The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance

Does it ever occur to an ordinary member of the community how letters are sorted? And if so, what has the thinking member made of it? We fear the idea would wear a somewhat hazy complexion. This is how it is done in Edinburgh, for example. The letters when posted are of course found all mixed together, and bearing addresses of every kind. They are first arranged with the postage-stamps all in one direction, then they are stamped (the labels being defaced in the process), and thereafter the letters are ready to be sorted. They are conveyed to sorting frames, where a first division is carried out, the letters being divided into about twenty lots, representing roads or despatching divisions, and a few large towns. Then at these divisions the final sortation takes place, to accord with the bags in which the letters will be enclosed when the proper hour of despatch arrives. This seems a very simple process, does it not?