A GREAT POST OFFICE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 13352, 9 April 1914, Page 4

A GREAT POST OFFICE.

Judging from descriptions, the new Post Office at New' Vdrk, which has been built at a cost of £1 200,000, must be quite the most magnificent of post offices that tlie world has ever seen. i kThe-jiiew a .-correspondent *of the Standard 'says, «)iily m =ize to thc..Peni).s£b;auia. Statjun__aiid. Uic Grand Central Station 'rqccntly. m New YorK. It. I^"' , Jive' stbrieVhigh, and takes m -two city"*!. locks. The exterior is of pink granitx 1 ,. and there arc some 165,000 cubic feet of granite m thei building. Behind thia outer walls are inner walls of structural steel. There are 18,000 tons of steel iii the- building. "Aiid 7,000,000 bricks.;. It is the lightest. -building- for 'its'slKc- in the city,' a fact due to lluv.very. extensive -employ tneftit of glass m the .construction: The.' appearance of : the Post Office .-from ■• withoiulmust be highly impressive. Thirty-one broad steps lead up from., laiuhth ;A*«iiueto a. colonnade of . 'twenty giant Corinthian pillars m pink granite, 35ft' lngh ■and 'sft thick, supporting , a eoluuee on, which •is engraved the . motto , wl)ich Herodbtilis wrote m tribute to the couriers who dashed through .Persia with, 'the mails arid, military .orders':. ''Neither! Hor vain nor heat nor gloom oi night stays, these- courier^ from rthe swjft.. completion of their appointed rounds.". Behind the . public windows inside, .'the office is the workroom, said to' be the. largest m the country, £06ft long and 160 ft wide, with not a column to break the space save**roui_d the edge., .Across, the room frpm north to south, run three spans; composed of hollow. girders-. en : closed m. plastei*. The object of these . i^ c not wholly architectural, nor -is it 'merely " ornarAetital. The. Q,Qvcn.nnieht. has long found ' it necessary to b aye an inspection 'system' to safeguard its.ibusi; ness against dishonest" employees. These I apparently innocent spans contain OgalVries from Avbich iu.suectors can look down, seeing but unseen, on all the employees ih the place. Other adjuncts m the rapid handling of the mails are seven rotary tubes, 22 lifts and' pneumatic tubes, and conveyors which travel al' the rate of 250 ft a. minute. A clever mechanical device called ah automatic tilting; tray receives the ifiCoiriilig >mail bagK f and tips therii. into buckets, which cajriy them 'to the basement floor nt tho'rattj^'of tNveftty - buckets" a minute, l.ach of 'these r ":bi.ck6fe- weighs 20 tons, -ahd will handle -12Q0 2001 bor 3001 b bags per hour. Thteen^u'rbs help one to gain some conception of wlfftt the postal service m a !, &{ , fe^t k ,''<s&pital' 'means. '*