Here goes one—Sing, sing, Johnny!Here goes two—Sing, Johnny, sing!Whack'n till he's redWhack'n till he's deadAnd whop! goes the widow with a brand new ring!
Here goes one—Sing, sing, Johnny!Here goes two—Sing, Johnny, sing!Whack'n till he's redWhack'n till he's deadAnd whop! goes the widow with a brand new ring!
Here goes one—
Sing, sing, Johnny!
Here goes two—
Sing, Johnny, sing!
Whack'n till he's red
Whack'n till he's dead
And whop! goes the widow with a brand new ring!
and when the boy took a hammer and joined in, he fell silent. Taffy soon observed that a singular friendship knit these two men, who were both unmarried. Mendarva had been a famous wrestler in his day, and his great ambition now was to train the other to win the County belt. Often, after work, the pair would try a hitch together on the triangle of turf, with Taffy for stickler; Mendarva illustrating and explaining, the Dane nodding seriously whenever he understood, but never answering a word. Afterwards the boy recalled these bouts very vividly—the clear evening sky, the shoulders of the two big men shining against the level sun as they gripped and swayed, their longshadows on the grass under which (as he remembered) the poor self-murdered woman lay buried.
He thought of her at night, sometimes, as he worked alone at the forge: for Mendarva allowed him the keys and use of the smithy overtime, in consideration of a small payment for coal, and then he blew his fire and hammered with a couple of candles on the bench and a Homer between them; and beat the long hexameters into his memory. The incongruity of it never struck him. He was going to be a great man, and somehow this was going to be the way. These scraps of iron—these tools of his forging—were to grow into the arms and shield of Achilles. In its own time would come the magic moment, the shield find its true circumference and swing to the balance of his arm, proof and complete.
ἐν δ' ἐτίθει ποταμοῖο μέγα σθένος Ὠκεανοῖο ἄντυγα παρ' πυμάτην σάκεος πύκα ποιητοῖο
H
His apprenticeship lasted a year and six months, and all this while he lived with the Jolls, walking home every Sunday morning and returning every Sunday night, rain or shine. He carried his deftness of hand into his new trade, and it was Mendarva who begged and obtained an extension of the time agreed on. "Rather than lose the boy I'll tache 'en for love." So Taffy stayed on for another six months.
He was now in his seventeenth year—a boy no longer. One evening, as he blew up his smithy fire, the glow of it fell on the form of a woman standing just outside the window and watching him. He had no silly fears of ghosts; but the thought of the buried woman flashed across his mind and he dropped his pincers with a clatter.
"'Tis only me," said the woman. "You needn't to be afeared." And he saw it was the girl Lizzie.
She stepped inside the forge and seated herself on the Dane's anvil.
"I was walking back from prayer-meeting," she said. "'Tis nigher this way, but I don't ever dare to come. Might, I dessay, if I'd somebody to see me home."
"Ghosts?" asked Taffy, picking up the pincers and thrusting the bar back into the hot cinders.
"I dunno; I gets frightened o' the very shadows on the road sometimes. I suppose, now, you never walks out that way?"
"Which way?"
"Why, toward where your home is. That's the way I comes."
"No, I don't." Taffy blew at the cinders until they glowed again. "It's only on Sundays I go over there."
"That's a pity," said Lizzie, candidly. "I'm kept in, Sunday evenings, to look after the children while farmer and mis'ess goes to Chapel. That's the agreement I came 'pon."
Taffy nodded.
"It would be nice now, wouldn't it—" She broke off, clasping her knees and staring at the blaze.
"What would be nice?"
Lizzie laughed confusedly. "Aw, you make me say 't. I can't abear any of the young men up to the Chapel. If me and you——"
Taffy ceased blowing. The fire died down and in the darkness he could hear her breathing hard.
"They're so rough," she went on, "And t'other night I met young Squire Vyell riding along the road, and he stopped me and wanted to kiss me."
"George Vyell? Surely he didn't?" Taffy blew up the fire again.
"Iss he did. I don't see why not, neither."
"Why he shouldn't kiss you?"
"Why he shouldn't want to."
Taffy frowned, carried the white hot bar to his anvil and began to hammer. He despised girls, as a rule, and their ways. Decidedly Lizzie annoyed him: and yet as he worked he could not help glancing at her now and then, as she sat and watched him. By and by he saw that her eyes were full of tears.
"What's the matter?" he asked, abruptly.
"I—I can't walk home alone. I'm afeared."
He tossed his hammer aside, raked out the fire, and reached his coat off its peg.As he swung round in the darkness to put it on, he blundered against Lizzie or Lizzie blundered against him. She clutched at him nervously.
"Clumsy! can't you see the doorway?"
