:

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

Athenæum has the following remarks | excitement. The misery of the woman is as he last work of NATHANIEL HAW-present in every page as the heading, which, in the title of the romance, symbolizes her punishment. Her terrors concerning her strange elvish child present retribution in a form which is new and natural:-her slow and painful purification through repentance is crowned by no perfect happiness, such as awaits the decline of those who have no dark and bitter past to remember. Then, the gradual corrosion of heart of Dimmesdale, the faithless priest, under the insidious care of the husband, (whose relationship to Hester is a secret known only to themselves,) is appalling; and his final confession and expiation are merely a relief, not a reconciliation. We are by no means satisfied that passions and tragedies like these are the legitimate subjects for fiction we are satisfied that novels such as Adam Blair,' and plays, such as 'The Stranger,' may be justly charged with attracting more persons than they warn by their excitement. But if Sin and Sorrow in their most fearful forms are to be presented in any work of art, they have rarely been treated with a loftier severity, purity, and sympathy, than in Mr. Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter.' The touch of the fantastic befitting a period of society in which ignorant and excitable human creatures conceived each other and themselves to be under the direct rule and governance' of the Wicked One, is most skillfully administered.

s is a most powerful and painful
Mr. Hawthorne must be well known
eaders as a favorite of the Athenæum.
e him as among the most original and
writers of American fiction. There
s works, a mixture of Puritan reserve
d imaginaton, of passion and descrip-
the allegorical and the real, which
Il fail to understand, and which others
sitively reject, but which, to our
s fascinating, and which entitles him
aced on a level with Brockden Brown
author of Rip Van Winkle.' 'The
Letter' will increase his reputation
who do not shrink from the inven-
he tale; but this, as we have said,
than ordinarily painful. When we
nounced that the three characters are
wife, openly punished for her guilt,
mpter, whom she refuses to unmask,
, during the entire story, carries a fair
d an unblemished name among his
ation, and her husband, who, re-
from a long absence at the moment
entence, sits himself down betwixt
in the midst of a small and severe
ity to work out his slow vengeance
under the pretext of magnanimous
ness,-when we have explained that
arlet Letter' is the badge of Hester

From the Quarterly Review.

MECHANISM OF THE POST-OFFICE.

Valentine's Day at the Post Office.-Household Words, a Weekly Jou conducted by Charles Dickens. No. 1. 1850.

HER Majesty's Postmaster-General is the | Commander-in-Chief of an army of great magnitude, quartered not only over the whole surface of the United Kingdom, and in almost every portion of the British Empire, but also at many Foreign Ports. His Secretaries form his Staff; his Surveyors are Commanders of Districts, to whom Postmasters report, and from whom in most cases they receive their orders. The General Post-Office in London-his Head-Quarters-is composed of a force of 2903 persons, divided into two Departments, each of which, without further flourish of trumpets, shall now rapidly pass in review before our readers.

The INLAND and FOREIGN DEPARTMENT, COMmonly called the GENERAL POST.

|

nem.

uirements of the new system, a small At half-past five a stranger would fancy quadrangle, built for lighting another that the force assembled for the sorting of of the establishment, was on the letters exceeded its work, and especially that floor converted into a little office; by some unaccountable mystery the publicaally, these efforts not affording suffi- tion of newspapers, for the despatch of oom, the money-order office, president, which the whole of the upper halls were in window-men, ledgers, documents, pa- readiness, had been interdicted. On lookd all, were ordered to swarm or emi-ing, however, into the large bins beneath the om the post-office into an immense slits for receiving letters, white packets of building purposely constructed to re- all sizes and shapes are observed at about this period to drop down in arithmetical prohese patch-work arrangements the of-gression, increasing in number so rapidly that t present sufficiently large for its du- it soon occupies the attention of a sturdy the performance of which great fa-porter to keep sweeping them with a broom s been derived by the construction at into a heap, which, as fast as it can be tumd of the large double halls on both bled into baskets, is carried into the large I a very ingenious contrivance, sug- sorting halls. by Mr. Bokenham, called "the liftchine." Within a set of iron bars 3 inches asunder, and altogether O feet broad, reaching vertically from - of the lower halls to those suspende them, there are in strata a series of As however the clock is unrelentingly pros 9 feet 6 inches broad by 4 feet gressing towards 6 P. M. we must reluctantly esembling the cages in which wild beg our readers to move with us from the t country fairs are usually confined, letter bins to an adjoining compartment for y the irresistible power of a steam-the purpose of witnessing a moving picture are made on one side to rise 28 feet of still greater interest. lower to the upper halls, and then, through a slit in the wall, to descend manner on the other side: the whole ulating like the buckets of a dredghine. By this contrivance sorters ter-carriers, accompanied by their and bags, instead of having to toil down a steep staircase, are quickly t conveniently transferred from one alls to the other.

