The Sun.
London, England, 1856-09-09 00:00:00

NETT' LONDON POSTAL DEW TRIES.

The preparations for carrying into effect the project
of dividing London into ten postal di.2tricts, mentioned
in the Duke of Argyll's recent report on the Post-office
department, have commenced. At present I. ondon and
its suburbs, included within a circle, the (seat e of which
is St. Martin's-le-Grand, and the radius sil-.ous t 12, or 14
miles in length, form one large postal dis,a dets Almost
all setters posted within that circle, or in t, he proeineep,
are conveyed to the General Post.office, wl ere they are
primarily sorted into districts, and then in to postmen's
walks. These arrangements cause much c 'clay in the
delivery of London letters, on account of the double
sorting, and of the journeying of the postme a fr om the
General Post office to distant walks. These-' ,arrange-
merits cause additional delay also by meld; ig litters
travel over much unnecessary ground. Thu s a letter
posted at Kingsland.road for Stamford-hill has 'to travel
to the General Post-office, and then back agai s over the
same ground, before it gets to its destin, ;ion ; and
letters for the London district posted in the provinces
often pass by the suburb dr street to which t'/ley are ad-
dressed on their way to the General Post-off a.e, and then
return again by the same route to be delivered. It bad
long been seen that if letters con Id be sorted, into London
districts according to their adds asses before they left the
provinces, or the particular part s in London near which.
they were posted, and if they ss ere taken direct to the
centre of those districts, where. a staff of letter-carriers
could be stationed, such letters 'would merely have to be
separated into postmen's walks, and they could be deli.
vered after their arrival or p. sling in London in one
half of the time at present occur sied.
According to the new arrang:ements, London will be
divided into ten postal districts —viz., east central, west
central, northern, north easter 3, north western, eastern,
western, southern, south eas tern, and south western.
The seven former of these districts will be situated chiefly
on the north and the three latter on the south side of the
Thames. The east central and west central districts will
comprehend the chief business portions of the City. The
other eight districts will branch off from them in a some-
what triangular shape. The following streets, squares,
villages, stc., will indicate the boundaries of the various
districts :—The east central district will be bounded by
Bishopsgate-street, City-road, Amwell-street, and the
Thames ; the west central district by Gray's-inn-lane,
Kdoes-cross,Burton-crescent, Bedford-square, Trafalgar.
square, and the Thames ; the Westerrs district by Tot-
tenham-court-road, Devonshire-street, 11laida hill, Ken-
sall-green, Brent river, Southall, Is] eworth, Chiswick,
Kensington, and Piccadilly ' • the eastern district by the
Minories, Whitechapel-road, Mils-end, Old Ford,
Aldersbrook, Barkingside, Collier's-row, Romford, Raia•
ham, and the Thames; the southern 'by Blackfriars.road
Newington, Norwood, Addington, Cheamly Malden
Upper Tooting, Clapham, and Lan sbeth ; the northern,
by Pentonville, Finchley, Rowley-green, Potter's-bar,
Waltham-cross, Tottenham, and :Stoke Newington ; the
south western, by Charing-cross, Brorepten. Richmond-
park, Sunbury, Hampton, Wimbledon, Wandsworth,
Battersea, and the Thames ; the north-western, by the
New-road, Somers-town, Kentish-town, Kendall-ball,
Harrow Station, Perivale, Kilburn, and Portland-town;
the north-eastern, by Shoreditch, Kingsland-road,
Shacklewell, Beech-hill, Hainhault, Epping, and Vic-
toria-park; the south-eastern, by New Kent-road,
Peckham, Penge, Keston, Bexley, Erith, and the
Thames. In each district there will be a chief sorting-
office, having its own staff of sorters and letter-carriers,
and having a direct postal communication with the
chief office of every other district, and with every post
town in the kingdom. Letters arriving at these chief
offices will only have to be separated into letter carriers'
walks, when they will be immediately distributed.
In many of these walks there will be hourly deliveries
of letters, ten times daily ; into which deliveries the
letters which are now continually flowing into the
metropolis from provincial towns and from foreign
mails landed at the outports throughout the day will
fall. The facilities which the new arrangements will
afford the inhabitants of London for communicat-
ing with each other will be very great. At present
some considerable time elapses before a letter can be
delivered, even in the same street in which it is posted,
but by the new arrangements this inconvenience will no
longer be felt ; and prompt business or social appoint-
ments may then be arranged at a short notice through
the post. The districts are marked out on maps of Lon-
don and its suburbs, and lists have been printed in which
the postal district of every street, square, court, alley,
banking house, newspaper office, public establishment,
village, and hamlet in London and its neighbourhood is
stated. Clerks from the General Post-office are now
travelling over the country, instructing country post.
masters and their clerks how to sort the vast number of
letters for London into districts. Some idea of the
labour of the memory which this mode of letter-sorting
requires may be imagined from the rapidity with which
letter-sorting is accomplished in post-offices, and from
the fact that in the ten districts there are upwards of
6,000 localities.

The Post-office department will be greatly assisted, and
the convenience of the public secured, if persons address.
ing letters for London and its neighbourhood add to the
direction the initials of the postal district in which their
correspondents reside, and this will no doubt be gene-
rally attended to if the inhabitants of London add those
initials to their bill heads, advertisements in the London
newspapers, and to the headings of their private letters.
Thus a letter for St. Paul's-churchyard should have Z. C.
added to the address, and placed separately below it,
which would signify East Central. W. C. should be
added to the word Strand, which would signify West
Central. W. to Portman-square, to signify West.
N. W. to St. John's-wood, Regent's-park, to signify
North West ; S. to Lambeth, Southwark ; S. E. to
High-street,' Borough ; E. to Rumford ; N. to Totten-
ham ; N. E. to Bethnal-green-road ; S. W. to Brampton,
&c. When the new scheme of the London district post
shall be in full operation the metropolis of Bnglsnd will
have postal accommodation superior to any city of the
world.