The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and RomanceHyde, James Wilson
History
The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance
Hyde, James Wilson
Postal service -- Great Britain
It is to be hoped that the work of the school boards will be seen in the
absence of such answers from the medical officers' schedules of the
future.
In addition to the medical scrutiny as to health, all candidates for
service have to give satisfactory accounts in regard to their previous
employment; and this is elicited by means of questions put to the
candidate on what is known as the A. form.
The following are questions and answers in the case of a young lady
candidate:--
Write your Christian and surname in full.
Elizabeth B----
Your usual signature?
Yours ever, Lizzie.
State how you have been employed since leaving school.
_Ans_. Music and singing, and nursing dear mamma,
who is an invalid!
CHAPTER XXIII.
VARIOUS.
_Superstition_.
Superstition rarely stands in the way of the extension of postal
accommodation or convenience; but a case of the kind occurred some time
ago in the west of Ireland. Application was made for the erection of a
wall letter-box, and authority had been granted for setting it up; but
when arrangements came to be made for providing for the collection of
letters, no one could be found to undertake the duty, in consequence of
a general belief among the poorer people in the neighbourhood that, at
that particular spot, "a ghost went out nightly on parade." The ghost
was stated to be a large white turkey without a head.
_Curious Names_.
Everything that departs from the usual mode or fashion of things is
regarded as curious, and the term may be applied also to the incidence
of names and professions, either in regard to their relative fitness of
relationship, or to an opposite quality. As the sight of two or three
individuals with wooden legs walking in company would be sure to claim
our attention, if it did not excite our mirth, so the coming together
of persons having similar names under the same roof by mere chance,
would not fail to attract notice, and be thought a peculiar
circumstance. Of the first class the following cases may be
noted,--namely, that at Torquay, Devonshire, there used to be a butcher
called Bovine; in the east of London there is a James Bull, a
cow-keeper; and at Birnam, Perthshire, a gardener and strawberry-grower
called John Rake. There is further, we are informed, at Cork a person
carrying on the pawnbroking business whose name is Uncle, than which
there could be nothing more appropriate. Of the second class the
following is an instance, persons of the names given having been
employed together in a single office of the General Post-office some
years ago:--
A Lacroix. A Parsons. A Partridge.
A Laforet. An Archer. A Peacock,
A Deforge. A Fisher. and
A Defraine. A Hunter. One Berdmore.
A Clark.
_Letter-box, St Martin's-le-Grand._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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