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THE Athenæum has the following remarks upon the last work of NATHANIEL HAW

THORNE :

"This is a most powerful and painful story. Mr. Hawthorne must be well known to our readers as a favorite of the Athenæum. We rate him as among the most original and peculiar writers of American fiction. There is, in his works, a mixture of Puritan reserve and wild imaginaton, of passion and description, of the allegorical and the real, which some will fail to understand, and which others will positively reject, but which, to our selves, is fascinating, and which entitles him to be placed on a level with Brockden Brown and the author of 'Rip Van Winkle.' The Scarlet Letter' will increase his reputation with all who do not shrink from the invention of the tale; but this, as we have said, is more than ordinarily painful. When we have announced that the three characters are a guilty wife, openly punished for her guilt, -her tempter, whom she refuses to unmask, and who, during the entire story, carries a fair front and an unblemished name among his congregation, and her husband, who, returning from a long absence at the moment of her sentence, sits himself down betwixt the two in the midst of a small and severe community to work out his slow vengeance on both, under the pretext of magnanimous forgivenness, when we have explained that "The Scarlet Letter' is the badge of Hester Prynne's shame, we ought to add that we recollect no tale, dealing with crime so sad and revenge so subtly diabolical, that is at the same time so clear of fever and of prurient

| excitement. The misery of the woman is as 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. The supernatural here never becomes grossly palpable:-the thrill is all the deeper for its action being indefinite, and its source vague and distant.”

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From the Quarterly Review.

MECHANISM OF THE POST-OFFICE.

Valentine's Day at the Post Office.-Household Words, a Weekly Journal, 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.

The daily labor of this office is composed of two very violent convulsions, namely, the morning delivery and evening despatch, and two comparatively slight aguish shivers, caused by a tiny arrival and departure of letters by the day mails.

lic department is enjoying its siesta, we wil
endeavor to offer to our readers a rough out-
line of the scene of its operations.

When the present London Post-Office was
completely finished in 1829, it was found,
after all, to be barely large enough for its
business; and accordingly its first effort to
obtain additional accommodation was, in
1831, to construct upon iron canti-levers a
gallery halfway between the floor and the
roof of one-half of the great sorting cham-
ber, which was originally, as indeed it still
is, a vast lofty double hall 109 feet long, 80
feet 6 inches broad, and 28 feet high. In
1836, to obtain further accommodation, it
was determined to eject the secretary from
the building, and to appropriate his very
handsome suite of apartments therein to the
uses of the office.

Soon after our Parliament adopted Mr. Rowland Hill's bold proposal of the penny post, the brick and mortar boot, which had always been too tight, was found to pinch so intolerably, that various expedients, one after another, were resorted to: and it was first of Throughout the department, at any period all determined to construct, over the double between these paroxysms, there reigns a si- hall we have just described, another set or lence and solitude similar to that which, dur- suite of the same dimensions, which, instead ing the hours of divine service, so creditably of resting on the ceilings of the old ones, distinguishes the streets of Edinburgh on the were to be suspended from a strong arched Sabbath day. The stranger, as he paces iron girder roof by iron rods. In effecting from one large hall to another, save the tick- however this ingenious operation the inevitaing of the great clock, hears nothing but his ble result has been that the principal hall on own footsteps; and with the exception now the ground floor has been deprived of its and then of a dark-coated clerk popping out sky-lights, and to the serious inconvenience of one door into another; of a bright red of the poor fellows who work in it, and we postman occasionally passing like a meteor must add to the discredit of the country, across the floor, and of a few other over- this important portion of the London, and tired men in scarlet uniform sitting and lying consequently of the largest post-office in the fast asleep in various attitudes, like certain world, is now lighted almost entirely during persons in the galleries of "another place," the whole sunshine, even of summer, by no human being is to be seen. While, there- stinking gas! Then, even the increased acfore, this well-regulated and well-worked pub-commodation thus obtained not fully meeting

