that few men could be allowed to leave the
Office, though some of them had been at work for eighteen hours. During
the whole of the 24th the flood was at its height. Every available man
in the other branches whose services could be utilised was pressed into
the service of the Circulation Department at St. Martin's-le-Grand.

The great mouth under the portico was fed with a right royal feast that
day--worthy of the Christmas season! The subsidiary mouths elsewhere
were fed with similar liberality. Through these, letters, cards,
packets, parcels, poured, rushed, leaped, roared into the great
sorting-hall. Floods is a feeble word; a Highland spate is but a
wishy-washy figure wherewith to represent the deluge. A bee-hive, an
ant-hill, were weak comparisons. Nearly two thousand men energised--
body, soul, and spirit--in that hall that Christmas-tide, and an
aggregate of fifteen thousand eight hundred and seventy-nine hours' work
was accomplished by them. They faced, stamped, sorted, carried,
bundled, tied, bagged, and sealed without a moment's intermission for
two days and two nights continuously. It was a great, a tremendous
battle! The easy-going public outside knew and cared little or nothing
about the conflict which themselves had caused. Letters were heaped on
the tables and strewed on the floors. Letters were carried in baskets,
in bags, in sacks, and poured out like water. The men and boys
absolutely swam in letters. Eager activity--but no blind haste--was
characteristic of the gallant two thousand. They felt that the honour
of Her Majesty's mails depended on their devotion, and that was, no
doubt, dearer to them than life! So the first day wore on, and the
warriors stood their ground and kept the enemy at bay.

As the evening of the 24th drew on apace, and the ordinary pressure of
the evening mail began to be added to the extraordinary pressure of the
day, the real tug of war began! The demand for extra service throughout
the country began to exercise a reflex influence on the great centre.
Mails came from the country in some instances with the letters unsorted,
thus increasing the difficulties of the situation. The struggle was all
the more severe that preparations for the night despatch were begun with
a jaded force, some of the men having already been twenty-six and
twenty-eight hours at work. Moreover, frost and fog prevailed at the
time, and that not only delayed trains and the arrival of mail