She passed out, and he followed and locked the door. As they crossed the turf to the highroad, she slipped her arm into his. "I feel safe, that way. Let it stay, co!" After a few paces, she added, "You're different from the others—that's why I like you."
"How?"
"I dunno; but youbediff'rent. You don't think about girls, for one thing."
Taffy did not answer. He felt angry, ashamed, uncomfortable. He did not turn once to look at her face, dimly visible by the light of the young moon—the Hunter's moon—now sinking over the slope of the hill. Thick dust—too thick for the heavy dew to lay—covered the cart-track down to the farm, muffling their footsteps. Lizzie paused by the gate.
"Best go in separate," she said; paused again and whispered, "You may, if you like."
"May do what?"
"What—what young Squire Vyell wanted."
They were face to face now. She held up her lips, and as she did so, they parted in an amorous murmurous little laugh. The moonlight was on her face. Taffy bent swiftly and kissed her.
"Oh, you hurt!" With another little laugh, she slipped up the garden-path and into the house.
Ten minutes later Taffy followed, hating himself.
For the next fortnight he avoided her; and then, late one evening, she came again. He was prepared for this, and had locked the door of the smithy and let down the shutter while he worked. She tapped upon the outside of the shutter with her knuckles.
"Let me in!"
"Can't you leave me alone?" he answered, pettishly. "I want to work, and you interrupt."
"I don't want no love-making—I don't indeed. I'll sit quiet as a mouse. But I'm afeared, out here."
"Nonsense!"
"I'm afeared o' the ghost. There's something comin'—let me in, co!"
Taffy unlocked the door and held it half open while he listened.
"Yes, there's somebody coming, on horseback. Now, look here—it's no ghost, and I can't have you about here, with people passing. I—I don't want you here at all; so make haste and slip away home—that's a good girl."
Lizzie glided like a shadow into the dark lane as the trample of hoofs drew close, and the rider pulled up beside the door.
"You're working late, I see. Is it too late to make a shoe for Aide-de-camp here?"
It was Honoria. She dismounted and stood in the doorway, holding her horse's bridle.
"No," said Taffy; "that is, if you don't mind the waiting."
With his leathern apron he wiped the Dane's anvil for a seat, while she hitched up Aide-de-camp and stepped into the glow of the forge-fire.
"The hounds took us six miles beyond Carwithiel: and there, just as they lost, Aide-de-camp cast his off-hind shoe. I didn't find it out at first, and now I've had to walk him all the way back. Are you alone here?"
"Yes."
"Who was that I saw leaving as I came up?"
"You saw someone?"
"Yes." She nodded, looking him straight in the face. "It looked like a woman. Who was she?"
"That was Lizzie Pezzack, the girl who sold you her doll, once. She's a servant down at the farm where I lodge."
Honoria said no more for the moment, but seated herself on the Dane's anvil, while Taffy chose a bar of iron and stepped out to examine Aide-de-camp's hoof. He returned and in silence began to blow up the fire.
"I dare say you were astonished to see me," she remarked at length.
"Yes."
"I'm still forbidden to speak to you. The last time I did it, grandfather beat me."
"The old brute!" Taffy nipped the hot iron savagely in his pincers.
"I wonder if he'll do it again. Somehow I don't think he will."
Taffy looked at her. She had drawn herself up, and was smiling. In her close riding-habit she seemed very slight, yet tall, and a woman grown. He took the bar to the anvil and began to beat it flat. His teeth were shut, and with every blow he said to himself "Brute!"
"That's beautiful," Honoria went on. "I stopped Mendarva, the other day, and he told me wonders about you. He says he tried you with a hard-boiled egg and you swung the hammer and chipped the shell all round without bruising the white a bit. Is that true?"
Taffy nodded.
"And your learning—the Latin and Greek, I mean; do you still go on with it?"
He nodded again, toward a volume of Euripides that lay open on the work-bench.
"And the stories you used to tell George and me; do you go on telling them to yourself?"
He was obliged to confess that he never did. She sat for awhile watching the sparks as they flew. Then she said, "I should like to hear you tell one again. That one about Aslog and Orm, who ran away by night across the ice-fields and took a boat and came to an island with a house on it, and found a table spread and the fire lit, but no inhabitants anywhere—You remember? It began 'Once upon a time, not far from the city of Drontheim, there lived a rich man——'"
Taffy considered a moment and began "Once upon a time, not far from the city of Drontheim——" He paused, eyed the horse-shoe cooling between the pincers, and shook his head. It was no use. Apollo had been too long in service with Admetus, and the tale would not come.
"At any rate," Honoria persisted, "you can tell me something out of your books: something you have just been reading."
So he began to tell her the story of Ion, and managed well enough in describing the boy and how he ministered before the shrine at Delphi, sweeping the temple and scaring the birds away from the precincts; but when he came to the plot of the play and, looking up, caught Honoria's eyes, it suddenly occurred to him that all the rest of the story was a sensual one and he could not tell it to her. He blushed, faltered, and finally broke down.
