AN ODE OF HORACE. TO LICINIUS-BOOK II, CARMEN X. When darkening skies presage a storm, The loftiest of the slender trees Is rocked more wildly by the breeze; Avoid them less than humble homes. With patient hope another fate, Lest change of fortune may be near. Nor wakes the muse with Citherus' flow. Your sails--full swollen-swift contract. CLERICUS. THE POST OFFICE. REMINISCENCES HISTORICAL AND PERSONAL. "Want who, did you say ? PART II. "The gentleman what looks after the dead-house, please." Such was the remarkable colloquy proceeding between a matronly personage and one of the officials at the public counter of our local Post Office, as the writer and a friend presented their credentials for a privileged inspection of the interior of the building, whose "too, too solid" exterior has now become a familiar, if not a graceful, addition to our local architecture. Entering the Private Entrance to the right of the public doors, and ascending a flight of stone steps, the visitor finds himself in a spacious corridor with three offices on either side. Those on the right hand are occupied by the District Telegraph Engineer and his staff. Of those on the left, and facing the Town Hall, the one nearest New Street is appropriated to a branch of the London Returned, or Dead, Letter Office; and we found that it was for the superintendent of this department that the person referred to above was enquiring. By the establishment of this branch in Birmingham, about 212,000 letters, annually, are opened and returned to the writers direct, instead of sustaining delay by being sent to the London Office, as was previously Letters having embossed addresses are returned to the senders the case. unopened. Few persons are ever willing to admit that they could have made any mistake in addressing a letter, when they hear that it has not reached its destination: to such it is desirable to state that the number of letters and post cards posted unaddressed in Birmingham in a twelvemonth, was about 5,000, and that more than 33,000 could not be returned, in consequence of the writer's address not being in any case enclosed. Packets found in the sorting-department without any address, having escaped from their covers, or, more frequently, become detached from "tallies" insecurely tied to them, are kept here until applied for; and here, too, are detained those 'curious articles,' which recent Reports of the Postmaster General have shewn to circulate through the post, until the nature of their contents is discovered, if not at first apparent. Toasting-forks, with the points quite unprotected; German sausages; smelling bottles filled with choice perfumes, some smashed and "wasting their sweetness on th' official air"; gloves of all colors and sizes; collars, handkerchiefs, and articles of apparel "too numerous to mention;" live silk-worms and white mice, (one of the latter gnawed its way through the wooden box in which it had been posted, and escaped, much to the discomfiture, we should think, of the young ladies employed in the "Returning" duties); American tree-frogs, with prodigious hopping powers; and a woodcock, are a few of the 'articles' which have here found a temporary resting place, until claimed by their owners, to whom a notice of the detention is, in each case, sent. The next room is the private office of the Postmaster, Mr. Smith, who is the controlling head of the entire establishment, as well as of the Telegraph Offices in Cannon Street. Sensible people would naturally conclude that the direction of such a Bureau, with its branch offices in the town and sub-offices in the country districts, would be quite a sufficient occupation; but there are some persons who evidently think that the postmaster of a large town like Birmingham ought, in addition, to adopt the rôle of a local 'Mr. Pollaky,' as the following letters received by Mr. Smith (who has kindly permitted their insertion here) testify: "Newchurch. Mrs. R will be much obliged to the Postmaster if he will kindly inform her what position Mrs. of Road, Handsworth, has in the place. Mrs. Rmakes these inquiries as she has had a servant from there applying for a situation as housemaid." The following enclosed a note for a missing relative: the italics are the writer's : "New York, November 13th, 1876. Sir, Could you please "find out a lady friend of mine for me. I have lost her address and forget her name; but her husband was an iron bedstead maker, he had been married before and had some of the children married and they had children, her name before she was married at all was Matilda (this is her second marriage), her father was for many years a great temperance advocate, I do not know if he is living or not, there was a gentleman some years ago say nine or ten at least that used to patronize him a good deal the Vicar of Yardley I think it was but I think he had to leave on account of his health. Or if you cannot find her she had a brother living in Coventry in the brass line bell levers &c. of the name of Isaac about nine years ago, if you could find him and send the enclosed to him I should be