Curious Names.

Everything that departs from the usual mode or fashion of things is regarded as curious, and the term may be applied also to the incidence of names and professions, either in regard to their relative fitness of relationship, or to an opposite quality. As the sight of two or three individuals with wooden legs walking in company would be sure to claim our attention, if it did not excite our mirth, so the coming together of persons having similar names under the same roof by mere chance, would not fail to attract notice, and be thought a peculiar circumstance. Of the first class the following cases may be noted,—namely, that at Torquay, Devonshire, there used to be a butcher called Bovine; in the east of London there is a James Bull, a cow-keeper; and at Birnam, Perthshire, a gardener and strawberry-grower called John Rake. There is further, we are informed, at Cork a person carrying on the pawnbroking business whose name is Uncle, than which there could be nothing more appropriate. Of the second class the following is an instance, persons of the names given having been employed together in a single office of the General Post-office some years ago:—

A Lacroix.A Parsons.A Partridge.
A Laforet.An Archer.A Peacock,
A Deforge.A Fisher.and
A Defraine.A Hunter.One Berdmore.
A Clark.

Letter-box, St Martin's-le-Grand.

So much has it become the custom in these later times for the Post-office to afford facilities to the public in whatever will tend to increase the business of the Department, that in all large towns pillar-boxes or branch offices are dotted about everywhere at short distances, thus altering the conditions which formerly obtained, when the chief office was the great central point where correspondence had to be deposited for despatch. London is no exception to this general plan of accommodation, and there may be some lingering regrets that the stirring scenes which used to attend the closing of the letter-box at St Martin's-le-Grand (when the great hall led right through the building) no longer exist, at least as things worthy of note. Lewins, who wrote the History of the Post-office (Her Majesty's Mails), thus describes what nightly took place at the closing of the box at six o'clock:—

"The newspaper window, ever yawning for more, is presently surrounded and besieged by an array of boys of all ages and costumes, together with children of a larger growth, who are all alike pushing, heaving, and surging in one great mass. The window, with tremendous gape, is assaulted with showers of papers, which fly thicker and faster than the driven snow. Now it is, that small boys of eleven and twelve years of age, panting Sinbad-like under the weight of huge bundles of newspapers, manage somehow to dart about and make rapid sorties into other ranks of boys, utterly disregarding the cries of the official policemen, who vainly endeavour to reduce the tumult into something like Post-office order. If the lads cannot quietly and easily disembogue, they will whizz their missiles of intelligence over other people's heads, now and then sweeping off hats and caps with the force of shot. The gathering every moment increases in number, and intensifies in purpose; arms, legs, sacks, baskets, heads, bundles, and woollen comforters—for who ever saw a veritable newspaper boy without that appendage?—seem to be getting into a state of confusion and disagreeable communism, and yet 'the cry is still, they come.' Heaps of papers of widely opposed political views are thrown in together—no longer placed carefully in the openings; they are now sent in in sackfuls and basketfuls, while over the heads of the surging crowd were flying back the empty sacks, thrown out of the office by the porters inside. Semi-official legends, with a very strong smack of probability about them, tell of sundry boys being thrown in, seized, emptied, and thrown out again void. As six o'clock approaches still nearer and nearer, the turmoil increases more perceptibly, for the intelligent British public is fully alive to the awful truth that the Post-office officials never allow a minute of grace, and that 'Newspaper Fair' must be over when the last stroke of six is heard. One—in rush files of laggard boys, who have purposely loitered in the hope of a little pleasurable excitement; two—and grown men hurry in with the last sacks; three—the struggle resembles nothing so much as a pantomimic mêlée; four—a babel of tongues vociferating desperately; five—final and furious showers of papers, sacks, and bags; and six—when all the windows fall like so many swords of Damocles, and the slits close with such a sudden and simultaneous snap, that we naturally suppose it to be a part of the Post-office operations that attempts should be made to guillotine a score of hands; and then all is over, so far as the outsiders are concerned."

Though the tradition referred to of boys being thrown into the letter-box may not have a very sure foundation in fact, it is the case at any rate that a live dog was posted at Lombard Street, and falling into the bag attached to the letter-box, it was not discovered till the contents of the bag were emptied out on a table in the General Post-office.

Curious Explanations.

In the considerable army of servants who carry on the work of the Post-office, embracing all grades from the Postmaster-General to the rural postman, are to be found individuals of every temperament, character of mind, and disposition—the candid, the simple, the astute, the wary; and the peculiarities of the individuals assert themselves in their official dealings as surely as they would do in the ordinary connections of life.

The following "explanations" furnished by postmasters who had failed to send up their accounts at the proper time, will illustrate the procedure of the candid or simple when in trouble, who seem quite unnecessarily to give every detail of their shortcomings, instead of doing, as most men would do in the circumstances—make a general excuse:—