"But it was beautiful," said she, "so far as it went; and it's just what I wanted. I shall remember that boy Ion now, whenever I think of you helping your father in the church at home. If the rest of the story is not nice, I don't want to hear it."
How had she guessed? It was delicious, at any rate, to know that she thought of him, and Taffy felt how delicious it was, while he fitted and hammered the shoe on Aide-de-camp's hoof, she standing by with a candle in either hand, the flame scarcely quivering in the windless night.
When all was done, she raised a foot for him to give her a mount. "Good-night!" she called, shaking the reins. Taffy stood by the door of the forge, listening to the echoes of Aide-de-camp's canter, and the palm of his hand tingled where her foot had rested.
H
He took leave of Mendarva and the Jolls just before Christmas. The smith was unaffectedly sorry to lose him. "But," said he, "the Dane will be entered for the Championship next summer, so I s'pose I must look forward to that."
Everyone in the Joll household gave him a small present on his leaving. Lizzie's was a New Testament, with her name on the fly-leaf, and under it "Converted, April 19, 187-." Taffy did not want the gift, but took it rather than hurt her feelings.
Farmer Joll said, "Well, wish 'ee well! Been pretty comfiable, I hope. Now you'm goin', I don't mind telling 'ee I didn't like your coming a bit. But now 'tis wunnerful to me you've been wi' us less'n two year'; we've made such progress."
At home Taffy bought a small forge and set it up in the church, at the west end of the north aisle. Mr. Raymond, under his direction, had been purchasing the necessary tools for some months past; and now the main expense was the cost ofcoal, which pinched them a little. But they managed to keep the fire alight, and the work went forward briskly. Save that he still forbade the parish to lend them the least help, the old Squire had ceased to interfere.
Mr. Raymond's hair was grayer; and Taffy might have observed—but did not—how readily, toward the close of a day's laborious carpentry, he would drop work and turn to Dindorf 'sPoetæ Scenici Græci, through which they were reading their way. On Sundays, the congregation rarely numbered a dozen. It seemed that as the end of the Vicar's task drew nearer, so the prospect of filling the church receded and became more shadowy. And if his was a queer plight, Jacky Pascoe's was a queerer. The Bryanite continued to come by night and help, but at rarer intervals. He was discomforted in mind, as anyone could see; and at length he took Mr. Raymond aside and made confession.
"I must go away; that's what 'tis. My burden is too great for me to bear."
"Why," said Mr. Raymond, who had grown surprisingly tolerant during the past twelve months, "what cause have you, of all men, to feel dejected? You can set the folk here on fire like flax." He sighed.
"That's azackly the reason—I can set 'em afire with a breath; but I can't hold 'em under. I make 'em too strong for me—and I'm afeard. Parson, dear, it's the gospel truth; for two years I've a been strivin' agen myself, wrastlin' upon my knees, and all to hold this parish in." He mopped his face. "'Tis like fightin' with beasts at Ephesus," he said.
"Do you want to hold them in?"
"I do and I don't. I've got to try, anyway. Sometimes I tell mysel' 'tis putting a hand to the plough and turning back; and then I reckon I'll go on. But when the time comes, I can't. I'm afeard, I tell 'ee." He paused. "I've laid it before the Lord, but He don't seem to help. There's two voices inside o' me. 'Tis a terrible responsibility."
"But the people, what are you afraid of their doing?"
"I don't know. You don't know what a runaway hoss will do, but you're afeard all the same." He sank his voice. "There's wantonness, for one thing—six love-children born in the parish this year, and more coming. They do say that Vashti Clemow destroyed her child. And Old Man Johns—him they found dead on the rocks under the Island—he didn't go there by accident. 'Twas a calm day, too."
As often as not Taffy worked late—sometimes until midnight—and blew his forge-fire alone in the church, the tap of his hammer making hollow music in the desolate aisles. He was working thus one windy night in February, when the door rattled open and in walked a totally unexpected visitor—Sir Harry Vyell.
"Good-evening! I was riding by and saw your light in the windows dancing up and down. I thought I would hitch up the mare and drop in for a chat. But go on with your work."
Taffy wondered what had brought him so far from his home at that time of night, but asked no questions. And Sir Harry placed a hassock on one of the belfry steps and, taking his seat, watched for awhile in silence. He wore his long riding boots and an overcoat with the collar turned up about a neck-cloth less nattily folded than usual.
"I wish," he said at length, "that my boy George was clever like you. You were great friends once—you remember Plymouth, hey? But I dare say you've not seen much of each other lately."
Taffy shook his head.
