It has often been noticed that if a bottle of hair-wash or cod liver oil is broken in transit there is generally no difficulty in recovering a substantial portion of the contents to be poured into another bottle, but when a bottle of champagne or of whisky is broken none of the contents ever remain to be deposited in another vessel. Ireland is a great country for dairy produce, and she sends many parcels of butter to England, but such parcels require careful packing. A parcel wrapped only in grease-proof paper, with an outer wrapper of linen, looks beautifully firm at the beginning of its journey, but in warm weather deterioration sets in quickly, and only the wrappers are left by the end of the journey. The tale is told by the other parcels in the receptacle. They have all been anointed with oil. One parcel may be a silk dress, another a gentleman's white shirt, another an album or the latest thing in millinery. Who is responsible for lost parcels? In 99 cases out of 100 it may be confidently answered that the sender is the culprit. The parcel is probably sent with only a tie-on label, and this gets detached in transit. Tie-on labels ought never to be attached unless the address is also on some part of the parcel itself. Parcels of game and poultry are often sent with merely a paper label tied round the necks of the birds. Post Office servants do their best, but such labels will get torn off sometimes, and the birds then find their way to the Returned Parcel Office. Here they are only kept for a day or two, as they are perishable matter. They are sold at a sacrifice to outside tradesmen. Articles not of a perishable nature are kept for some months in case they may be claimed. In the Returned Parcel Office there is a motley collection of all kinds of articles awaiting claimants. An elaborate register is kept of these articles, and a history is furnished of all that is known respecting them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration] _Photo_ _Clarke & Hyde._ THE PARCEL POST HOSPITAL. This is a section of the Parcel Post Hospital. The official is busy packing up again a parcel which has been carelessly posted. The baskets are behind him, and all manner of strange articles are sometimes found loose in them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------