hundred receptacles throughout the United Kingdom. How various is
the character of these so-called receptacles! Here is the stately
post-office of many of our great towns, situated in the very centre
of life and activity. There the wayside letter-box, far removed from
human habitation and, to all appearance, from human necessity. Lonely
roads are no bar to the progress of the rural postman; although the
Postmaster-general relates how an attempt to provide postal facilities
in a certain district in the west of Ireland was frustrated by a
superstitious objection to collect the letters from a wall-box,
because 'a ghost went out nightly on parade' in the neighbourhood.
Between the stately post-office and the wayside letter-box there are
several different kinds of receptacles for letters: there is the
branch post-office, an offshoot of the parent establishment; the
receiving-house, at which a kind of uncovenanted postal service is
carried on; and the pillar letter-box, which is dotted about our great
towns almost as plentifully as lamp-posts are. In London there are
no fewer than eighteen hundred receptacles for letters, and of these
more than eleven hundred are pillar and wall letter-boxes. The public
have a peculiar affection for the pillar-box, thinking probably that
it can tell no tales. The writer remembers perfectly well seeing a
pillar-box thrown down by a passing wagon in one of the streets of
London, and afterwards turned with the 'slit' or aperture downward, so
that it might not be used until re-erected. But despite this, it was
rolled over and several letters inserted in it while it lay prostrate
in the gutter! Similarly, letters intended to be 'posted' have often
been dropped into the letter-boxes of private firms, and even into the
'street orderly bins' which stand at no great distance from the pillar
letter-boxes in the city of London.
St Martin's-le-Grand is, of course, the great central depot for the
letters of London, although it is doubtful whether more letters are
not actually posted at the well-known branch-office in Lombard Street.
Around this spot the bankers and merchants of the metropolis 'most do
congregate,' and of necessity the quantity of matter 'mailed' nightly
is very large. So is it at Charing Cross, another of the great posting
centres of the metropolis.
Visitors to London are perhaps most familiar with the scene which is
to be witnessed any evening between half-past five and six o'clock at
St Martin's. Here the post-office gapes more widely at its customers,
the public, than anywhere else we know of; and here it is prepared
to swallow any kind of matter, from the tiniest, flimsiest document,
written on 'India post,' to the stock-in-trade of a bookseller from
'the Row' adjoining, or the latest edition of an evening newspaper
from neighbouring Fleet Street. Look at the numerous apertures as they
gape and yawn in front of you. There is one labelled 'Newspapers,'
about as big as a street-door, into which a whole edition of an evening
paper might be thrown, without disturbing the calm serenity of the
official inside whose duty it is to clear the throat of the monster.
'Letters,' inland, foreign, and colonial, town and country, large and
small, thick and thin, may be posted with ease at as many different
openings; while the 'stout card' and the thin card, the circular,
the book packet, and the sample parcel, each has its appointed mode
of descent into the cavernous depths below. What a struggle is there
as the hour of six approaches! Burly office-porters jostle delicate
shop-girls in their efforts to reach the letter-box; tiny office-boys
strain and struggle beneath a load which might more appropriately have
been conveyed to the post in a cart or wagon; and hapless youths who
have started late, and who have been leap-frogging by the way, are fain
to shy their bags or baskets of letters at the nearest opening, and
take their chance. Bang goes the clock overhead, and in an instant the
box closes with a crash, which must, one would think, have guillotined
many a hapless letter thrown in on the stroke of the hour. Eagerness
gives way to disappointment in the faces of those who are in the act
of ascending the steps 'as the clock was striking the hour,' for the
man in the red coat, whose heart is steeled against all importunities,
has pronounced the words 'Too late,' and already the officials at the
'window' are busy exacting the fee of procrastination.[2] No sooner has
one description of posting finished than another begins. Half an hour
prior to the closing of the box at St Martin's-le-Grand, the boxes all
over London have closed, and the mail-carts--designed rather for speed
than for elegance--are rattling into the yard behind, from the various
district and branch post-offices. East, west, north, and south, all
contribute their quota to the load which, a couple of hours hence, is
to leave the post-office yard for the various railway stations in the
shape of the 'Night-mail down.'
