The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance

CHAPTER XI. SORTERS AND CIRCULATION. Post-office sorters, unlike men who follow other avocations, are a race unsung, and a people unknown to fame. The soldier of adventure, the mariner on the high seas, the village blacksmith, the tiller of the soil, the woodman in the forest--nay, even the tailor on his bench,--all of these have formed the theme of song, and have claimed the notice of writers of verse. It is otherwise with the men who sort our letters. This may possibly be due to two causes--that sorters are comparatively a modern institution, and that their work is carried on practically under seal. In times which are little beyond the recollection of persons now living, the lines of post were so few, and the division and distribution of letters so simple, that the clerks who examined and taxed the correspondence also sorted it: and the time taken over the work would seem to show much deliberation in the process; for we find that in 1796, when correspondence was very limited, it took above an hour at Edinburgh "to tell up, examine, and retax" the letters received by the mail from England for places in the north; and that, when foreign mails arrived, two hours were required; and further time was necessary for taxing and sorting letters posted in Edinburgh for the same district of country--the staff employed in the business being two clerks. In those days there were really no sorters, unless such as were employed in the chief office in London. As to the work being carried on under seal, it is not going beyond the truth to say that, to the great majority of persons, the interior of the Post-office is a terra incognita, their sole knowledge of the institution being derived from the pillar and the postman.