But the prison was very quickly demolished and gave way to a handsome Sorting Office, the floor space of which when completed was to cover two acres. The Parcel Post took possession of the new building in October 1892. It is always difficult to transact any business in a building constructed for quite another purpose, and the conditions of service in the prison buildings had not been exactly comfortable. Spacious yards surround the Post Office buildings, and in these yards platforms have been built giving direct access to the Sorting Office. Post Office vans arrive in one yard loaded with receptacles containing parcels collected from post offices in the City and other parts of London, or sent up from the provinces and brought here from the railway termini. The loads are discharged on to the platform and conveyed by porters into the Sorting Office. In another yard on the opposite side of the building other vans arrive empty, and back up to the platform to receive their loads of parcels for conveyance to other parts of London or to railway stations for despatch to provincial towns.
In the early days the parcels were chiefly packed in wicker hampers with heavy fastenings, but the weight and cost of these receptacles rendered it necessary to find something lighter. Many experiments were made, and at last a receptacle was adopted with a wicker body and a canvas top, which required no metal fastenings, as the canvas top was tied with string and sealed with wax. The latest improvement on this is the substitution of a leaden seal for the old wax sealing. Even this much lighter receptacle is considered too heavy and costly for the conveyance of ordinary parcels, and canvas sacks of extra durability are now being generally used for the conveyance of parcels across London and to and from provincial towns. Parcels of a fragile nature when sent by railway are still packed in wicker receptacles for greater security.
The public are advised to affix a label marked “Fragile” to any parcel which requires more than ordinary care in handling, and from time to time wonderful examples of fragile parcels have been met with. A pair of boots wrapped in brown paper has been so described, so have a plum pudding in a cloth, a basket of fish, a box of butter, a volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica, a York ham, an iron bolt wrapped in corrugated paper, and a roll of blankets.
Wicker receptacles are not suitable for the service with the Colonies: the parcels would not be sufficiently protected during the long voyage and railway journey. For this traffic parcels are packed in tightly fitting boxes unless the contents can safely be sent in sacks made of double canvas.
As the practice increased of packing parcels in canvas sacks rather than in wicker baskets, difficulties were experienced in finding supports for the sacks during the process of packing. Every schoolboy knows that a basket stands on its own bottom, but an empty sack falls flat. Officials with a mechanical turn of mind vied with one another in suggesting how to evade or to get round this natural law—in other words, how to support the sacks—and eventually the Dockree support was chosen. This consists of four iron arms extended at right angles from a pedestal, each arm being constructed to support a sack at full length and with the mouth open. An improved pattern of this holder, capable of supporting eight open-mouthed sacks at one time, has recently been introduced. A sorter is thus able to sort into eight mouths at once without any of the stooping which was unavoidable when the sacks lay limp on the floor.
Let me now explain the system of sorting. The majority of people probably never give a thought as to the happenings of a parcel which they have posted: they leave it in faith on the counter and the wonderful Post Office sends it direct to its destination. That is probably their idea. Supposing you have left your parcel on the public counter of King Edward's Building, what happens next? The parcel is taken to the despatching room to wait the arrival of the van which will convey it in a sack to the Parcel Office at Mount Pleasant. It will there be turned out on a long sorting-table which has a sunken surface, after the fashion of a scullery sink, the well of which is lined with zinc. Your parcel is in the company of others, intended for all parts of the world, and the first step is to get the parcels to the various parts of the office from which they will be despatched to other destinations. Along the whole length of one side of the table is a wooden framework or sack holding the empty baskets. These ten baskets are labelled Scotch, Irish, Paddington, Foreign and Colonial, Delivery, Liverpool Street, Euston, King's Cross, Waterloo and London Bridge, Town, and the sorters stand between these baskets and the table laden with parcels. They pick up the parcels from the table and place them in the respective baskets. Full baskets are carried by a porter to another part of the office, where the second stage of the sorting is to be gone through. Here the parcels are turned out on to another table similar to the one already described. Let us suppose that your parcel is in the basket labelled “Euston.” There are twelve baskets on the sorting rack at the Euston division table, and they are labelled to the large centres known as “Roads” and also to the “Aylesbury Coach” and to “Blind” as follows: Chester, Carlisle, Preston, Rugby, Stafford, Blind, Watford, Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Shrewsbury, Aylesbury Branch.
Each of these centres or “Roads” contains a group of towns, and the Aylesbury Coach “Road” covers all places served by the coach. The basket labelled “Blind” is to receive all parcels which have reached the Euston division table in error, through having been mis-sorted at the first stage, and also any parcels which bear insufficient or doubtful addresses. The business of the sorter at this stage is to put the parcels on to the proper “Road,” and unless he has thoroughly learnt not only the groups of towns on each “Road” but also the numerous smaller places subordinate to these towns, he will cause trouble at the third or final stage of the sorting. When these baskets are filled with parcels they are taken to their respective “Roads,” and then the final process of making up the mails takes place. The sorter at “the Road” receives the basket of parcels proper to his centre, and then he sorts the parcels for the various towns included in his district. He may have as many as a dozen mails to prepare for despatch within a few minutes of each other, and this means that he has to sort his parcels into twelve different receptacles. These are close round him, and the advantage to the sorter of having his sacks supported at full length will now be understood.
Any parcels which have been mis-sorted to the officer on “the Road” have to be placed on a shelf, and are subsequently returned to the sorting-table to be put into their proper channel. This means that they may miss their proper mail, and the importance of obtaining reliable men for the sorting of the second stage is great.
The sorter at “the Road,” having packed his sacks or hampers, has to prepare a bill for each receptacle, and this bill, when filled up, is put in a pocket provided in the receptacle. The receptacle is then tied, sealed, and sent off. The bill gives particulars of the number of the receptacle, the offices of despatch and destination, the time of despatch, and also an account of any registered or valuable parcels which there may be in the mail. Registered parcels are not placed on the ordinary sorting-tables, but are treated individually from the moment they enter the Sorting Office to the time when they are packed ready for despatch. They are passed from hand to hand, and signed for at each transfer.
“Blind” parcels are those which are incorrectly or incompletely addressed. All such parcels have to be examined at comparative leisure, and the public would be surprised to learn what a large amount of time is spent by the Post Office in making good the many defects and shortcomings in addresses on parcels and other postal packets. The Parcel Post comes in for many kicks from the public, but in justice it must be said that the officials spare no pains to trace the proper addresses of parcels. They exercise, too, great ingenuity in the task, and books of reference are in constant use. Bad spelling in addresses was formerly a very common source of trouble to sorters, but it is less noticeable now, and possibly this may be one of the results of universal education. I will give some instances of addresses of this kind which have been successfully dealt with by the Post Office staff:—