The Indianapolis sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1880-1904, 1885-05-31
IN THE POSTOFFICE.
A GLANCE AT THE WORKING OF A
BIG MACHINE
How New York's Mail Matter Is Received.
Sorted, Stamped, Distributed and
Sent Its way-Details
of the Work,
New York Times ]

runs narrow little gallery, bare and cold
as a prison corridor. Now and then en-
ploye of the Office fits along over its stone
floor possibly visitor walks through it
Standing in this gallery one looks down upon
the principal working room of the largest
and best-managed postoffice in the United
States. He is near enough to the roof to
note the great glass ceiling, ribbed with
iron, through which the sunlight filters, and
on which the rain falls with muffisd sound
or the snow lies heavily. He is not too far
from the floor below to be confused by the
scores of hurrying men, the glare OF dozens
of electric lights, if the day be at all dark,
and curious tumble OF sounds, some of
which he has seldom or never heard before,
and all of which seem to be hopelessly en-
tangled, although striving valiantly to ex-
tricate themselves.
A bell clangs somewhere, and the men
dash about like the bits of glass in kaleid-
oscope. Fat and important-looking baskets,
loaded to the brim with letters and papers,
go whisking around at a breakneck speed,
turning corners with squeak and scrape
and rushing down narrow lanes as if bent on
destruction and determined TO have their
own way Stout bags and thin bags; bags
that are old and humble; bags that are new
ard vain; bags on crutches, so to speak, and
bags that look as if they could almost go
scurryng over the world alone; bags that
have seen better day {; bags that will see
worse; terra-cotta- coiorei bags, buff-colored
bags. subdued buff-colored bags, ash-colored
bags, black bags, bags of colors which
are not named and never will be,
bags of every kind. shade, character and
shape-all these are running In and out,
opening themselves on great tables gasping
as fattened out and empty bags ought to
gasp, and then hiding themselves away in
the basement with thousands of their kind,
until called into use again, when they will
60 almost to the uttermost ends of the earth
at the rate of 6, 900 day.
Piles and bales of letters grow up on the
tables like mushrooms and melt away like
a spring flood when the ice goes out. Their
are all kinds of letters for all sorts Of people
in all parts of the world.
But of all these things the great machine
down below the little gallery, unlike the
postmaster or postmistress who somewhere
may hand you this paper, cares nothing.
Behind the high screen that hides its opera
tions from the public gaze the machine
stands waiting. AT the little holes through
which the public shoots its letters the post.
Offices work begins The acquaintance of the
ordinary letter writer with the machine is
confined to the cogs who sit behind the little
windows and wrestle with him over the
amount of postage he must pay. Even if
they were not true and faithful parts of the
great mechanism these cogs would have a
selfish interest in doing their work well.
They own their own stock in trade as abb
solutely as though tie stamps many
vi of or cho IF cfn
The room in which these cogs turn are
fenced off from the rest of the building,
and there are locked gates to prevent in
trusion- Beside the stamp clerk are the
sheets of perforated paper ornamented with
portraits of statesmen and soldiers who are
dead and gone, boxes of envelopes, pack
ages of postal cards. little piles of coins and
rolls of bills. On shelf within reaching
distance are the scales which furnish an
answer to the question which in all the
gamut of vocal expression bounces through
the window hour after hour and day after
day, "What's.the- postage-on-thatp
Outside the four great white faces of
clock fastened to a column in the center of
the room looks solemnly down on a scene
that is infinitely more confusing to one
standing there than when viewing it from
the little gallery. OF all the tumble of
sounds the one most readily separated from
the Others is the convulSive patter Of the
date and canceling stamps. These two are
cast in one frame and attached TO the same
handle. One blow cancels the stamp and
prints the time OF the letters receipt and
the date. The time in hours is changed
every thirty minutes the year round. One
man does nothing but change the dates,
working upon one set of stamps while the
other is in use. The clang of the bell indi-
Gates the change, and from this man the
stampers get the new stamps
Through the openings in the screen on the
Broadway and Park row sides runs the fuel
of the machine. The letters fiy up through
the openings, strike shield and fall down on
a table as smooth as glass and without an
angle into which letter may obstinately
slip. During the day there are two or three
men at each of these tables engaged in pick
ing up the letters raining in through the
openings, facing" them-that is, turning
them face up-and carrying them to the
tables near by. A dab of the stamp on the
bit of ink-saturated felt beside each stamper,
a light dab on! the letter, and away the piles
go TO tie man who separate them
standing in the center of this room,
AOO>o @O>~S
the outside, with the screen rising up to the
ceiling on three sides, and a medley OF
boxes, bags, doors and men on the
other, ones glance in any direction is in
tercepted by the rows of pigeon holes In
front of each separator Each one Of these
pigeon holes, which rise above each other
from the table to which they are attached
to convenient height for man to reach,
has soma snecific use and if a man puts it to
any other he is bound to hear of it Those on
the @city side" are mainly for the different
carrier routes, and they are emptied OF their
contents at regular intervals by the carriers.
who fish out the letters from the back.
Those on the distribution side" whore let
ters going out of New York are handled,
are for different cities, mail routes, states,
and localities. New York state, for in
stance, has five separations, and there are
$50 pi -eon holes into which letters 60 Ne
braska has only one pigeon hole. the work
of further separation being done on the
postal cars. The separator must learn the
location of these holes in the frame before