Midland and East Coast Mail; two sorting-offices
and one tender for the North Mail (of which I
was a part); and two other tenders employed
for the intermediate mails. In two of the three
sorting-offices in the train, the letters posted in
London, or passing through London for the
smaller towns on the line, and which have
already undergone one divisional sortation at
the Chief Office, are received, and again sorted
for their final destination. In the third of
the three sorting-offices in the train, the bags of
cross-post letters from the towns arrived at on
the road are received, sorted, and, in some cases,
made-up and re-despatched, without the train
having had to submit to a moment's delay, or to
slacken its even pace of five-and-forty miles an
hour. This is the Railway Post-office—properly
so called—and into this department of the train
—being a privileged letter—I was freely
permitted to go.

The Railway Post-office was an exceedingly
comfortable, well-furnished business carriage,
broad as the gauge of the railway would allow,
and as long as an ordinary room. The door was
in the centre, having on its right a large window
hole, shut up with a wooden shutter, and extending
across nearly one-half of the carriage. Sometimes,
the interior reminded me of a bagatelle-
table, when I looked at the green cloth counters
running along both ends, and nearly along the
whole length of the back; sometimes, it reminded
me of a large laundry, when I looked at the full
bags lying unopened upon the floor, and the
many empty bags (marked with the names of
towns) hanging on pegs from the half wall on
the left of the entrance door. Sometimes the
hundred pigeon-holes and shelves which covered
the three sides of the carriage immediately over
the three counters, suggested an elaborate
mahogany kitchen dresser, the spaces in which
were being continually filled by maniac card-
players, silently dealing out eternal, never-ending,
ever-renewing packs of cards in a phantom
game of whist.

As soon as the average speed of the train was
attained, the bags on the floor were opened by the
guard. Packets of letters, tied up with a string
were thrown upon the back counter, to be
divided amongst the three sorting clerks (the whole
postal part of the train employs fourteen clerks,
and six guards), dozens ot newspapers, parcels,
pill-boxes, sample-packets, thin cases of
artificial flowers, rolls of music, and photographs
done up in envelopes as large as tea-trays, were
thrown upon the end counter at the head of the
carriage; and the work began. Each man stood
under a shaded globular lamp, shaking very
much throughout his frame, and swaying to and
fro like a circus-rider on his horse. The
carriage is bright and glowing, and its speed
is something between forty and fifty miles
an hour. Letters are rapidly conveyed to
the different pigeon-holes, sometimes high
sometimes low, sometimes on one side, and
then on the other; sometimes, with a little
hesitation when the writing which tells the post-
town is not very clear (the name of the county
being placed on the letter is rather an hindrance
to the sorters than otherwise); sometimes, with a
circular wave of the hand, when the mind is in
doubt, for a moment, where to deposit the letter;
nearly always, more with regard to a sorting
system peculiar to the sorter, than the names of
the different towns which appear over the pigeon-
holes. One clerk devotes himself to the registered
letters, which have to be entered on a
printed list; and he stands in a half-stooping
posture, at a little distance from the counter, with a
quill pen in one hand, and a small square board,
on which is stretched the paper, clasped firmly
in the other; jotting down the names and
addresses in a touch-and-go style, which long
practice has adapted to the motion of a flying,
wabbling platform, that passes over a mile in a
minute. The third clerk, preferring to be seated
at his work, pulls out a swivel seat from under
the counter that looks very much like a dark
Westphalia ham.

After the guard has been busy, for a short
time, at the head end of the carriage, seemingly
in tossing the newspapers and packets about,
like a potato-washer over a tub of potatoes, he
takes another turn at the bags, and makes up
the sealed mail for the first post-station. When
he has tied and scaled the dirty white skin bag,
which contains the allowance of letters for one
small town, and a score of smaller villages, he
straps it up in a dark brown leather covering
until it looks like a pedlar's pack, and then he
proceeds to attach it to the external machinery
of the carriage. He is an experienced guard,
familiar with every river, bridge, and point, who
knows, by the sound of the roaring and clattering
train, at what moment to "let down the net, and
put out for delivery," as the printed instructions
phrase it. The shutter of the large single
window-hole is pushed down in its groove, and
a gust of cold night air, laden with the scent of
earth and grass, and trees, comes freshly into the
hot and busy carriage. The guard looks out
along the dark line of rising and falling hedges,
and through the trees at the low horizon, for
some expected signal light, and then proceeds to
the door, which he pushes back in its side groove.
Reaching out his arm round the window side of
the carriage, he drags in an iron bar, that
swings by several hinges, at the extremity of
which he fastens the packed mail, now lying on
the floor, by means of a spring, and casts it away
from the carriage over the rails, where it drops
and hangs suspended at right angles, like a heavy
bait put out to catch fish. This operation
completed, he returns to the open window, where he
pushes down a mechanical arrangement, which
forms a projecting receiving net, and which
sounds, in its descent, as if the whole carriage
were falling to pieces. After a few seconds'
suspense, the bait appears to have taken; the
carriage passes under several bags of letters,
which are suspended from the postal station, and
over a similar net, projecting from the station also;
the machinery of the railway acts upon the
machinery of the carriage; the one bag drops into
the roadside net—or into a roadside ditch, as any