most thankful. To the Postmaster, Birmingham." ་ Mrs. The following 'cool' epistle places a very high opinion on the "detective" acquirements of the Post Office officials :— Sir,-Would you kindly tell me if there is such a person in Birmingham by the name of Spicer. Yours respectfully." The concluding specimen seems to embody the application to the postmaster and the letter to the manufacturer as well, as it contained no enclosure. The writer would appear to be of a poetic turn of mind, judging from the array of capitals at the commencement of the lines:"Mr. Postmaster, Dear Sir, I wish that you would If you make them sended Or send me word wot it will Them try the experment Eyie Preversing Spectickles. Milford, Michagan, 20th April, 1877." The room adjoining the postmaster's office is occupied by the Accountant, who, with his clerk, must have a busy time of it, seeing that no less a sum than £2,000,000 passes, annually, through his hands, directly or indirectly. There is no internal communication between the offices and the ground floor of the building, so we retrace our steps to the Public Hall. Here the advantage of the horse-shoe counter is at once apparent; persons being able to obtain money orders, buy postage stamps, and register their letters without having to wander through a labyrinth of swing-doors, as is the case at many other large offices in the kingdom. In a corner of the hall is Mr. Hollins' statue of Sir Rowland Hill. Since the publication of the last number of the Magazine, the Postmaster General's Annual Report has appeared. In it, the total number of money orders issued during the year ended March 31st last, is stated as more than eighteen millions, and the amount of these more than twentyeight millions. Of this we gather that the Birmingham Office issues about 86,000 annually, to the amount of £160,000, and pays about 305,000 with a value of something like £540,000. Since the establishment of the Post Office Savings Bank in Birmingham, more than 76,000 deposit accounts have been opened. Comparatively few of the busy passengers in New Street, or the fashionable dillettanti taking their daily constitutional, are aware that underneath them are being transmitted messages of "life and death.” The telegrams accepted from the public at the office in Paradise Street, are, after being recorded, transmitted bodily through a pneumatic tube to Cannon Street. The message-form is folded and placed in a felt "carrier"; the clerk signals (on a little bell, communicating by wire with the Exchange Office) "Turn on vacuum," and away rushes the carrier on its dark and tortuous journey underneath New Street and Cannon Street into the Central Telegraph Office, whence the telegram is sent forward to its destination by wire. The time occupied in the journey from the Post Office to the office in Cannon Street is less than 30 seconds. But it is the interior of the sorting-department which possesses the most interest for the visitor, and as our courteous conductor informs us that it should be seen at night, we bid him "au revoir." Presenting our "open sesame" again in the evening, we pass within the public counter and enter the sorting-office; a magnificent room, 100 feet long, by 45 feet, and 30 feet high; in strange contrast with the miserably low and ill-ventilated "consumption manufactory," as the old office in New Street was termed by the newspapers of the period. What a sight meets the eye! The time is 8.30 p.m. Letters, post cards, newspapers, and nondescript packets are heaped on the various tables in apparently hopeless confusion. "Letters, letters everywhere," and still, bags of them are arriving by the collecting-carts from the branch offices, whilst showers of them are descending through the letter-boxes in Hill Street. Any one watching the busy scene before us, could only liken it to a veritable hive. There are no drones in the place, unless they be our two selves who are looking on. And now, whilst awaiting the conduct of the Superintendent on duty for the evening, we cannot help noticing what a ravenous monster this Post Office is. Nothing comes amiss to its extraordinary digestive system. Religion and Politics; Domestic and social economy; High church and Low church; Protestant and Romanist; Liberal and Tory; Married and Single; Youth and Age, are all represented in the heaps of correspondence, books, and newspapers, before us. And what food for the Romancist lies hidden within these envelopes of all shapes and sizes: what secrets of life, of business, and of love. Welcome "invites" side by side with unpleasant reminders that "your account having been long overdue, a remittance will oblige;" wringing appeals from spendthrift nephews, and stern, cruel replies from remorseless uncles; piled-up effusions from gentle Adonis, fired with a first grande passion, and anonymous offers of marriage from facetious fair ones, which shall give hours of useless reverie to their bachelor recipients; triangular packets, neatly tied with white ribbon, telling of a "happy day" and "a wreath of orange blossoms ;" and black-edged cnvelopes |