Arizona citizen., 1875-07-24
THE CITIZEN.
SATURDAY., JULY, 24, 1875.
About the Arizona Mail Service.
A Washington dispatch to The

A HaSu1LSU UOu u4SpdLCE CO 1ue
 Alta of July :, gives this information ::
 In February last the legislature of
 Arizona memorialized the Postmaster
 General respecting the great import
 ance of a mail route from San Diego via Tucson, Arizona, to Mesilla, New
 Mexico, and route from San Bernar- dino, Cal, via Prescott, Arizona, to Santa Fe, New Mexico, arguing that
 the present mail service in these routes was inadequate for the fast growing wants of the Territory. and asking that the service be made daily.
 The subject has been carefully consid- cred by the Post Office Department,
 and reply from the Second Assistant
 Postmaster-General Tyner has just
 been sent to the memorialists declin- ing to increase the service at the pres
 ent time. In his letter Judge Tyner explicitly questions the statement as
 to the great demands for increased service. He says that whenever mail
 facilities are required ill new coun- try, it is the policy of the Department
 to furnish them, even though the re-
 ceipts bear a very small relation to the heexpenditures. But 1t does not there fore follow that the service must be of
 the most frequent class. There are now three mails a week on the San
 Diego-Mesilla route at a cost of $100,- GOO, supplying the postofices whose
 aggregate receipts are but $6446 96
 per annum. The Department there
 fore now pays nearly sixteen times as
 much as it receives for the service on this route. Seven mails week would
 involve an additional cost of $133, 333,
 making a total of $233,333 per an-
 mum for a daily mail. On the San IBernardino and Santa Fe route, there
 are now two mails week at a cost
 of $51,S22 per annum, and the re- ceipts from offices supplied aggregate but S371S. The increased service ask
 ed would cost $129, 555 more, making a total of S1S1,337. To order the service on the lines as asked by the legislature of Arizona would be to in
 crease the cost of transportation of
 mails from $151,822 to $414,71O with
 out any material increase of receipts,
 which aggregate now but about $l5,- .OOO.
 For several reasons we give the foregoing. The careless reader might
 think that the large cost of carrying the mails on the routes named and the very small proportionate revenue derived from them, are peculiar to Arizona routes, whereas the country throughout the whole of the Southern States and all lying west of the Mis- souri river, have routes which show the same financial condition. Next, many people clamor for mail service of greater or less necessity no doubt and because 1t is not obtained, fall to abusing somebody, as instance the case of Gov. Mccormick. For we  know he was meanly abrsed in this behalf, in cases wherein he laborad earnestly to procure service that was absolutely refused by the authorities; and we dare say Delegate Stevens will come in for some of the same sort. before he gets through trying to procure for his constituents what they ask. Another reason for giving the item is that the people need to be in formed of certain important facts what the Treasury of the nation is doing for them. We do not fear that any sensible person who IS well informed, will attempt to make a point against our Territory because of the facts stated, for all new and many old settled sections of the coun- try, have mail service at proportion ate expense and income. and as stat ed in the dispatch, government expects to maintain service wherever needed . without regard to its cost or profit.