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At half-past five a stranger would fancy that the force assembled for the sorting of letters exceeded its work, and especially that by some unaccountable mystery the publication of newspapers, for the despatch of which the whole of the upper halls were in readiness, had been interdicted. On look

the requirements of the new system, a small hollow quadrangle, built for lighting another portion of the establishment, was on the ground floor converted into a little office; and finally, these efforts not affording sufficient room, the money-order office, president, clerks, window-men, ledgers, documents, papers and all, were ordered to swarm or emi-ing, however, into the large bins beneath the grate from the post-office into an immense hive or building purposely constructed to re

ceive them.

slits for receiving letters, white packets of all sizes and shapes are observed at about this period to drop down in arithmetical proof-gression, increasing in number so rapidly that it soon occupies the attention of a sturdy porter to keep sweeping them with a broom into a heap, which, as fast as it can be tumbled into baskets, is carried into the large sorting halls.

By these patch-work arrangements the fice is at present sufficiently large for its duties, for the performance of which great facility has been derived by the construction at each end of the large double halls on both floors of a very ingenious contrivance, suggested by Mr. Bokenham, called "the lifting machine.' Within a set of iron bars about 3 inches asunder, and altogether about 10 feet broad, reaching vertically from the floor of the lower halls to those suspended above them, there are in strata a series of platforms 9 feet 6 inches broad by 4 feet deep, resembling the cages in which wild beasts at country fairs are usually confined, which, by the irresistible power of a steamengine, are made on one side to rise 28 feet from the lower to the upper halls, and then, passing through a slit in the wall, to descend in like manner on the other side: the whole thus circulating like the buckets of a dredging machine. By this contrivance sorters and letter-carriers, accompanied by their baskets and bags, instead of having to toil up and down a steep staircase, are quickly and most conveniently transferred from one set of halls to the other.

The floors of both stories are divided into long double desks, separated by passages between each set, averaging about five feet in breadth-each great chamber being overlooked by two elevated platforms for the "Inspectors," who, just as the Persians worship the sun, regulate the whole of their movements by the expressive but ever-varying features of the hall's huge round-faced

clock.

At a few minutes before 5 P.M. the whole force of the inland department, refreshed by its siesta, having assembled, the business for the evening begins by the entrance on the lower floors, from various doors, of porters and carriers bringing, in various attitudes, bags and baskets full of letters, which have either been collected by hand within the immediate vicinity of St. Martin's-le-Grand, or have been delivered into the slits or at the windows of its prepaying office,

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.

As however the clock is unrelentingly progressing towards 6 P. M. we must reluctantly beg our readers to move with us from the letter bins to an adjoining compartment for the purpose of witnessing a moving picture of still greater interest.

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 commences a series of gymnastic exercises which are astonishing to witness. On the night on which we beheld the operation it happened

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 overwhelmed 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 advanced 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 respective cages, one set after another, rising towards the upper sorting halls. At a minute before six the two window-men were apparently 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 quietnessto 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 side for the reception of stamped letters, or with a half-crown, a shilling, or a penny, between his forefinger and thumb to tap at a wooden window to pay for his letter.

At about three quarters past five, however, the stream of passengers had not only evidently increased, but the rule of their conduct seemed gradually to have become reversed; for now the minority only proceeded soberly on the straight path, while the majority were observed to be diverging or reeling toward the windows of the Inland Department. Most of the latter multitude had letters in their hands; while others, as they approached the slits, were seen carefully taking them out of pockets in the breasts of their coats, or very cautiously out of their hats. Sometimes one of the narrow slits was wholly engrossed by a shabbily-dressed man, busily stuffing into it many hundreds of circulars, all exactly of the same shape, brought in several packets, which, without surrendering his position, one after another he untied, Clerks and men of business deposited their letters with real as well as with affected gravity, and then turning on their heels walked seriously away. Boys generally came up whistling, and almost invariably twisted in their contributions with a flourish. At the compartment for prepaying letters, we observed a little ragamuffin throw up his cap at the wooden window, which he could not reach, and which, as in duty bound, instantly opened. As the finger of the clock advanced, people bringing unpaid letters rapidly increased, until the receiving windows were beset by a motley crowd of people, apparently bent on obstructing the object of all by squeezing each other to death. Several were mechanics, in dirty aprons, with begrimed faces, and with tucked-up sleeves, displaying bare, sinewy, useful arms. Among the number of women, each of whom, although under high pressure, had an outstretched arm with a penny and a letter at the end of it, we observed a short and very stout one holding a child whose whole face was squalling under a purple velvet bonnet and scarlet flowers. On the extreme left, people from all quarters were approaching the newspaper windows, with bundles and sacks; and although it now wanted only one minute to six, it was curious to observe how unconcernedly many of the men employed by the newspaper agents advanced with their bags, for the delivering of which they evidently well knew, from a glance at the clock, that there was "lots o' time."