pors of both stories are divided into ible desks, separated by passages each set, averaging about five feet -h-each great chamber being overby two elevated platforms for the ors," who, just as the Persians the sun, regulate the whole of their ts by the expressive but ever-varyres of the hall's huge round-faced

w minutes before 5 P.M. the whole the inland department, refreshed by having assembled, the business for ing begins by the entrance on the ors, from various doors, of porters iers bringing, in various attitudes, basets full of letters, which have en collected by hand within the

The fluttering, flapping, and flopping of all these letters-their occasional total cessation for a few seconds-and yet the almost awful rate at which they keep increasing, form altogether a very exciting scene.

At three quarters past five a few newspapers, only by twos or by threes at a time, are to be heard falling heavily through the broad slits into the spacious bins for receiving them, and the stranger has accordingly still reason to think that in the newspaper department of this world something somewhere must have gone wrong. In a few minutes, however, a professional, businesslike tap is heard at the window, and a lean, tall, sinewy man-in-waiting within, hitherto unobserved, who, with his sleeves tucked up, has been standing like a statue on the interior sill, opening the window, receives a dirty pocket handkerchief full of newspapers, which he tumbles into a white wicker basket, 2 feet 3 inches cube, standing all ready beneath. He has scarcely, with rather a disdainful jerk of his hand, returned the filthy rag to its still dirtier owner, when there is pushed toward him a large, long sack, which, in like manner, having been emptied into the basket, is chucked to its proprietor. Bags, bundles, and sacks of all sizes, shapes and lengths, now arrive so rapidly, that the man-in-waiting suddenly throws open the whole of the window, and in receiving, emptying, and throwing about bags, he com

that the newspapers for the India Mail were
to be added to those of the heaviest night
of the week, in consequence of which the
number of bags increased so rapidly, that an
assistant porter of the same lean, active
make, jumping on the broad sill, opened a
second window. At five minutes before six
these men were at times so nearly over-
whelmed with bags of all colors and sizes,
that most of those who had brought only
large bundles chucked them themselves into
the office. As the finger of the clock ad-
vanced the arrivals increased. As fast as
the two men could possibly empty and eject
the sacks, the baskets beneath them (each
holding on an average 500 newspapers) were
dragged by scarlet postmen into the lifting
machine, in which, on its platforms, they were
to be seen through the bars of their respect-
ive cages, one set after another, rising to-
wards the upper sorting halls. At a minute
before six the two window-men were appa-
rently working for their very lives;-parcels
of newspapers like barred-shot hurled past
them; single newspapers, mostly discharged
by boys, like musketry, were flying over
their heads. At last the clock mercifully
came to their rescue, and though its first
five strokes seemed to increase the volley, the
last had no sooner struck than, before its
melodious note had completely died away,
both the wooden windows of the newspaper
receiving-room of the Inland Department, b
a desperate effort, were simultaneously close
by the two lean janitors, whom, apparentl
exhausted by their extraordinary exertion"
we observed instantly to sit down on a ba
behind them, in order, in peaceful quietness-
to wipe with their shirt sleeves the perspi❘
ration which stood in dew-drops on their
pale honest faces.

The following evening, at a quarter before six, we happened to witness from the outside the scene we have just described within.

Across the well-known thoroughfare passage, which separates the Inland, or General, from the London District, or old Twopenny-post, the public had, during the day, been passing to and fro in that sort of equable stream which, strange to say, seems all over London to be, generally speaking, about the same at the same hours in the same places. Occasionally a passenger, diverging sideways from the track, might be seen diagonally walking toward the slits on either

At about three quarters past fiv ever, the stream of passengers had evidently increased, but the rule conduct seemed gradually to have reversed; for now the minority onl ceeded soberly on the straight path the majority were observed to be di or reeling toward the windows of the Department. Most of the latter mu had letters in their hands; while oth they approached the slits, were seen ly taking them out of pockets in the of their coats, or very cautiously out o hats. Sometimes one of the narro was wholly engrossed by a shabbily-d man, busily stuffing into it many hund circulars, all exactly of the same brought in several packets, which, w surrendering his position, one after ar he untied,

