The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance

Semi-official legends, with a very strong smack of probability about them, tell of sundry boys being thrown in, seized, emptied, and thrown out again void. As six o'clock approaches still nearer and nearer, the turmoil increases more perceptibly, for the intelligent British public is fully alive to the awful truth that the Post-office officials never allow a minute of grace, and that 'Newspaper Fair' must be over when the last stroke of six is heard. One--in rush files of laggard boys, who have purposely loitered in the hope of a little pleasurable excitement; two--and grown men hurry in with the last sacks; three--the struggle resembles nothing so much as a pantomimic melee; four--a babel of tongues vociferating desperately; five--final and furious showers of papers, sacks, and bags; and six--when all the windows fall like so many swords of Damocles, and the slits close with such a sudden and simultaneous snap, that we naturally suppose it to be a part of the Post-office operations that attempts should be made to guillotine a score of hands; and then all is over, so far as the outsiders are concerned." Though the tradition referred to of boys being thrown into the letter-box may not have a very sure foundation in fact, it is the case at any rate that a live dog was posted at Lombard Street, and falling into the bag attached to the letter-box, it was not discovered till the contents of the bag were emptied out on a table in the General Post-office.