At the last moment, however, there certainly was a great rush; and when the final chime of six tolled, at which instance the windows of all the receiving compartments simultaneously closed, one or two newspapers,

thrown by boys, were seen to fall from the shutters lifeless upon the ground; while at the windows for the receipt of pre-paid let ters a group of persons for a few moments stood as if, for the amusement of the public, they were most admirably acting together a tableau-vivant of the words, "TOO LATE." The unfortunates, however, had evidently no appeal; for, excepting the old scarlet-coated porter in waiting, who, as he had been doing all day, continued slowly and infirmly to pace up and down before the newspaper and letter windows, no human being on duty was to be seen.

all the receiving-houses in London, as well as from that part of the country lying within the twelve-mile circle, are in rapid succession driven up to the door of the main passage, through which, as quickly as they arrive, the bags of each are brought into the hall, and accordingly, by half past six, the Inland Department-through which there have lately passed, per week, about 2,288,000 letters and 900,000 newspapers-is to be seen on both floors in full, in busy, and, we must add, in magnificent operation.

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 heavy letter-bags.

It is impossible attentively to observe the picture we have just described, and which, with more or less coloring, may, excepting on Sundays, be witnessed any or every day in the year, without reflecting how strange it is that so many people of business, as well as of pleasure, should apparently combine to gether to defer not only till the very last These men at first sight appear like a body moment, but until a very little bit beyond of soldiers playing for their very lives at it, so important an act as the posting of cards, each gambler at the same moment their letters and newspapers. Instead, how- shuffling a separate pack. The object, however, of blaming themselves, it is not at all an ever, of their manipulations is merely to unusual course for people-on other subjects"face" the stamped and paid letters all the very sensible-to complain most bitterly to the Postmaster-general that they were actually at the window of the Post-office with money in their outstretched hands, to prepay the postage of their letters, when at six o'clock precisely the thing-so far as regards penny postage-suddenly and inexorably closed upon them! Hard, however, as it may appear to them, it must surely be evident to any one else that a series of vacillating orders, continually altering the last moment, would not, in the smallest degree, diminish either the pressure or the disappointment of those whose constitutional habit it is invariably to wait until the last moment," whatever it may be, has passed. At six o'clock there is no As fast as the letters of the great heap struggle within the Post-office. The hurry, which, by fresh arrivals, is seldom allowed. confusion, and mortification outside have been to be exhausted-are thus unpigged and created solely by the complainants them-"faced," they are carried off in armsful by selves; and as they possess the power to remedy the evil, they had better energetically determine to do so than make themselves ridiculous by complaining of it.

We have said, that as fast as the documents are poured into the windows of the Inland-office of St. Martin's-le-Grand, the letters are taken into the lower double hall, while the newspapers are simultaneously raised by steam-power into the upper one or distribution and despatch. Shortly afer six o'clock, however, red mail carts from

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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.

porters to the stamping-table, where the date is marked on the back of each at the rate of 200 per minute, and they are then 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 their faces uppermost, these officers successively touch them with one finger, is most astonishing. The great bulk, they can at once perceive, have been properly pre-paid; the

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