The post office and its story : $b an interesting account of the activities of a great government departmentBennett, Edward
History
The post office and its story : $b an interesting account of the activities of a great government department
Bennett, Edward
Postal service -- Great Britain -- History
Let me now explain the system of sorting. The majority of people
probably never give a thought as to the happenings of a parcel which
they have posted: they leave it in faith on the counter and the
wonderful Post Office sends it direct to its destination. That is
probably their idea. Supposing you have left your parcel on the public
counter of King Edward's Building, what happens next? The parcel is
taken to the despatching room to wait the arrival of the van which will
convey it in a sack to the Parcel Office at Mount Pleasant. It will
there be turned out on a long sorting-table which has a sunken surface,
after the fashion of a scullery sink, the well of which is lined with
zinc. Your parcel is in the company of others, intended for all parts of
the world, and the first step is to get the parcels to the various parts
of the office from which they will be despatched to other destinations.
Along the whole length of one side of the table is a wooden framework or
sack holding the empty baskets. These ten baskets are labelled Scotch,
Irish, Paddington, Foreign and Colonial, Delivery, Liverpool Street,
Euston, King's Cross, Waterloo and London Bridge, Town, and the sorters
stand between these baskets and the table laden with parcels. They pick
up the parcels from the table and place them in the respective baskets.
Full baskets are carried by a porter to another part of the office,
where the second stage of the sorting is to be gone through. Here the
parcels are turned out on to another table similar to the one already
described. Let us suppose that your parcel is in the basket labelled
“Euston.” There are twelve baskets on the sorting rack at the Euston
division table, and they are labelled to the large centres known as
“Roads” and also to the “Aylesbury Coach” and to “Blind” as follows:
Chester, Carlisle, Preston, Rugby, Stafford, Blind, Watford, Manchester,
Birmingham, Liverpool, Shrewsbury, Aylesbury Branch.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account