"George is a bit wild. Oxford might have done something for him; made a man of him, I mean. But he wouldn't go. I believe in wild oats to a certain extent. I have told him from the first he must look after himself and decide for himself. That's my theory. It makes a youngster self-reliant. He goes and comes as he likes. If he comes home late from hunting, I ask no questions; I don't wait dinner. Don't you agree with me?"
"I don't know," Taffy answered, wondering why he should be consulted.
"Self-reliance is what a man wants."
"Couldn't he have learnt that at school?"
Sir Harry fidgeted with the riding-crop in his hands. "Well, you see, he's an only son——. I dare say it was selfish of me. You don't mind my talking about George?"
Taffy laughed. "I like it."
Sir Harry laughed too, in an embarrassed way. "But you don't suppose I rode over from Carwithiel for that? You're not so far wrong, though. The fact is—one gets foolish as one grows old—George went out hunting this morning, and didn't turn up for dinner. I kept to my rule, and dined alone. Nine o'clock came; half-past; no George. At ten Hoskings locked up as usual, and off I went to bed. But I couldn't sleep. After awhile, it struck me that he might be sleeping here over at Tredinnis; that is, if no accident had happened. No sleep for me until I made sure; so I jumped out, dressed, slipped down to the stables, saddled the mare and rode over. I left the mare by Tredinnis great gates and crept down to Moyle's stables like a house-breaker; looked in through the window, and, sure enough, there was George's gray in the loose box to the right. So George is sleeping there, and I'm easy in my mind. No doubt you think me an old fool?"
But Taffy was not thinking anything of the sort.
"I couldn't wish better than that. You understand?" said Sir Harry, slyly.
"Not quite."
"He lost his mother early. He wants a woman to look after him, and for him to think about. If he and Honoria would only make up a match.... And Carwithiel would be quite a different house."
Taffy hesitated, with a hand on the forge-bellows.
"I dare say it's news to you, what I'm telling. But it has been in my mind this long while. Why don't you blow up the fire? I bet Miss Honoria has thought of it too; girls are deep. She has a head on her shoulders. I'll warrant she'd send half a dozen of my servants packing within a week. As it is, they rob me to a stair. I know it, and I haven't the pluck to interfere."
"What does the old Squire say?" Taffy managed to ask.
"It has never come tosayinganything. But I believe he thinks of it, too, when he happens to think of anything but his soul. He'll be pleased; everyone will be pleased. The properties touch, you see."
"I see."
"To tell you the truth, he's failing fast. This religion of his is a symptom; all of his family have taken to it in the end. If he hadn't the constitution of a horse, he'd have been converted ten years before this. What puzzles me is, he's so quiet. You mark my words"—Sir Harry rose, buttoned his coat and shook his riding-crop prophetically—"he's brewing up for something. There'll be the devil of a flare-up before he has done."
It came with the midsummer bonfires. At nine o'clock on St. John's Eve, Mr. Raymond read prayers in the church. It was his rule to celebrate thus the vigils of all saints in the English calendar and some few Cornish saints besides; and he regularly announced these services on the preceding Sundays; but no parishioner dreamed of attending them.
To-night, as usual, he and Taffy had prayed alone; and the lad was standing after service at the church door, with his surplice on his arm (for he always wore a surplice and read the lessons on these vigils), when the flame of the first bonfire shot up from the headland over Innis village.
Almost on the moment a flame answered it from the point where the lighthouse stood; and within ten minutes the horizon of the towans was cressetted with these beacon-fires; surely (thought Taffy) with many more than usual. And he remembered that Jacky Pascoe had thrown out a hint of a great revival to be held on Baal-fire Night (as he had called it).
The night was sultry and all but windless. For once the tormented sands had rest. The flame of the bonfires shone yellow—orange-yellow—and steady. He could see the dark figures of men and women passing between him and the nearest, on the high wastrel in front of Tredinnis great gates. Their voices reached him in a confused murmur, broken now and then by a child's scream of delight. And yet a hush seemed to hang over sea and land: an expectant hush. For weeks the sky had not rained. Day after day, a dull indigo blue possessed it, deepening with night into duller purple, as if the whole heavens were gathering into one big thunder-cloud, which menaced but never broke. And in the hush of those nights alistener could almost fancy he heard, between whiles, the rabbits stirring uneasily in their burrows.
By and by, the bonfire on the wastrel appeared to be giving out specks of light, which blazed independently; yet without decreasing its own volume of flame. The sparks came dancing, nearer and larger; the voices grew more distinct. The spectators had kindled torches and were advancing in procession to visit other bonfires. The torches, too, were supposed to bless the fields they passed across.
