From the secondary cases the letters are carried to the pouching rack. By the time they reach the pouching rack they are made up into bundles, various letters for the same localities having been segregated and tied together. In some instances the packages of letters are tagged or labeled for States, in others for cities, and still others for railroad lines or for sections of such lines. The handling of papers and circulars is much the same, so far as distribution is concerned, as the handling of letters, though there is considerable variation as to the details of segregation. [Illustration: _Carriers sorting mail in the General Post Office._] With this distribution of the mails there goes a system of despatches. In respect to these it may be said that it is essential that various clerks engaged in the process as described shall know the time of departure of the many trains leaving New York for different points. They must know how much time in advance of departure is essential between "tying out" the packages of letters and the actual departure of the train from the station, and thereby allow sufficient time, but no more time than is absolutely necessary, to make the connection. Every detail of the work is plotted; nothing is left to chance. At a certain hour and at a certain minute every clerk engaged in the same distribution at the same station ties out for the same office or route, and likewise at the pouching rack the pouches are closed, locked, and despatched according to a fixed schedule. If the pouch has to be carried from the rack to the truck a given number of feet, a time allowance is made. At a set time the truck that conveys the pouches to the station whence the train is to depart must leave. The time for the vehicle to traverse the prescribed route is fixed; sufficient time for this _and not more_ is allowed. Also the time for unloading the truck and loading the train is fixed. When it is understood that this course has to be followed by every one of the millions of letters handled, and that there are 50,000 offices in the United States to which mail is forwarded, and that in addition to this it is being distributed for practically every city, town, and hamlet in the world, the complexity of the task becomes apparent. From the General Post-office alone there are as many as 457 despatches of first-class mail daily, and forty-five despatches of second-, third-, and fourth-class matter. Within the last few years the burden of the parcel post has been added to the duties of the post-office. It is estimated that 75,000 pieces of parcel-post matter are handled at the General Post-office daily, and that 65,000 additional pieces of this matter are received at the same point from the stations.