When the letters are stamped they are carried off to other men, who sort them out, throwing them into different divisions, according to the part of London for which they are intended, and any that he cannot read, any that have not got a sufficient address, or any that have not a stamp on, are put aside. Those with bad or insufficient addresses are called 'blind,' which is a funny word to use in this sense; they are carried off to some men, who sit with ponderous books in front of them, and who work solemnly, hunting out names and addresses. Perhaps one address is so badly written that it looks to you and me just as if a beetle had fallen into an ink-bottle and walked over the paper. But the man at the desk is accustomed to bad writing, he soon makes it out, and writes it neatly so that it can be read and the letter sent on. Another person has put the street, perhaps on his envelope, but not the district of London, and this is hunted up and supplied, and so on; and always as the men work, gradually reducing the pile of letters before them, more are added, so that it seems as if their work would never end. Near the first men who were sorting letters are others sorting out packets and throwing them into baskets. Fast as they work, they cannot keep up with the fresh piles always poured in. They pitch the parcels into the baskets with speed and accuracy generally, but sometimes in their haste a packet flies over the rail and hits the head of a person walking past.
Here is a little table where a man is standing looking at some odd things—a clothes brush, a box of flowers, a locket, and a pair of gloves. What is he doing? These are things which have been badly tied up, and have consequently come undone in the post, and some of them have no addresses, but perhaps there is a letter inside the parcel. This letter begins 'My darling,' but there is no time to read it; all that is wanted is the address of the sender, to which the things can be returned. This is quickly found, and the parcel is tied up again and sent back. But if you do not want to have any of your letters seen by a man in the Post-Office, you had better tie them up very carefully when you send them by post. The things for which no addresses can be found go to the Dead Letter Office, and every now and then there is a sale of them.
But the Post-Office does its best always to find the people to whom the things should be sent, and tries to please everyone, which is a difficult task, and it very often comes in for a great deal of blame. But we wonder as we leave the great building, not at the things that are occasionally lost, but at the great mass, the millions of letters, that are sent safely through to their journey's end without being either lost or delayed.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE LORD MAYOR'S SHOW AND OTHER THINGS
We have now seen a good deal of London, and know something about it; but there are a few facts that do not come very well into any of the preceding chapters, and so to end up I am going to make a chapter about the odd things.
You remember that when Dick Whittington, weary and disheartened, would have gone away from London, he heard the bells of Bow Church ringing, and what they seemed to say to him was, 'Turn again, Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London.' And he was so much encouraged that he did turn again, and persevered, and in the end he rose so high as to be Lord Mayor, not once, but three times.