Clerks and men of busines posited their letters with real as well as affected gravity, and then turning on heels walked seriously away. Boys ge ly came up whistling, and almost inva twisted in their contributions with a flo At the compartment for prepaying le we observed a little ragamuffin throw u cap at the wooden window, which he not reach, and which, as in duty boun stantly opened. As the finger of the advanced, people bringing unpaid letters idly increased, until the receiving win were beset by a motley crowd of pe apparently bent on obstructing the obje all by squeezing each other to death. Se were mechanics, in dirty aprons, with grimed faces, and with tucked-up sle displaying bare, sinewy, useful arms. An the number of women, each of whom though under high pressure, had an stretched arm with a penny and a lette the end of it, we observed a short and stout one holding a child whose whole was squalling under a purple velvet bor and scarlet flowers. On the extreme people from all quarters were approach the newspaper windows, with bundles sacks; and although it now wanted only minute to six, it was curious to observe I unconcernedly many of the men emplo by the newspaper agents advanced w their bags, for the delivering of which t evidently well knew, from a glance at clock, that there was "lots o' time."

At the last moment, however, there c

by boys, were seen to fall from the all the receiving-houses in London, as well s lifeless upon the ground; while at as from that part of the country lying withdows for the receipt of pre-paid let-in the twelve-mile circle, are in rapid succesgroup of persons for a few moments sion driven up to the door of the main pass if, for the amusement of the public, sage, through which, as quickly as they arere most admirably acting together a rive, the bags of each are brought into the vivant of the words, "TOO LATE." hall, and accordingly, by half past six, the fortunates, however, had evidently no Inland Department-through which there ; for, excepting the old scarlet-coated have lately passed, per week, about 2,288,000 n waiting, who, as he had been doing letters and 900,000 newspapers-is to be continued slowly and infirmly to pace seen on both floors in full, in busy, and, we down before the newspaper and let- must add, in magnificent operation. Hows, no human being on duty was to

The contents of the bags, as fast as they arrive, after being duly examined, are, at one end of the lower hall, tumbled in basketsful upon a large table, twelve feet long by five feet broad, entirely surrounded by postmen in scarlet coats-a number of which are very creditably torn under the arms or across the shoulders, from over-exertion in hauling about

impossible attentively to observe the we have just described, and which, ore or less coloring, may, excepting on s, be witnessed any or every day in , without reflecting how strange it is many people of business, as well as ure, should apparently combine to-heavy letter-bags. o defer not only till the very last These men at first sight appear like a body , but until a very little bit beyond of soldiers playing for their very lives at mportant an act as the posting of cards, each gambler at the same moment ters and newspapers. Instead, how- shuffling a separate pack. The object, howblaming themselves, it is not at all an ever, of their manipulations is merely to course for people-on other subjects"face" the stamped and paid letters all the sible-to complain most bitterly to master-general that they were actthe window of the Post-office with n their outstretched hands, to prepostage of their letters, when at ck precisely the thing-so far as penny postage-suddenly and inclosed upon them! Hard, howit may appear to them, it must e evident to any one else that a vacillating orders, continually ale last moment, would not, in the degree, diminish either the pressure isappointment of those whose conal habit it is invariably to wait me last moment," whatever it may passed. At six o'clock there is no As fast as the letters of the great heap within the Post-office. The hurry, which, by fresh arrivals, is seldom allowed , and mortification outside have been to be exhausted-are thus unpigged and solely by the complainants them-"faced," they are carried off in armsful by and as they possess the power to porters to the stamping-table, where the he evil, they had better energetical- date is marked on the back of each at the ine to do so than make themselves rate of 200 per minute, and they are then s by complaining of it. taken to an adjoining table, where six clerks only perform the arduous but important duty of examining whether, in stamps, sufficient postage has been paid for each. The rapidity with which, as the letters lie with

ave said, that as fast as the docue poured into the windows of the fice of St. Martin's-le-Grand, the e taken into the lower double hall,

same way. In doing so, whenever they come to an unpaid one, they chuck it into the nearest of two baskets in the middle of the table. During the operation they also pass from one to another, toward the southern end of the table, all large documents and "packets," which, as they accumulate, are carried off by red postmen to a table appropriated to receive them. Little letters, like little-minded men, sometimes improperly intrude themselves into the domiciles of bigger ones. The act is by "facers" called "pigging;" and it so often occurs that in one week 727 notes had-it was ascertained by experiment-"pigged" into larger envelopes.