deftly caught an instant after without a slackening of the speed of the
train. The pouch thus caught is taken to the counter, opened and emptied
by the fourth clerk, and the letters immediately placed in the hands of
the second clerk, who assorts the local mail; the through letters, or
those destined to go over distant lines beyond the terminus, are sorted
by the clerk in charge; the local, or second, clerk distributes his mail
as rapidly as possible, with a watchful eye for letters, etc., to be put
into the pouch to be delivered at the next station; the pouch is locked
and everything is ready for the next delivery and "catch." When the
stations at which pouches are caught are within a mile or two of each
other, the greatest activity is needed to assort the mail between
stations, to avoid carrying mail by destination and subjecting it to
considerable delay before its delivery by a railway post-office on the
train to be met at a point perhaps many miles ahead.

[Illustration: "CATCHING" AT FULL SPEED.]

The manner of taking or "catching" the mail from the trackside by some
invisible power on a railroad train plunging through space has seemed to
many a feat of almost legerdemanic skill, when all that is required is a
simple mechanical apparatus and a quick, firm movement of the arm in
using it at the right moment. A crane similar in appearance to the
oldtime gibbet is erected near the track, and may have served as a
warning by its suggestive appearance to some would-be train-wrecker. Its
base is a platform two feet and a half square, with two short steps on
top to assist the person hanging the pouch; a post ten feet in height
passes up through this platform near the edge; a stout joist about five
feet in length is fixed across the top of the post and so balanced that
when relieved of the weight of the pouch it flies up perpendicularly
against the post. The pouch used for this purpose is made of canvas and