Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/632

626 were induced to make purchases. In France the bureaux de tabac are an important part of the Government patronage: the pay is about 600 francs a-year. But a bureau de tabac is considered worth from £300 to £400 a-year. The owners have a monopoly of the sale of stamps, and they therefore attract custom; for those who purchase stamps or post orders frequently remain to smoke, or lay in a stock of snuff or tobacco.

Among the sights of London the General Post-office is the most remarkable. No department of the public service conveys a grander idea of the vast enterprise, the commercial greatness, and social requirements of the empire. Throughout the whole day every part of the extensive building presents a busy scene; but it is about six in the evening that the great excitement commences.

"Now it is, that small boys of eleven and twelve years of age, panting Sinbad-like under the weight of large bundles of newspapers, manage to dart about and make rapid sorties into the other ranks of boys, utterly disregarding the cries of the official policemen, who vainly endeavour to reduce the tumult into something like post-office order. They will whizz their missiles of intelligence over other people's heads, now and then sweeping off hats and caps with the force of shot. The gathering every moment increases in number; arms, legs, sacks, baskets, heads, bundles, and woollen comforters – for who ever saw a newspaper boy without that appendage? – seem to be getting into a state of confusion and disagreeable communism, and yet 'the cry is still they come.'" – The Royal Mail, p. 356.

At that hour, instead of the wide slits for letters and papers, the shutters themselves are thrown open, to receive the storm of letters and papers which are thrown in. Every opening is besieged with an impetuous crowd of men, women, and boys, who defy all the efforts of the police to keep order, in their anxiety to rid themselves of the huge bundles with which they are laden before the last stroke of the hour of six. Those who are prevented approaching the windows hurl their packages over the heads of others who bar the approach. Sacks and baskets of letters are shovelled into the spaces prepared to receive them. When the clock commences to strike six, the rush becomes greater and greater – the interest more and more intense. One, two, three – the struggle of the outsiders is desperate – four, five, six. And at the stroke the windows fall simultaneously, and all is over. A sudden stillness approaching to awe falls on the multitude. Those who are behindhand may consign their charge calmly into any post-office they pass by, where it will be stamped with the ominous words "Too late!"

The interest of the Post-office is now transferred to the interior of the building. There in large halls may be seen hundreds of clerks lifting, arranging, stamping piles of letters. Heaps of correspondence and papers are lying on the floors and raked up into large baskets, and carried by lifts or on rails to various parts of the establishment. A number of officers are employed all this time in endeavouring to restore wrappers to newspapers which have been carelessly tied up. Unfastened and torn letters are conveyed to a different part of the building, and the greatest care is taken to endeavour to find out their proper destinations. It is incredible the number of letters that are posted open, without any address whatever. Then there are letters insufficiently stamped and fastened, which con-