Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1873-11-20
Growth of the P0st0ffice.

Rapid as has been our national growth
in population during the last ten years,
our postal growth has been far more
rapid. While the population has grown
from thirty-one millions to thirty eight,
or less than twenty-five per cent, our
postal expenditures have increased from
eleven million dollars to twenty-six, an
increase of nearly one hundred and
forty per cent. that is, the growth of
the postofice has been more than five
times that of the population. This is
mainly due to the change coming over
us as a nation. Our Atlantic communi-
ties are rapidly exchanging the pursuit
of agriculture for that of manufactures.
Every year witnesses growing amount
of business in the manufacturing towns
and cities, and business carries CORE
spondence with it while those commu-
mites that continue to rely on the pro-
duce of their farms are falling off both
in business and in population. A gen
tleman who, during the past year, re-
visited his boyhood's home in Vermont,
found that ten of the neighboring farms
had passed, at low prices, into the
hands of the close-fsted, hard working
still stood, windowless and half roofess,
only to remind the passer-by of a New
England farming generation rapidly
passing away. Rhode Island is COM
posed of Providence and its suburbs.
Six of the cities of Massachusetts, con-
tain one-third of her million and half
of people. The tendency of the age
and of the nation is toward centraliza-
ton in cities. But there are other
causes than this for the rapid growth of
the postoffice. The past decade has
witnessed postal improvements greater
than any made since the days of our
first Postmaster General, Benjamin
Franklin. Ten years ago the mails
stopped at every large Office, were there
sorted, and dispatched the next day.
Now much of the sorting and handling
is done in the cars, while flying through
the country with a speed of thirty miles
an hour. No rest is allowed the mails
till they arrive at their destination.
Formerly every one had to call for his
letters, excepting in the larger cities,
where carriers delivered, collecting an
extra charge; now Government spends
million and half on the letter-carrier
system. Then all sums of money too
small for banking were sent loose IN the
mails-the dead letters alone then con-
tanned eighty thousand dollars year in
small sums, and a million and half in
checks, that never reached their destina-
ton; to-day nearly sixty million dollars
are annually sent III money orders, and
that system has been extended to all
parts of the civilized world. Then five
million dollars worth of postal matter
passed free through the mails; to-day
every letter, every paper, pays its own
way. By the adjustment of Thanking
at the commencement of the present
fiscal year, the old postal deficiency of
some six million dollars year has fallen
off one-half. To say nothing of letters
sent by the department and by members
of Congress, all of which are now pre-
paid, the payment of letters addressed
to the department and to members, on
the private business of the writer's, will
annually add over half million dollars
to the postal receipts. -ApptctOns'
Journal.