The procession rose and sank as it came over the uneven ridges like a fiery snake; topped the nearest ridge and came pouring down past the churchyard wall. At its head danced Lizzie Pezzack, shrieking like a creature possessed, her hair loose and streaming, while she whirled her torch. Taffy knew these torches; bundles of canvas steeped in tar and fastened in the middle to a stout stick or piece of chain. Lizzie's was fastened to a chain, and as he watched her uplifted arm swinging the blazing mass he found time to wonder how she escaped setting her hair on fire. Other torch-bearers tossed their arms and shouted as they passed. The smoke was suffocating, and across the patch of quiet graveyard the heat smote on Taffy's face. But in the crowd he saw two figures clearly—Jacky Pascoe and Squire Moyle; and the Bryanite's face was agitated and white in the glare. He had given an arm to the Squire, who was clearly the centre of the procession, and tottered forward with jaws working and cavernous eyes.
"He's saved!" a voice shouted.
Others took up the cry. "Saved!" "The Squire's saved!" "Saved to-night—saved to glory!"
The Squire paused, still leaning on the Bryanite's arm. While the procession swayed around him, he gazed across the gate, as a man who had lost his bearings. No glint of torchlight reached his eyes; but the sight of Mr. Raymond's surpliced figure, standing behind Taffy's shoulders in the full glare, seemed to rouse him. He lifted a fist and shook it slowly.
"Com'st along, sir!" urged the Bryanite.
But the Squire stood irresolute, muttering to himself.
"Com'st along, sir!"
"Lev' me be, I tell 'ee!" He laid both hands on the gate and spoke across it to Mr. Raymond, his head nodding while his voice rose.
"D'ee hear what they say? I'm saved. I'm the Squire of this parish, and I'm going to Heaven. I make no account of you and your church. Old Satan's the fellow I'm after, and I'm going to have him out o' this parish to-night or my name's not Squire Moyle."
"That's of it, Squire!" "Hunt' en!" "Out with 'en!"
He turned on the shouting throng.
"Hunt 'en? Iss fay I will! Come along, boys—back to Tredinnis! No, no"—this to the Bryanite—"we'll go back. I'll show 'ee sport, to-night—we'll hunt th'ould Divvle by scent and view. I'm Squire Moyle, ain't I? And I've a pack o' hounds, ha'n't I? Back, boys—back, I tell 'ee!"
Lizzie Pezzack swung her torch. "Back—back to Tredennis!" The crowd took up the cry, "Back to Tredinnis!" The old man shook off the Bryanite's hand, and as the procession wheeled and re-formed itself confusedly, rushed to the head of it, waving his hat—
"Back!—Back to Tredinnis!"
"God help them," said Mr. Raymond; and taking Taffy by the arm, drew him back into the church.
The shouting died away up the road. For three-quarters of an hour father and son worked in silence. The reddened sky shed its glow gently through the clear glass windows, suffusing the shadows beneath the arched roof. And, in the silence, the lad wondered what was happening up at Tredinnis.
Jim the Whip took oath afterward that it was no fault of his. He had suspected three of the hounds for a day or two—Chorister, White, Boy, and Bellman—and had separated them from the pack. That very evening he had done the same with Rifler, who was chewing at the straw in a queer fashion and seemed quarrelsome. He had said nothing to the Squire, whose temper had been ugly for a week past. He had hoped it was a false alarm—had thought it better to wait, and so on.
The Squire went down to the Kennels with a lantern, Jim shivering behind him. They had their horses saddled outside and ready; and the crowd was waiting along the drive and up by the great gates. The Squire saw at a glance that two couples were missing, and in two seconds had their names on his tongue. He was like a madman. He shouted to Jim to open the doors. "Better not, maister!" pleaded Jim. The old man cursed, smote him across the neck with the butt-end of his whip, and unlocked the doors himself. Jim, though half-stunned, staggered forward to prevent him, and took another blow which felled him. He dropped across the threshold of Chorister's kennel, the doors of all opened outwards, and the weight of his body kept this one shut. But he saw the other three hounds run out—saw the Squire turn with a ghastly face, drop the lantern and run for it as White Boy snapped at his boot. Jim heard the crash of the lantern and the snap of teeth, and with that he fainted off in the darkness. He had cut his forehead against the bars of the big kennel, and when he came to himself, one of the hounds was licking his face through the grating.
Men told for years' after how the old Squire came up the drive that night, hoof to belly; his chin almost on mare Nonesuch's neck; his face like a man's who hears hell cracking behind him; and of the three dusky hounds which followed (the tale said) with clapping jaws and eyes like coach-lamps.
Down in the quiet church Taffy heard the outcry, and, laying down his plane, looked up and saw that his father had heard it too. His mild eyes, shining through his spectacles, asked, as plainly as words: "What wasthat?"
"Listen!"
For a minute—two minutes—they heard nothing more. Then out of the silence broke a rapid, muffled beat of hoofs; and Mr. Raymond clutched Taffy's arm as a yell—a cry not human, or if human, insane—cut the night like a knife and fetched them to their feet. Taffy gained the porch first, and just at that moment a black shadow heaved itself on the churchyard wall and came hurling over with a thud—a clatter of dropping stones—then a groan.
