Her Majesty's Mails / An Historical and Descriptive Account of the British Post-Office

by William Lewins

THE BLIND LETTER-OFFICE

is the receptacle for all illegible, misspelt, misdirected, or insufficiently addressed letters or packets. Here the clerk or clerks, selected from amongst the most efficient and experienced officers, guess at what ordinary intelligence would readily denominate insoluble riddles. Large numbers of letters are posted daily with superscriptions which the sorters cannot decipher, and which the great majority of people would not be able to read. Others, again, are received with perhaps only the name of some small village, the writers thinking it a work of supererogation to add some neighbouring town, or even a county. Numberless, for instance, are the letters bearing such addresses as "John Smith, gardener, Flowerdale," or "Throgmorton Hall, Worcestershire." Circulars, by the thousand, are posted in London and other large towns without hesitancy, and with the greatest confidence in the "final perseverance" principle of the Post-Office people, with addresses not more explicit than the foregoing. Many country gentlemen would seem to cherish the idea that the names of their mansions should be known equally far and near from their manorial acres, and somehow they seem to inoculate their correspondents with the same absurd notion. If, however, it be possible to reduce the hieroglyphics on some strange letter to ordinary every-day English, or find, from diligent search in his library of reference, information relative to imperfectly-addressed letters (information which might have been given much more easily by the senders), our readers may be sure that the cunning gentleman of the Blind Office, justly known for his patience and sagacity, will do it, unless, indeed, the letter be "stone blind," or hopelessly incomplete. As a genuine example of stone-blind letters, take the following, the first of a batch which has been known to pass through the blind-room of the General Post-Office:—

Uncle John
Hopposite the Church
London. Hingland

It would certainly have been a wonderful triumph of skill to have put this letter in a fair way for delivery: for once the blind officer would acknowledge himself beaten; and then the Dead Letter Officers would endeavour to find "Uncle John's" relative, intimating to the said relative that greater explicitness is needed if "Uncle John" must be found.

But they manage better with the next letter in the batch.

Coneyach lunentick
a siliam

is part of the address of a letter which the sorter no doubt threw away from him with some impatience. The blind officer, however, reads it instantly, strikes his pen, perhaps, through the address, and writes on the envelope, "Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum," and passes it out for delivery.

Obern yenen

is seen in an instant to be meant for "Holborn Union." "Isle of Wight" is, in like manner, written on a letter improperly addressed as follows:—

Ann M----
Oileywhite
Amshire

The probability is that the last-mentioned letter will come back to the Dead Letter-Office, on account of no town being given in the address; still, the usual course is to send it out to the local district designated, there being always the possibility that certain individuals may be locally known.

"Ashby-de-la-Zouch" is a town to spell which gives infinite trouble to letter-writers; but the Post-Office official is especially lenient and patient in cases of this kind. There are fifty different ways of spelling the name, and few letters, except those of the better classes, give it rightly spelt. "Hasbedellar-such" is the ordinary spelling among the poor living at a distance.

Ash Bedles in such
for John Horsel, grinder
in the county of Lestysheer

is a copy of a veritable address meant for the above town.

The blind letter officers of an earlier date succumbed before the following letter:—

For Mister Willy wot brinds de Baber
in Lang-Gaster ware te gal is

but the dead letter officers were enabled from the contents to make out that it was meant for the editor of a Lancaster paper, "where the gaol is." The communication enclosed was an essay written by a foreigner against public schools!

The blind officers are supplied with all the principal London and provincial directories, court guides, gazetteers, &c.; and by the help of this, their library of reference, added to their own experience and intelligence, they are generally able to put again into circulation without the necessity of opening them, five out of six of all the letters which are handed over to them. The addresses of some letters are at once seen to be the result of mistake on the part of senders. Letters addressed "Lombard Street, Manchester," "St. Paul's Churchyard, Liverpool," both obviously intended for London, are sent out for trial by the letter-carriers at what are believed to be their real destinations. (See Ninth Report.) Letters, again, for persons of rank and eminence, dignitaries of the Church, prominent officers of the army or navy, whose correct addresses are known, or can be ascertained, are immediately sent out for delivery to their right destination, however erroneously directed, without question or examination of contents. The following strange letters, meant for the eye of royalty, would not be impeded in their progress in any way:—

Keen Vic Tory at
Winer Casel

and another—

Miss
Queene Victoria
of England

would go to Windsor Castle without fail; while the following, posted in London at the breaking-out of the Polish Insurrection, would find its way to St. Petersburg as fast as packet could carry it:—

To the King of Rusheya
Feoren, with speed.

When the letter-carriers and the blind officers have expended all their skill upon certain letters in vain, the next step is to send them to