The penny post has destroyed all distinctions in the great republic of
letters. In the eyes of the post-office all letters are equal, whatever
their character, caligraphy, or country; and no rival interests are
studied within the walls of St Martin's. The big letters are not
permitted to oppress the little ones, each being tied up in their
own particular bundle; and books and samples are so disposed that
they are transported with a minimum of inconvenience to their less
robust neighbours passing through the post. The work of facing--that
is, putting all the letters with their addresses one way--stamping,
dividing, sorting, and despatching, is performed in regular succession,
as the letters are cleared from the box; for it is needless to say that
all the operations of the post-office are carried on with clock-like
regularity. In the old coaching days, when letters were despatched
they were said to be sent 'down the road;' and the term 'road' is
still retained in the Circulation Office, as indicating the particular
desk or division at which the bags are made up for particular lines of
railway or districts of country.
Eight o'clock is the hour at which the great night-mail is despatched
from London; and the scene, although perhaps less stirring than
that of the old mail-coach days, is sufficiently curious to attract
a large crowd at St Martin's-le-Grand. Gorged with the accumulated
correspondence of four millions of people, the huge building, now
used exclusively for the sorting and despatch of letters, begins to
exhibit palpable signs of discomfort as the hour of eight approaches;
and ever and anon from the floors above come shooting down on to the
platforms by which the building is surrounded on three sides, sackfuls
of letters and newspapers, which are quickly transferred to the gaping
mail-carts and wagons ranged underneath. Gradually the descent becomes
fast and furious, until at five minutes to eight every aperture in the
building is seen to belch forth its bag, box, or bundle of letters;
and cart-drivers are shouting lustily to make way for 'Her Majesty's
mails.' Away go the carts, vans, and omnibuses--a whole string making
for Euston with the load of the 'Limited,' which seems to be limited
in all else save letters; and others making for the different railway
_termini_ scattered all over London. A few minutes later, and there
emerge from the building hundreds, we had almost said thousands, of
busy toilers whose work has just preceded them; and in less than
half-an-hour silence reigns supreme in and around St Martin's.
Letters are not always so plainly or so correctly addressed as they
might be. This is a truism which most people will be inclined to reject
as beneath their notice; and yet it is a truth which is painfully
thrust upon the officials of the post-office every hour of the day.
Think how the circulation of a badly addressed letter must be impeded
at every stage of its progress! Let us suppose that a righteous fate
overtakes it at the very outset, and that it 'sticks', in the aperture
of the letter-box and loses a collection. Let us suppose, further,
that it is addressed to 'George Street, London,' simply. There are
_only_ twenty-three streets of the name in the metropolis; and it
so happens that there is one or more in each, of the eight postal
districts! Thus, then, a letter so addressed might have to be sent all
over London before reaching its destination; and who shall say that
the fate was not richly merited? Much the same kind of thing would
happen to a letter addressed to 'Queen Street, London;' there being no
fewer than twenty streets bearing the title of our most illustrious
sovereign, besides squares, crescents, gardens, terraces, rows, and
roads innumerable. Quitting London, however, we will suppose a letter
addressed to 'Newport' simply. Is it intended for Newport, Monmouth;
Newport, Isle of Wight; Newport, Salop; or for any of the remaining
four towns in England, two in Ireland, and one in Scotland, which
flourish under that name? So too with Ashford, of which there are four
places of the name in England; Bradford, of which there are three;
Broughton, seven; Burnham, five; Burton, fifteen; Bury, four; and a
host of others which we need not stay to enumerate. The post-office
regulation on the subject of addresses runs thus: 'Every address should
be legible and complete. When a letter is sent to a post-town, the
last word in the address should be the name of that town, except when
the town is but little known, or when there are two post-towns of the
same name, or when the name of the town (such as Boston) is identical
with or very like the name of some foreign town or country. In such
cases the name of the county should be added.' Very good regulations
these, but unfortunately they are not always attended to by the sorting
clerks. We are constantly getting letters which have been delayed in
their journey by the perverse stupidity of sorters mistaking the
address, however plainly written, and in fact not attending to the name
of the post-town. There are some other grounds for dissatisfaction.
In numberless instances, towns near each other hold no direct postal
communication, and letters between them make a long round before
reaching their destination. These are blots on an otherwise wonderfully
perfect system.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] By extra payment to the official at 'the window,' a letter though
some minutes late will be received and despatched.