Before they could grasp what was happening, the old Squire had extricated himself from the fallen mare, and came staggering across the graves.
"Hide me!——"
He came with both arms outstretched, his face turned sideways. Behind him, from the far side of the wall, came sounds—horrible shuffling sounds, and in the dusk they saw the head of one of the hounds above the coping and his fore-paws clinging as he strained to heave himself over.
"Save me! Save——"
They caught him by both arms, dragged him within and slammed the door.
"Save!——sa—!"
The word ended with a thud as he pitched headlong on the slate pavement. Through the barred door, the scream of the mare Nonesuch answered it.
(To be continued.)
The Foreign Mail Service at New York
Mail Arriving in Foreign Department.On the left the Chief Clerk is checking off the returns from the clerks, on the right, who have emptied sacks of mail. New loads are coming in in the rear.
Mail Arriving in Foreign Department.
On the left the Chief Clerk is checking off the returns from the clerks, on the right, who have emptied sacks of mail. New loads are coming in in the rear.
"Steamer's mail!!!" This loud call, echoing throughout the foreign room in the Post-office Building, is the equivalent of the "Clear ship for action" on the man-of-war. Instantly distributors leave their separating cases, stampers abandon their "blocks," the electric stamp-cancelling machine temporarily ceases its humming, buzzing rattle, every available clerk or porter gets ready for the fray, and the whole force charges with alacrity on the fast accumulating pile, as sack after sack is dumped on a low, large table, at times entirely hid from sight by bags with labels indicating their origin, thousands of miles away, whether from the confines of Siberia, or the shores of the Indian Ocean.
The sight, even to men familiar with the work, is inspiring, especially when at times two, and on certain occasions three, steamers land their cargo of sacks at the same hour. Not infrequently this happens when some one thousand and odd sacks have to be made ready for an outgoing steamer, and then the foreign force is fairly on its mettle, and may well be compared again to the crew of a battle-ship when it has to fight fire inside and fire from the enemy outside. Here again, as on the battle-ship, organization and years' training tell. The wagon-loads of sacks melt before the vigorous and steady onslaught as did the Spanish fleet before Dewey's guns, and in a short while the room is cleared and the "field-day" over.
Sea Post-office Room.One clerk empties the sacks, and throws the letter packages to another clerk at the case while he distributes the papers into the sack rack.
Sea Post-office Room.
One clerk empties the sacks, and throws the letter packages to another clerk at the case while he distributes the papers into the sack rack.
It would be difficult, in this great cosmopolitan city of New York, to find a person who does not make use of this foreign service, yet strange to relate is the fact that, outside of the clerks immediately handling these mails, hardly anyone can be found who knows, or even has the slightest idea of the International Postal Union system. Perhaps this is accounted for by the comparatively very recent establishment of said system, and its growth so immediate and rapid that the public has not so far "caught up" with it.
The system was aptly described by Postmaster-General Gary at the opening of the Washington Postal Congress, in 1897, as "one of the grandest projects of the century." No other agency is responsible to such an extent for the tremendous expansion of great ideals and the exchange of views between nations characteristic of the last quarter of this century.
Previous to 1875, when the Treaty of Bern, assented to and ratified by twenty-two nations, took effect, the exchange of mails between separate nationalities was done under such difficulties, and subject to delays and mishaps of so many kinds, that a normal growth and improvement in keeping with the progress of civilization was out of the question. In 1840 the foreign mail from England for the United States, carried on the Great Western, consisted of two sacks of mail. As late as 1873 a steamer from Europe with 20,000 letters on board was considered a record breaker. To-day the Cunard steamersand other transatlantic ships carrying what is called a "full European mail," usually bring some two hundred thousand letters, and an average of three hundred sacks of newspapers and printed matter for New York City, not to mention the five hundred and odd sacks for Canada, Mexico, and transpacific countries, and a few United States exchange offices, which are now taken direct to the trains and not handled at the New York office.
The working unit of the International Postal Union system is the "Exchange Office." Each postal administration selects these despatching and receiving centres according to quantity of mail handled at any particular point. In European countries many of these offices are on trains from one important point to another, and are called Travelling Exchange offices. They receive and despatch mails in the same manner as offices located in large cities. There are also exchange offices located on steamship lines, and they are called Sea Post-offices. No matter where located, these offices all conduct business on the same lines, and handle mail in the same manner throughout the world. The rules and regulations of this service are adopted by Postal Congresses, meeting about every six years and under the general supervision of the International Bureau of the Postal Union located at Bern, Switzerland, and supported by funds from all governments represented in the Union according to the respective importance of their mail service.
