The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1874-04-02
VOLUME IX.---NO. 38.
The Post Office.

The Post Office.
The traveller who passes on our great lines Of
| thoroughfare from one city to another has no
doubt OF the fact that we live in an age of rail-
roads and steamboats,. And yet horses carry
| the mails three miles where railroads carry
them one. Even Massachusetts,, so covered
with a network Of railroads that there are few
towns in the State that do not receive daily
visit from the locomotive, has 146 stage-coach
routes to 81 of railroads Curiously enough,
the cost per mile in the two cases is almost ex-
actly the same; the average cost of the trans
portation Of mails per mile in the cars being
eleven cents and six mills; by horse, eleven
cents and eight mills Of course, the cars carry
a mail many times larger than that of the
coach, so that the cost per letter is much less.
Throughout the whole country, steamboats,
carry the mails 1872 miles; railroads 63, 457
miles; and horses, It's, ,991 miles, But the rail-
road is gradually gaining possession of all the
important routes. In 1870 the cars carried the
mails 43, 727 miles; in 1873, G3, 457 miles; gain
of nearly fifty per cent. in four years. And
| the mails are increasing in weight and magni-
tude at a yet faster ratio. SiXty-1ive years ago
the mails for the South left the New York post
office carried by one man, were rowed across
the ferry, and then placed under the boot of the
stage. To-day, from ten to twelve tons of mail
matter enter and leave the New York post
office from the South. 1t is but a century since
Post Master General Benjamin Franklin so
increased the speed of the mails that, while it
had taken six weeks for letter to go from
Boston to Philadelphia and return, it then took
but three. To-day it takes but one week for
letters to pass from the shores of the Atlantic
to those Of the Pacific. If the postal service
continues to expand the next century as it has
done the last, and science shall discover no
more rapid means of transmission, passengers
must be left out of the mail trains. Letters
and papers will exhaust the capacity OF the
steam engine.
Our oceanic mails increase at a yet faster rate.
Over a thousand tons of letters and papers now
cross the Atlantic; a gain OF fifty per cent.
within the last three years.
The difference between sparse and thlckly-
settled population is best shown by the fact
that Of three nations each having between thir-
ty and forty millions of population, Germany
has 5,72O post Offices Great Britain less than
1000, and the United States 1920. This
sparseness OF population, requiring letters to
travel long distances untrequent routes,
makes the cost Of transportion far HEAVIER here
than in Europe. In England, the maximum
distance a letter can be carried is less than
seven hundred miles; in America, from Maine
to Alaska is five thousand miles. And this is
one of the principal reasons why Germany nets
a profit from her post offices of three million
dollars year, England profit OF hve million,
and the United States has loss Of nearly six
million.
The English post office stands at the head of
Tic postal world for the certainty OF its letters;
as the Duke of Wellington once said, "The
English post office is the only one in Europe
which can be said to do its work" FORM
stance, when the first meeting OF the Evangeil-
cal Alliance was held in London, many years
ago, a prominent president OF western COL
lege who crossed the Atlantic in sailing ves-
sci, was surprised to find letter awaiting him
at his lodgings. It had left thome after him, but
carried by steam, it hau passed him on the
way. AS he had not known, when he left
home, where he was to stay, he was curious to
find out how that letter had discovered his
rooms before he had found them himself. And
inquiry developed the fact that the letter being
uncalled for for day or two, the postal au-
thorities noticed that it came from America,
and was addressed to reverend divine. Sur
missing that it might be for some attendant at
the meeting of the Alliance, inquiry was made,
the residence obtained, and the letter forwarded
to await his arrival. 1t may be doubted II the
post Office authorities elsewhere would have
taken so much trouble about single letter.
The English post office is also one OF tar
greater tiexibility than our own, or any other,
and more ready to try improvements. ltadop-
ted penny postage ten years before we COM
menced three cent one; it tabolished the frank
thirty years before US. 1t has adopted tho tel
egraph as a branch of its service 1t issues
some $4,000, 900 money orders year; 1t IN
sures lives, and grants annuitles; 1t MAINTAINS
a savings bank, cOntermlnouS With the D0un-
diaries of the kingdom; and it licenses all the
dogs-5O0, 900 Of them all the male servants,
carriages, horses and mules, armerial bearings
and guns in Great Britain and Ireland. So ca
pacious and paternal post Office department.
we have hardly right to expect; we are au-
thorzed, however, to look for as certain de-
livery Of letters and papers. The United States
does indeed stand next to England in this re-
spect. From grand total of 9l5 OO0, 900 letters
annually, England sends $500, 900 to her dead
letter office. With somewhat smaller num-
ber of letters the United States sends 1, 100000.
-Appleton'S Journal.