Yet the sorters of the present age, forming a very large body, are ever engaged in doing an important and by no means simple duty. As letters arrive in the morning, and are handed in at the breakfast-table, speculation arises as to their origin; a well-known hand is recognised, interest is excited by the contents, or the well-springs of emotion are opened--joy is brought with the silvered note, or sorrow with the black insignia of death; and thus, absorbed in the matter of the letters themselves, no passing thought is spared to the operators whose diligent hands have given them wings or directed their line of flight.
When most men are enjoying the refreshment of nature's sweet restorer, which it is the privilege of the night-hours to give, the sorters in a large number of post-offices throughout the country are hard at work, and on nearly all the great lines of railway the travelling post-offices are speeding their wakeful flight in every direction, carrying not only immense quantities of correspondence, but a large staff of men who arrange and sort it in transit. Unconsciously though it may be, these men by their work are really a most powerful agency in binding society together, and promoting the commercial enterprise of the country. It lies in the nature of things that sorters' duties should largely fall into the night. Like a skilful mariner who bends to his use every wind that blows, the Post-office avails itself of every opportunity to send forward its letters. To lay aside till morning, correspondence arriving at an intermediate stage at night, would not consort with the demands of the age we live in; despatch is of the first consequence, and hence it is that to deal with _through_ correspondence, many offices are open during the night. Some offices are never closed: at all hours the round of duty goes on without intermission; but in these, as also in many other cases where the periods of duty are long, relays of sorters are necessarily employed. Much might be said of the broken hours of attendance, the early risings, the discomforts and cold of the travelling post-offices in winter, and the like, which sorters have to endure; and something might also be said of their loyalty to duty, punctuality in attendance, and readiness to strain every nerve under the pressure of occasions like Christmas. But these things would not, perhaps, be of general interest, and our object here is rather to show what a sorter's work really is.