Transferring Mails from an Ocean Greyhound to the Post-office Boat, Postmaster General, through the Chutes.
Transferring Mails from an Ocean Greyhound to the Post-office Boat, Postmaster General, through the Chutes.
Only through these exchange offices can correspondence go from one country to another, as no other offices are provided with the clerical force and system necessary tothe handling of international mails. It is at times difficult to explain to business people that a North German Lloyd steamer calling at Gibraltar and Naples will carry mail for Naples only, and that a letter addressed to Gibraltar by that particular steamer cannot be delivered at that port, but will be carried all the way to Naples, whence it will be re-despatched to Gibraltar through a more or less circuitous route. This is because Gibraltar is not an "exchange office" with New York, and "closed mails" are not sent thereto from New York. A "closed mail," as the name indicates, is a mail duly tied up, sealed, and labelled with the name of the exchange office to which it is sent, and not to be opened until it gets there, passing sometimes through four or five countries before reaching its destination. No other kind of mails is carried by steamers, yet the answer will often be made to inquiries, that a certain letter would have been sent "in open mail" to London or elsewhere. This does not mean that the mail in which the letter in question would be sent is despatched "opened," but that it is sent in the "closed" mail for London, there to be opened and disposed of by the London clerks, just as if it had been mailed in London. This course is followed with all correspondence for offices abroad, or even entire countries, which is not in sufficient quantity to justify the establishment of an exchange; and the mails for these offices or countries is sent to the foreign exchange office with the best facilities for disposing of it. Thus mail for Liberia will be sent sometimes to Hamburg, Germany, and at other times to Liverpool, England.
On Board the Postmaster General, at the End of the Chute—Receiving, Piling, and Checking Off Sacks.
On Board the Postmaster General, at the End of the Chute—Receiving, Piling, and Checking Off Sacks.
Some Sample Labels from Abroad.Belgian label—string made fast through wooden block with wax seal and a second block of compressed lead.Paraguay label—plain linen.Austrian label—wooden block, string sealed with wax.German white leather label.Argentine label—strong, ordinary leather.Norwegian label—cardboard—string sealed on back with wax.
Some Sample Labels from Abroad.
Belgian label—string made fast through wooden block with wax seal and a second block of compressed lead.Paraguay label—plain linen.Austrian label—wooden block, string sealed with wax.German white leather label.Argentine label—strong, ordinary leather.Norwegian label—cardboard—string sealed on back with wax.
A closed mail consists of ordinary letters, printed matter, and other articles, and of registered articles. Sometimes all these elements will be enclosed in the same sack, or they may be despatched in separatesacks, when in sufficient quantity. The registered mail is tied up and sealed in distinctive red-striped sacks, and then these sacks are enclosed in ordinary mail-sacks, tied up and labelled in exactly the same manner as the sacks containing ordinary letters, so that it is impossible to tell from the outside which sack contains registered matter. A mail may consist of one sack only, containing all classes of correspondence, or it may be composed of a large number of sacks. In either case it is accompanied by a letter bill, enclosed in one of the sacks. This letter bill is one of a series beginning on January 1st of each year, being numbered with consecutive numbers to each foreign exchange office. Thus when Naples receives a mail from New York containing the letter bill numbered 65, and the previous mail received at that office had Letter Bill No. 63, Naples knows that mail with Letter Bill No. 64 is missing, and immediately notifies New York of the fact in a form called "Bulletin of Verification." This form is in use for official correspondence between all offices in the Postal Union regarding irregularities of all sorts discovered in the mails of one office for another. A record of the number of each mail and the particulars of its despatch being kept by each office, the inquiry from Naples in the above instance would immediately be investigated, and that office notified that the missing mail had been sent on such a date, by such a steamer, etc.; or, if more was known concerning its fate, as in the case of the mails sent per La Bourgogne last July, mention would be made of the fact. The Russian travelling exchange office of Kibarty to St. Petersburg frequently receives the mails sent from this office every Wednesday in inverted order, that is, the mail sent by a fast White Star liner at noon on Wednesday, may be received a few hours ahead of the mail sent by a slower American line steamer which sailed at 10A.M.on the same day. The occurrence is so often repeated that one would think it would go unnoticed, and the Russian office would wait a few hours anyway before notifying New York that amail is missing, but such is not the case, and the bulletin "Your mail No. —— is missing," is immediately sent to New York, followed next day by another bulletin, "Your mail No. —— has arrived." At the New York office the first bulletin is always held until receipt of the second, which is sure to follow and renders investigation unnecessary; they are called "Katie didn't," and "Katie did." Many bulletins are received subsequent to the holidays with best wishes for Christmas or New Year from one office to another. They are mostly all in English, French, or Spanish, and are, at times, more or less humorous, if not pathetic, as was one received from Martinique about the time Cervera's ill-fated fleet was hovering near that island. A mail from New York had just been received at St. Pierre, and in one of the sacks the horrified French Director of Posts had found a cat in the last stages of decomposition. He had sent for the American Consul to view the remains, and his bulletin to the New York office regarding this irregularity was a model of official French. It stated how the smell of that dead cat had penetrated every corner of his office, and one could read between the lines that he suspected the whole affair to be a joke played upon him by the Yankee postal clerks. The event was duly investigated in the New York office, but beyond the fact that one member of the numerous pussy tribe in the mail building was missing, little else could be positively ascertained. That the cat could have been sent in that bag as a joke was not to be thought of for an instant, but it was presumed that in its wandering among the piles of mail-sacks in the basement, pussy had found the sack for Martinique awaiting to be sealed, and had concluded to take a nap therein. The sack was probably tied up and sealed soon afterward, and the unwilling stow-away had been sent to the steamer. Later on it was reported by the purser of the steamer that he suspected there was something alive in one of the mail-bags, but such is the respect for postal seals that he never thought to open the sack in the presenceof witnesses and release the animal. Thrown in the mail-room with other sacks on top of it, there could be no doubt that poor pussy had been smothered before passing the Hook, and his condition when landed at Martinique must have been such as to fully justify and explain the ill-disguised indignation of the French officials.
