The number of samples that different firms send through the post each day is astonishing. It is said that 1,504,000 pattern and sample packets are posted annually in the metropolis. In addition to those just mentioned, alpaca, corduroy, gloves, ribbons, plush, whalebone, muslin, linen, biscuits, oilcakes, pepper, yeast, toilet soap, sperm candles, mustard, raisins, &c, are sent by sample post. One firm alone posted 125,418 packets containing spice.
The time to visit the sorting process at the Post-office is between half-past five and eight o'clock in the evening. At closing time the letters are simply poured by thousands into the baskets waiting to receive them, and each one as soon as full is wheeled off in an instant to the sorters and other officials waiting to deal with them. When they have been deposited on the innumerable tables, the first process is to face the letters--not so easy a task when the shapes and sizes of the letters are so varied. As soon as the facing process is over, they are passed as quick as lightning on to the stampers, who proceed to deface the Queen's head. The noise whilst this process is being gone through is deafening. Some stampers have a hand-machine, whilst others are making a trial of a treadle stamping-machine which stamps some four hundred letters per minute. From the stampers the letters pass on to the sorters. Whilst all this is proceeding, the visitor should step up into the gallery for a minute or two and look down on the busy scene below. It is a sight well worth seeing and not likely to be forgotten--the thousands of letters heaped on the tables, and the hundreds of workers as hard at work as it is possible for them to be. The envelopes are separated and placed in the several pigeon-holes which indicate the various directions they are to travel. Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh, and Glasgow have special receptacles for themselves, as the first three cities have on an average fifteen thousand letters a day despatched to each; and further, there are eight despatches a day to these places, eleven thousand per day go to Glasgow, and between eight and nine thousand to Edinburgh. All official letters--that is, 'On Her Majesty's Service'--have a special table to themselves. Some eighty-nine thousand Savings-bank books pass through St Martin's-le-Grand daily. Some sorters get through between forty and fifty letters a minute, whilst a new-comer will not be able to manage more than twenty or thirty.