ERRORS CONCERNING ANIMALS AND PLANTS.
Notwithstanding the vast strides that science has made of late years,
it is curious to note the errors and misconceptions in various points
of natural history that still linger in many parts of this and other
countries. We may run over a few of these popular misconceptions. Not
a few even among generally well-informed people still imagine that all
_Fungi_ are poisonous--including even the mushroom. Many more take it
for granted that all serpents sting, and that the forked tongue is
the weapon by which the 'sting' is given; the fact that it is forked
seeming to afford them convincing proof of its deadly character. While
there are many among the educated classes who would probably be puzzled
if told, that there were other mammals besides four-footed animals and
man.
There are still numbers of persons who believe that a horse-hair
immersed for a time in water becomes vivified and is transformed into
the curious animal known as the hair-eel; and who further imagine that
this, acquiring greater thickness, becomes in process of time the
common eel. This belief is universal among the uneducated, at least of
the rural population, in many parts of the country. Nor is it confined
to them. We have heard it stoutly maintained by a very intelligent
man, of good education according to the ideas of education which were
generally entertained fifty or sixty years ago; his only argument was
one with which, if he had not been profoundly ignorant of natural
history, he could not for a moment have deceived himself. He had often
seen, in ditches or in stagnant pools, a moving hair-like thing,
exactly resembling a black or dark-brown hair from a horse's mane,
and no doubt it was a living thing, _and an eel_! And the other day
we read among the answers to correspondents in a weekly paper, a very
good advice to one who had directed attention to this same marvel--to
try the experiment for himself with a horse-hair. But for any one who
seeks information in the proper quarter, there is no need of such
experiment; and the needful information is easily obtained. A few hours
spent in the perusal of a book or two of natural history would make
any man of common-sense ashamed that he had ever for a moment credited
such an absurdity. The natural history of the eel is well known; and
at no stage of its existence is it in form and appearance like the
hair-eel. The natural history of the creature called by this name--the
_Gordius_ of naturalists--is also known. It is not a fish like the
eel; it belongs to a class of parasitic worms very far below fishes in
the scale of creation. It has no relation either to the eel or to a
horse-hair. Yet the ploughman looks upon it with wonder, as he thinks
of what he believes to be its origin; and the boys of the village
school, when they find it in the gutter by the roadside or millpond,
gather around it to gaze, and assure themselves by ocular observation
of the truth of what they have heard. Ought they not to hear in the
school itself what would disabuse their minds of so gross an error?
The erroneous opinion that all serpents are venomous is one that most
probably originated with those who live in districts frequented only
by the adder or viper; but it ought not to be entertained even by the
most ignorant of the peasantry where the common snake is abundant, as
it is in most parts of England. There every one ought to know that the
latter is harmless, and that it is easily distinguished from the viper,
which is poisonous. Curiously, too, the blind-worm or slow-worm, which,
although not now ranked by naturalists among true serpents, but among
the lizards, agrees with serpents in general appearance, and is in
many places regarded with the utmost dread, being popularly believed
to be as venomous as the viper itself. This is the case equally where
it is common, as it is in many parts of England, and in Scotland where
it is rare and found in comparatively few localities. 'During the
summer of 1876,' says the Rev. J. G. Wood in his _Illustrated Natural
History_, 'I passed some little time in the New Forest, and having gone
round to the farms in the neighbourhood, begged to have all reptiles
brought to me that were discovered during hay-making. In consequence,
the supply of vipers and snakes was very large; and on one occasion
a labourer came to my house bare-headed, his red face beaming with
delight, and his manner evincing a consciousness of deserving valour.
Between his hands he held his felt hat tightly crimpled together, and
within the hat was discovered, after much careful manœuvring, the head
of a blind-worm emerging from one of its folds. As I put out my hand
to remove the creature, the man fairly screamed with horror; and even
when I took it in my hand, and allowed it to play its tongue over the
fingers, he could not believe that it was not poisonous. No argument
could persuade that worthy man that the reptile was harmless, and
nothing could induce him to lay a finger upon it; the prominent idea in
his mind being evidently, not that the blind-worm had no poison, but
that I was poison-proof.'
