The Sun.
London, England, 1860-03-29 00:00:00

of which the men bitterly complain that the work
can be got through at all. The mails .are thus
constantly more or less delayed, and even Letters,
it is said, are sometimes left behind. It is but fair
to add that these letters are stated at the Post-
office to have been, in nearly every instance,
circulars ; though we apprehend that those who
send circulars pay the post as well as other people,
and have as much right to have their com-
munications forwarded. At all events, it is not
attempted to be denied that the business of_ the
Post-office is daily increasing, and not the least
provision is being made for its accommodation for
the future, either by a better system, better staff,
or additional space.
1' These shortcomings in the circulation department,
as affecting the most important portion of the Post-
office duty, are, of course, much to be regretted.
Yet they are small when compared with the extent
to which they are aggravated in the newspaper de.-
partment, where all the causes we have mentioned
—want of room, want of system, and, above all,
want of a more numerous and better paid staff—
are still more keenly felt. The first thing which
the visitor notices on entering these rooms, apart
from the dirt, overcrowding, and confusion, which
the most unremitting efforts of those in charge fail
to mitigate, is the poor and miserable aspect of the
men employed. The causes which make these ap-
pearances but too natural we shall refer to here-
after. The newspapers are brought up in baskets
to the top of the room, and emptied down through
a trapdoor into a tremendous pile on a table, round
which the sorters crowd as near as they can. There
is not fair room for the number employed, though
work for twice as many.. Then all are in the way,
and jostle each other as they crowd to and fro with
their arms full of papers till the floor is strawed
with periodicals of all kinds. Most of these papers
are the journals of the previous day or weekly
periodicals, which are sometimes taken down to be
posted at Greenwich or Woolwich for delivery in
town, in order to evade the penny extra charged
if they are posted or delivered within three miles
of St. Martin's. In the centre of the heap we
have mentioned a man wades knee-deep, armed
with a kind of wooden rake, with which he goes
through a haymaking process of tossing the papers
towards the sorters. Have any of our country
readers, when they impatiently expected their
daily paper from London, ever received a copy of
the Bayswater Briton or Penzance Publisher, with
the usual printed notice, that "several newspapers
laving come out of their covers, &c. ?" If any
one wants to know the cause of all this, let him
go and see the haymaking we have described,
I and watch the porter in the centre of the papers
treading them out of their covers by scores. On
two or three nights a week here the staff are utterly
' unequal to discharge their heavy duties, and this
emergency is met by taking on additional men—
labourers about the Post-office—who are paid at
the rate of ls. a night.
With such aids it can readily be imagined how
these intricate extra duties are performed. But we
have neither time nor inclination to go on ringing
the changes on a perpetual series of deficiencies,
nor to point out how the papers are sorted accord-
ing to all sorts of plans, one most essential part of
each process apparently being to stand every in-,
dividnal paper up on its end ! Suffice it to say that
in most instances they are got rid of in time, though
it is a very common occurrence for a large propor-
tion to miss the mail altogether, and, as a matter
of course, all those that are trodden out of their
covers remain behind. The sacks at last are bundled
into their huge vans—half-flre engine, half water-
cart, drawn by horses as meagre-looking and as
slow as the poor extra sorters in the Post office at
10s. a week. These vans were once called " acce-
lerators," and the name is still retained in bitter
pleasantry. They leave the Post-office at half-past
eight in morning, by which time the city is begin-
ning to fill with business men, who have already
seen their daily paper, and when, through the
private enterprise of the news-agents, the London
Journals have started two hours ago and are flying
along the rail to all parts of the kingdom. At such
an hour these " accelerators" may be seen, laden
with the letters and papers of the previous day,
lumbering slowly down Ludgate-hill.—linws.