THE PORT OF LIVERPOOL 191 



unsorted to London. Now and again the Liverpool 

 office has to meet a heavy strain. 



The inward American mail brought by the Teutonic 

 to Liverpool, December 26, 1894, contained a hundred 

 and twenty-five miles of letters, and nearly forty miles 

 of books, newspapers, and other postal packets ; at 

 any rate, this is one way of putting it. Greater 

 sobriety of language might perhaps be more accept- 

 able to the statistician, so I will put the letters at a 

 million and a half, and the books, etc., at three 

 hundred thousand nearly. I will add that, if the 

 bags had been packed in a block, it would have 

 measured twenty-three yards in length, five in width, 

 and two in height. Such a disposition of facts will 

 surely meet all views. 



Yet the mileage stated conveys in reality a more 

 perfect idea of the multiplicity of thoughts expressed 

 in written words than at first sight appears. Assum- 

 ing that each letter contained at least an octavo sheet 

 of notepaper written upon three of its four sides, the 

 Teutonic's mail, even disregarding the books, would 

 represent a paper band of writing, nearly two feet 

 deep, stretching from London to Stafford. That is 

 the sort of letter which cousins in the West exchange 

 thrice a week with their correspondents in the old 

 country, the process helping, no doubt, to accentuate 

 the fact that blood is thicker than water. 



These numbers and dimensions may be contrasted 

 with those of the mail from Liverpool by the Sirius 

 for New York in the late thirties. The latter contained 



