“A paper for Hancock, of ——, light.
“A basket for Wagstaff, of ——, out 8d., light.
“A box for Tomkins, of ——, weighs (he puts it into an index-scale at his right hand, and in about three seconds adds) 26 pounds.
“A paper for Jones, of ——, out 4d.
“Now Leamington.
“A paper for S. on Avon (the porter never says Stratford) for ——, light,” &c. &c.
As fast as this chanting porter drawls out his facts the chief clerk indelibly records them, convulsively snatching up at each change of station the particular book of entry which belongs to it. Another clerk at each exclamation hands over to a porter a bill for the cost of conveyance, which he pastes to every parcel. For all articles declared by the first porter to be “light,” by which he means that they do not exceed twelve pounds weight—(by far the greater number are of this description)—the charge on the paper to be affixed is ready printed, which effectually prevents fraud; but where the weight exceeds twelve pounds, or where any sum has been paid out, the charges are unavoidably inserted in ink. The velocity with which all these little parcels are booked, weigh-billed, placed into hand-trucks, wheeled off to their respective vans, packed, locked up, and then despatched down the little branch-rail to the main line, on which is the train ready to convey them, is very surprising. While witnessing the operation, however, we could not help observing that the Company’s porters took about as much notice of the words “Keep this side uppermost,” “With care,” “Glass,” “To be kept very dry,” &c., as the Admiralty would to an intimation from some dowager-duchess that her nephew, who is about to join the Thunderer as a midshipman, “has rather a peculiar constitution, and will therefore require for some years very particular CARE.”
During Christmas week the number of railway parcels that flow into and ebb out of London is so enormous, that extra accommodation, as well as preparations, are necessary for their reception and despatch; and as we chanced to arrive from the country at Euston Station on Saturday the 23rd of December last, we will endeavour briefly to describe the scenes which for a very few minutes we stopped to witness.
A considerable portion of the space usually allowed for the disembarkation of the passengers arriving by the up-trains had been cut off by a lofty partition, or, as it is now-a-days termed, a barricade, behind which, instead of red republicans armed with loaded muskets, we were exceedingly happy to find nothing but phalanxes, solid squares, columns, and pyramids of small parcels, the destinations of which in large letters were chalked on consecutive compartments of the north wall of the Euston territory, as follows:—
“Over the Water.” “Finsbury.”