“The
regular Christmas rush of mail matter began in earnest at the post office
yesterday”
December 22, 1914
Three days before Christmas Day, 1914,
downtown was a busy place, and one of the busiest was the big building at John
and King streets, the Hamilton Post Office.
The spectator sent a reporter to talk
with the postmaster and tour the facility in order to give readers a sense of
the hum of intense work being done there :
Postmaster Adam Brown said the amount
of mail handled was equal to that of last year. About thirty extra men and a
number of wagons and rigs have been provided to cope with the big pile of
incoming and outgoing mail. “Everything is running smoothly and there will be
no delay or confusion.” ”1
1 “Christmas
Rush at the Post Office “Letters and Parcels Come From Far and Near : Much
Correspondence For Old Santa Claus”
Hamilton Spectator. December 22, 1914.
“For the employees of the post office
department, this week will be more or less of a nightmare.
“At first, the letters and parcels begin
to come in from all parts of the Dominion and from Great Britain as well. Then
the next few days, the matter will be narrowed down to nearby provinces, then
in Ontario itself, and the last few days around the Day of Giving, all the
letters are confined to the city limits.
“For the post office employees who are
forced to work at night, a hot supper will be provided by the department, Mr.
Brown announced today.
“How busy Santa Claus must already be
is indicated by the correspondence that awaits him at the local dead letter
office where there are letters addressed to Santa, at the north pole and other
places where the rural delivery service does not yet cover.
“If, however, Father Christmas does
happen one of these days to slip out from behind the radiator – for there is no
chimney in the dead letter office – he will be scarcely human if he does not
have a laugh or two in his long beard when he goes through his mail.
“That many of these letters actually
do reach Santa Claus and that the little senders not infrequently get what they
ask for is a matter which the Postmaster could undoubtedly shed some light on
if he wished to.” 1
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