In the Newspaper Division.Throwing papers into boxes for all parts of the world.
In the Newspaper Division.
Throwing papers into boxes for all parts of the world.
The letter bill describes minutely the mail it accompanies, states how many sacks of letters, how many sacks of papers, and how many articles registered, describing each registered article separately, except in cases of heavy registered mails, when a separate descriptive list is sent in addition to the letter bill. Thus it is easy for the office of destination to verify the mail it receives and ascertain whether any is missing.
Small closed mails are at times enclosed inside of closed mails for other offices; for instance, the mails made up at Paris for Guatemala are in a sack duly sealed and labelled as aforesaid, but this sack is put inside of one of the bags for the New York office, and in such cases the fact is noted on the letter bill sent with the New York mail.
Samples of Ordinary Letters.For Government of Simbursk, Russia. For Finland.For Hungary.
Samples of Ordinary Letters.
For Government of Simbursk, Russia. For Finland.For Hungary.
The business of the foreign clerks when a foreign mail is received in the manner described in our first lines is to open promptly every sack received, inspect and dispose of contents, and report to the chief clerk the result from each sack thus opened. Each clerk takes hold of one of the sacks piled on the table, and throws it on another table used for opening the mails. He cuts open the fastenings, keeping the label separate, and also the letter-bill, if he happens to find it in the sack; if several classes of mail matter are found therein, he pushes the ordinary letters over to one side, sweeps the newspapers into large four-wheeled baskets near by, takes to another place the smaller enclosed mails addressed to other offices, and lays the registered sack on the chief clerk's desk, where a man from the registry division will receive it and give a receipt for it. The clerk then calls out to the chief clerk the result of his examination, "Lisbon-Reg.-Bill and 1 Honolulu"—which means that in the sack just opened he found the mail from Lisbon for New York with the letter-bill, registered articles and a smaller closed mail for Honolulu. Like the rattle of musketry these calls are fired at the chief clerk, whomarks everything on a tally-sheet, which will later on be compared with the advices received from the foreign offices on each letter-bill; and if any discrepancy is found it will be investigated, resulting in a bulletin of verification to office of origin, or in something worse for the foreign clerk who made an erroneous announcement of the contents, if the fault is laid to him. In a few minutes, sometimes an hour or more, an entire mail is opened and the room cleared, the registry man getting away to his department with all the registered mails, and the newspaper force wheeling away the baskets full of newspapers and packages. The letters are then divided into four parts—those for New York City proper, those for the rest of the United States and Canada, those for foreign countries which have been sent in open mail to New York, and those which are unpaid or partially prepaid. Many foreign offices make a separation of the mails for New York City from those for other places, but this is a matter of accommodation and reciprocal arrangements between exchange offices; and the work of separation is, strictly speaking, that of the foreign clerks in any office. The newspapers are treated in the same manner as the letters. All city mail is then sent to the city department for final distribution and delivery, and that for other parts of the United States and Canada is sent to the domestic mail division for despatch. All letters and mail addressed to other countries are retained in the foreign division, and included in the next mail for these countries. The unpaid and short-paid mail is "rated up" before delivery to other divisions. This mail is put up under distinctive labels. The despatching offices have marked on each article the amount of deficiency in prepayment. No matter where originating, this amount is marked in French money (centimes). The letter "T" (initial of French word "tax") is also stamped on covers. The foreign clerks at the receiving office calculate, in the money of their country, the amount of deficiency and double it up, stamping this charge on the covers for collection by office of delivery.