HANDLING OUR LETTERS

Grey River Argus, 28 May 1935, Page 6

HANDLING OUR LETTERS

SORTERS’ QUICK ACTION. AND SOME MEMORY FEATS. When we post a miscellaneous handful of letters for many destinations we are confident that those which should be despatched within an hour or less by train or steamer will invariably start on their way without delay. The fact that this always happens is due, in the first instance, to the sorters who combine quick thinking and action with a display of geographical know ledge surprising to the layman, until it is realized that these men are carefully selected and trained to do the same thing day after day. Those privileged to see behind the scenes at any of the principal post offices towards the end of the business day will be impressed by the piles of postal packets emptied from hampers and bags upon the main sorting table. In the rush hour, so many sorters stand round this table that each man has only just enough elbow-room for his work. Here is done the preliminary sorting to eliminate letters too large to go through the rapid action automatic date-stamping machine. Once the date-stamp is impressed, the letters go in piles to the primary sorter, who stands facing large nests of pigeon holes, each carrying the name of a town or district. Taking up a handful of letters, the sorter, with a quick turn of the wrist, distributes them unerringly into the right pigeonhole. He might have a hundred different pigeon-holes into which sueces sive letters must be distributed. There is never a moment’s hesitation; in fact the rapidity of this work suggests that the sorter has no need to read any name on a pigeon-hole. It is actually a fact that many of these highly skilled officers could make the distribution accurately without the place labels. Private-boxes at the Wellington G.P.O. total 1670 and it is another well authenticated fact that, whether an ad-