against
the heavier and more bulky packets, as compared with the short letters,
postcards, and short halfpenny packets.

As regards the actual transmission from post office to post office,
there is only one real division of the whole of the packets, viz. that
between the parcel post on the one hand, and the whole of the remaining
classes of packets on the other. In a number of cases separate mails are
made up for newspapers and large packets; but compared with the total
number of mails, the number of such separate mails is small, and the
arrangement may be regarded as exceptional. In a considerable number of
cases, however, packets sent at the parcel post rate are enclosed in the
same mail-bag with packets sent at other rates. The arrangement is made
somewhat extensively for mails from a post town to subordinate and other
small offices in the immediate neighbourhood, but only exists in those
cases where the number of parcels to be enclosed is small. As in every
case where on the average as many as eight parcels are available at the
time of despatch a separate mail may be made up, the arrangement does
not exist extensively between any large centres with any considerable
traffic; but it has been extended in recent years, and the total number
of parcels forwarded in this way forms an appreciable proportion of the
total number of parcels sent by post. There is in these cases, so far as
mails conveyed by railway are concerned, complete separation in regard
to one important element of cost, viz. the cost of conveyance. Separate
payment for the conveyance of parcels is made under the arrangement
established by the Parcel Post Act; while comprehensive payments are
made for the conveyance of all other packets, arranged by negotiation
with the individual railway companies or, failing agreement, fixed by
the Court of Railway and Canal Commission in the manner prescribed by
statute.[616]

The handling of a postal packet from posting to delivery therefore
comprises the following operations in order:--

Collection,
Facing,
Stamping,
Sorting,
Conveyance,
Stamping,[617]
Sorting,
Delivery;

and in the case of those packets which pass through more than one office
there are, for every such office, the additional operations of sorting
and conveyance.[618]

The bags are conveyed between the various post offices by mail-van
(horse-drawn or motor), by mail-cart, by railway, or in a few cases by
carrier-cycle, tric