extended outwards from the side, and to the end of which the pouch containing the bag is suspended when ready; and a receiving net, also attached to the side of the carriage, which can likewise be extended outwards to catch the mails to be taken up--this portion acting the part of an aerial trawl-net to capture the bags suspended from brackets on the roadside. The apparatus on the roadside is the counterpart of that on the carriage, the suspending arm in each case fitting itself to the nets on the carriage and roadside respectively.