Similar to the popular opinion as to the blind-worm is that concerning
the little active slender lizard common in moors, and that concerning
the eft or newt, both of which are deemed extremely venomous, dangerous
animals, whilst in reality both are quite harmless. We do not know
how far the error as to the lizard prevails in England, but it is
certainly very generally prevalent in Scotland, almost every rustic
dreading what he calls an _ask_, that is a lizard, nearly as much as an
adder. And a similar belief, equally erroneous, prevails in France as
to another species of lizard. As to the newt, the prejudice against
it exists everywhere, both in England and in Scotland, but it appears
in its most exaggerated form where the state of education is lowest.
'During a residence of some years in a small village in Wiltshire,'
says Mr Wood, in the work from which we have already quoted, 'I was
told some very odd stories about the newt, and my own power of handling
these terrible creatures without injury was evidently thought rather
supernatural. Poison was the least of its crimes; for it was a general
opinion among the rustics in charge of the farmyard, that my poor newts
killed a calf at one end of a farmyard, through the mediumship of its
mother, who saw them in a water-trough at the other end; and that one
of these creatures bit a man on his thumb as he was cutting grass in
the churchyard, and inflicted great damage on that member. The worst
charge, however, was one which I heard from the same person. A woman,
he told me, had gone to the brook to draw water, when an _effert_, as
he called it, jumped out of the water, fastened on her arm, bit out a
piece of flesh and spat fire into the wound, so that she afterwards
lost her arm!'
Some birds are regarded as of evil omen. One does not wonder that
this should be the case as to the raven and the owl. The colour, the
habits, and the hoarse croak of the raven may be supposed naturally
suggestive of unpleasant thoughts; and it is easy to understand how
the imagination may be affected by the loud hooting of the owl when
it breaks the stillness of the night amidst the loneliness of the
forest. But in other cases where no such explanation offers itself,
superstition seems wholly unaccountable. Thus, in the north of England,
where the wheatear is not very common, the sight of it is supposed to
presage death to the spectator, and the country-people kill the bird
and destroy its eggs on every opportunity. In the north of England
also, the hoopoe has the reputation of being an _unlucky_ bird. In many
parts of England it is accounted unlucky to see a solitary magpie, but
lucky to see two together. One is supposed to presage sorrow; two,
mirth; three, a wedding; and four, death!
In most parts of the United Kingdom, it is deemed unlucky to kill a
robin, the red breast of the bird being attributed to its having been
sprinkled with the blood of our Lord as He hung upon the cross; even
as the cross on the back of the ass is connected in the rustic mind
with our Lord's entry into Jerusalem riding upon an ass. According to
the paper in the _Book of Days_, a common saying in Suffolk is, 'You
must not take robin's eggs; if you do, you will get your legs broken.'
The writer of it also relates the following anecdote. '"How badly you
write!" I said one day to a boy in our parish school; "your hand shakes
so that you can't hold the pen steady. Have you been running hard,
or anything of that sort?" "No," replied the lad; "it always shakes:
I once had a robin die in my hand; and they say that if a robin dies
in your hand, it will always shake."' In some parts of England it is
considered very unlucky to have no money in your pocket when you hear
the cuckoo for the first time in the season. So perhaps it is, when it
indicates the usual condition of the pocket.
Some insects, as well as birds, are deemed ominous of evil. There are
many, even among educated people, who cannot hear the ticking of
the little beetle called the death-watch without a feeling of fear;
and among the vulgar, the belief is universal that it presages death
in the house. And yet it is only the male insect knocking his head
against the woodwork as a signal to his mate. In some parts of England
the elephant hawk-moth is regarded not only as presaging, but as
producing murrain. The death's-head moth is regarded with even greater
aversion. This large moth, nowhere very common, has markings on the
back and thorax somewhat resembling a skull and cross-bones; hence it
inspires a superstitious terror, and its appearance is believed to be
the harbinger of pestilence and woe. The ghost-moth inspires similar
alarm. The female is of a dull brown colour; the upper surface of the
male is of a silvery whiteness. In the evening the male makes his
appearance, hovering over the grass in which the female lurks, often
in churchyards where the grass is green and luxuriant. If alarmed, the
insect disappears in an instant, settling on the ground; but by-and-by
appears again hovering over the same spot. The ignorant rustic imagines
it to be a ghost; and even if it were caught and shewn to him, he would
be hard to be persuaded that it has no occult relation to the dead, or
that its appearance is not ominous of evil to the living. Perhaps the
most curious of all the popular superstitions concerning insects (and
we could narrate many) is one which prevails, in Suffolk at least, as
to bees. It is deemed unlucky that a stray swarm of bees should settle
on your premises, unclaimed by the owner; it presages a death in the
family within a year. A popular belief in Suffolk is that it is unlucky
to kill a _harvestman_--a long-legged spider, very common in the fields
in autumn--because if you do kill one there will be a bad harvest.
