ation, which was purchased
by the Government for the sum of $350,000.

[Picture: THE OLD POST-OFFICE.]

This building has always been entirely unsuited to the needs of a
Post-office for such a city as New York. It was dedicated in 1732, and
was used for worship by one of the Dutch congregations of the city. In
1776, the British having occupied the city, it was converted into a
prison by the conquerors for the incarceration of their rebellious
captives. It was subsequently used by them as a riding school for the
instruction of cavalry. After the British evacuated the city, the
congregation reoccupied it, and refitted it for religious worship. After
paying for it the large sum mentioned above, the Government was compelled
to make a further expenditure of $80,000, to fit it up for its new uses.
Since then many changes, some involving a heavy outlay, have been made in
the building, but even now it is not capable of meeting the demands upon
it, and the Government is now engaged in the erection of a new building
expressly designed for a Post-office.

The Pine street front is devoted to the reception and departure of the
mails. The street is generally filled with wagons bearing the mystic
words, "U.S. Mail." Some are single-horse vehicles, used for carrying
the bags between the main office and the numerous stations scattered
through the city; others are immense wagons, drawn by four and six
horses, and carrying several tons of matter at a time. These are used
for the great Eastern, Western, and Southern, and the Foreign Mails. The
Pine street doors present a busy sight at all hours, and the duties of
the men employed there are not light. Huge sacks from all parts of the
world are arriving nearly every hour, and immense piles of similar sacks
are dispatched with the regularity of clockwork.

The body of the building, by which is meant the old church room itself,
is used for opening and making up the mails. This work is carried on on
the main floor, and in the heavy, old-fashioned gallery which runs around
three of the sides. Huge semi-circular forms are scattered about the
floor, each divided into a number of open squares. From each of these
squares hangs a mail bag, each square being marked with the name of the
city or town to which the bag is to be sent. A clerk stands within the
curve of the form, before a table filled with letters and papers, and
tosses them one by one into the squares