An old woman bought a mattress at a sale, and she thought she would undo it and shake up the stuff inside and make it softer, and when she cut it up she found among the stuffing some bits of paper that looked like bank-notes; but they were little tiny bits not bigger than a sixpence. She took them to the Bank, which examined them, and saw that, though a great deal was missing, there was enough left to show that there had been twelve five-pound notes sewn up inside the mattress. They gave the old woman sixty pounds for them, saying that a bank-note meant a promise on the part of the Bank to pay, and they would keep their promise, however long ago it had been made. So the old woman did a good day's work when she bought that mattress.
From the Bank we might pass on to the General Post-Office, and see how London's letters are dealt with. You may say that there cannot be anything interesting in that--that it is quite simple to sort out letters and send them to the right persons. Yes, if you or I had perhaps six letters we could do it easily; but if we had six thousand it would be rather more difficult. The business of the General Post Office grows and increases every year, and the buildings are frequently enlarged. Even now they form the whole of a street to themselves. On one side is the telegraphic department, where all the telegrams are received. We can understand very little about this, because it requires a long training; but we can see something of the enormous number of people whose whole work in life it is to take and send telegrams. If we get there about five o'clock in the afternoon, we shall see some girls and little telegraph-boys hurrying about with trays, on which are piles of cut bread-and-butter, and with great tin cans, like the cans in which hot water is carried up for your bath. These cans are full of strong, hot tea. Then we enter one room, so big that it almost startles you, and see, seated at rows and rows of tables, many men, and nearly all of them are working away at the telegraph instrument before them--tick, tick, tick, tack; they cannot hear what you say, even though you talk quite close to them, for all their attention is taken up by their work. For eight hours every day they sit here and take and send telegrams. Here comes the tea; it is poured out into the large cup waiting for it, and the man takes a drink or a bite as he works. Some of the workers buy jam to spread on their bread. In one place we see a tray with a large pile of cakes and biscuits; but these are being sold, though the tea and bread-and-butter are supplied by the Post-Office to its workers free. It must be a big business to make tea for about fifteen hundred persons every day. No wonder cans are used to carry it about, for teapots would be of very little use. In one room there are men doing all the telegrams for the daily papers--accounts of great speeches, or races, or anything important that people expect to hear about--and by means of one instrument one man can send the same news to five different places at the same time. This sounds like a miracle to us, who do not understand how it is done. In another room there are many girls who do just the same work, and keep the same hours as the men, but are not paid so much simply because they are women; they are having tea too. They seem to be very fond of shrimp-paste, which they spread on their bread-and-butter instead of jam. In every room there is always a loud noise like the wash of waves; that is made up of hundreds of busy little instruments ticking away hard all at once. It seems wonderfully quiet when we leave it behind, and step out into the street again where the lamps are being lit.