Some other errors in the natural history of animals have been long
and widely prevalent, but have no superstitions connected with them.
It will be enough merely to mention them. It is a common but a purely
erroneous belief that the goatsucker and the hedgehog suck the teats of
cows lying in the field--the latter being persecuted on that account.
The woodpecker is ruthlessly killed because of the injury which it is
supposed to do to trees by pecking holes in the wood and causing them
to rot. The woodpecker pecks only where the wood is already decayed,
which it does in quest of insects and their larvæ, and by pecking out
the decayed wood, prevents the gangrene from extending, thus doing good
to the tree and not harm.
The popular errors regarding plants are not so numerous, so
wide-spread, or so remarkable as those regarding animals; nor do they
seem anywhere to have taken so firm a hold of the minds of any class of
the people, if we except perhaps the popular ideas regarding mushrooms
and toadstools. Many people imagine that all fungi, except 'the
mushroom,' are poisonous. It is not uncommon to hear the question asked
even by educated people concerning some _agaric_: 'Is it a mushroom
or a fungus?'--a question which shews that neither the meaning of the
one term nor of the other is known. Every mushroom is a fungus; and
although the term _mushroom_ can never be applied to the minute fungi,
such as blight, smut, mildew, and mould, it is very commonly applied
to many of the larger kinds. Many fungi are not only not poisonous,
but are wholesome and pleasant articles of food. Truffles and morels
are edible fungi, and though they are found in England, they are not so
common anywhere in Britain as in some parts of the continent of Europe.
Some other species are also occasionally gathered and used in England;
but in Scotland it may almost be said that none is ever gathered for
use except the common mushroom (_Agaricus campestris_). Both in England
and Scotland, however, far less use is made of the edible fungi than
in France, Italy, Germany, and other continental countries, where they
form a not inconsiderable part of the food of the people during summer
and autumn; whilst with us, through ignorance and prejudice, they are
allowed to rot and go to waste. It is proper to add, that of the larger
kinds of fungi, many of the poisonous species are of the very group to
which the common mushroom belongs; a group which possesses the same
general form and structure with the common mushroom--a stalk surmounted
by a cap, with gills on the under-side of the cap. Some excuse is
therefore to be made for the general aversion prevalent in Great
Britain to all kinds of fungi; and as long as we remain ignorant of the
difference between the edible and the poisonous species, this aversion
will naturally survive. But a wider diffusion of knowledge concerning
the edible fungi is very desirable, and would enable many often to
enjoy a cheap and agreeable repast.
The superstitions connected with plants seem also to have possessed
less vitality than those connected with animals. In fact, they have
mostly quite died out. Perhaps the most tenacious of life was that
concerning the rowan-tree or mountain-ash. Our forefathers universally
regarded this tree as possessing a wondrous power of affording
protection from witches and from evil spirits, and for this reason
it was planted close by every dwelling. Nowhere was this belief more
firmly entertained than in Scotland. Within our recollection, an aged
man who acted as postman in a country town in the south of Scotland,
habitually carried a piece of rowan-tree or mountain-ash in his pocket,
as a fancied protection against malevolent influences. Traces of this
superstition have now, we believe, disappeared. The rowan-tree is now
cultivated for the sake of its beautiful clustering berries, from
which a pleasantly bitter jelly may be produced, as a condiment to be
eaten with roast-mutton, preferable to the jelly from red currants.
This is what we call putting the mountain-ash to a better purpose than
superstitiously carrying morsels of it in the pocket to avert some
imaginary personal injury.