The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1879-02-14
Sam Wood and Postage.

Every week we hear complaints that
our paper does not reach Homestead,
Chase county. viii the postmaster at
Cottonwood Falls notice if it passes that
office. We are tired and provoked at this
veXatious delay. There is some one to
blame and we are determined to find out
who. We would hire boy to take our
Homestead package up, but then the ed
itor of the NEWS would be writing all
along the line to charge us double postage.
Stotler runs the post-Office department In
Chase county. If we put our papers in
the Office they will fail half the time to
go. If we send by private conveyance,
he will write TO forbid them being re-
ceived until transient postage is paid.
The above we clip from last weeks
Greenbacker. 1t contains an unintended
compliment to us, by showing we are do
ing our duty, even at the dIspleasure of so
great man as Sam Wood, for which we
ought to be thankful. So far as the state
ment that his papers fail half the time to
go is intended to apply to the post-office
in this city, it is entirely gratuitous, and
entirely false. Not paper is deposited
in the Office that is not forwarded prompt
ly as directed, and no complaints have
been made at the post-office from the pub
fishers.
And now a word as to Stotler's running
''the post-office department in Chase coun-
ty." First, let us ask the statesman of
the G. B. if he entertains the opinion that
his papers can be distributed by private
conveyance over the country at the pound
rates of postage? Is he that green? Does
he really intend to convey the idea that
we have written to anybody to charge
him double rates of postage, or was that
just little lie thrown in for effect?
Some weeks ago the "sharp" editor of
the Greenbacker took it into his head to
play little trick on the post Office de-
partment to cheat it out of the postage
on 81 pounds of Greenbackers. The
law requires publishers to mail their
papers at the Office nearest publication,
and to regular subscribers the depart
ment carries them for two cents pound.
But our statesman concluded he would
take the bundles of his paper for several
offices in Chase county with him on
-
the cars, thus attempting to beat
the government out of the postage.
At one Office he found a postmaster who
thought they could not be distributed to
subscribers without the prepayment of
postage at transient rates. This officer
asked our opinion. Finding himself
caught, the astute statesman of the G.
B. then wrote to us that he had taken
the packages up with him; that they
weighed 81 pounds and to charge the
postage to the Greenbacker. This OF
course we could not do, as the papers
had never been brought to the Emporia
Office to be weighed.
Believing that the reformer would
then tell other postmasters with whom he
left the packages in Chase county tn at
the papers had been weighed in Empo-
ria, and thus attempt to swindle the de-
partment out of its just dues, we wrote
to the postmasters where the packages
had been left, that they had not been
weighed in Emporia, and that they were
chargeable with postage at transient in
stead of pound rates. Now that's the ex-
tent of Stotler's running the postofice
department in Chase county. 1t was his
duty to do just what he did, and any
thing short of what he did in this mat.
ter would have been conniving at Woods
little fraud. OF course that individual
was foiled, and hence his display of bile
towards us and THE NEWS We did
not intend to mention the matter at all
but as the statesman has rushed into
print with the affair and "given himself
away" we deem it nothing more than
right to let him and the public have the
facts