to which they belong. This is
done with the utmost rapidity, and long practice has made the clerk so
proficient that he never misses the proper square. The stamping of the
office mark and cancelling of the postage stamps on letters to be sent
away is incessant, and the room resounds with the heavy thud of the
stamp. This is no slight work, as the clerks who perform it can testify.
The upper floor is devoted to the use of the Post-Master and his
Assistants, the Superintendent of the City Delivery, and the Money Order
and Registered Letter Offices. A wooden corridor has been built along
the side of the church along Nassau and Cedar streets, and here, on the
street floor, are the box and general deliveries, and the stamp windows.
This is the public portion of the office, and is always thronged.

The visitor will notice, in various parts of this corridor, the slides
for the depositing of letters and papers intended for the mails. The
accumulation of mail matter here is so great that it is necessary that
letters designed for a certain part of the country should be deposited in
one particular place. Letters for New England must be placed in a
certain box, those for the Middle States in another, those for the
Southern States in another, those for the West in another. The names of
the States are painted conspicuously above each box, so that there may be
no mistake on the part of strangers. Letters for the principal countries
of Europe and Asia are posted in the same way. Newspapers and
periodicals have a separate department. The mails of these journals are
made up in the office of publication, according to certain instructions
furnished by the Postmaster, and go to the Post-office properly assorted
for distribution. This system of depositing mail matter saves an immense
amount of labor on the part of the clerks, and also hastens the departure
of the mails from the office.

The Box Delivery contains nearly seven thousand boxes, on each of which
the enormous rent of $16 per annum is charged. Considering that the box
system is quite as advantageous to the Government as to the box holder,
this rent is simply extortionate.

The daily business of the New York Post-office is enormous, and is
rapidly increasing. The letters received by mail steamers from foreign
countries, partly for delivery in the city, and partly to be forwarded to
other places, average about fifteen thousand daily. The number
dispatched from this of