Twice round the clock; or, The hours of the day and night in London . almost smell of money, are deserted. What am I doing soclose to St. Pauls Cathedral, and why do I turn off by St. Martins-le-Grand ? For the simple reason, that Friday evening is the verybest one in the seven to witness the spectacle I am going to see—Newspaper Fair at the General Post Office. In the vast vestibule, or hall, of the establishment so admirablypresided over by Mr. Rowland Hill (for I do not reckon the aristo-cratic placeman who is, turn and turn about, Whig or Tory, itsnominal chief, for much), and whose foster
Twice round the clock; or, The hours of the day and night in London . almost smell of money, are deserted. What am I doing soclose to St. Pauls Cathedral, and why do I turn off by St. Martins-le-Grand ? For the simple reason, that Friday evening is the verybest one in the seven to witness the spectacle I am going to see—Newspaper Fair at the General Post Office. In the vast vestibule, or hall, of the establishment so admirablypresided over by Mr. Rowland Hill (for I do not reckon the aristo-cratic placeman who is, turn and turn about, Whig or Tory, itsnominal chief, for much), and whose fostering care has made it (withsome slight occasional shortcomings) the best-managed and mostefficient national institution in Europe, you may observe, in the left-hand corner from the peristyle, and opposite the secretarys office(tremendous counts are the clerks in the secretarys office, jauntybureaucrats, who ride upon park hacks, and are come for byringlets in broughams at closing time, but who get through their THE NEWSPAPER WINDOW AT THE GENERAL POST-OFFICE. 233. 234 TWICE BOUND THE CLOCK. work in about half the time it would take the ordinary slaves of thedesk, simply because their shrewdness and knowledge of the worldenables them to see through a case before the average man oftape and quill can make up his mind to docket a letter) a huge longi-tudinal slit in the panelling above, on which is the inscription Fornewspapers only. And all day long, newspapers only, stringed orlabelled, are thrust into this incision; and the typographed lucubra-tions of the some five hundred men who, for salaries ranging fromtwenty shillings to twenty pounds per week, have to think, and some-times almost feel, in the Anglo-Saxon tongue, for some sixty millionsof people (I say nothing of the re-actionary influence upon foreignnations), go forth to the uttermost ends of the earth. But as sixoclock approaches (and six oclock sharp is the irrevocable closingtime for the departure of newspapers by th
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