Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1881-11-23
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 90, 1881.
THE POSTMASTER GENERALS RE
PORT.

master General, submitted to the
President on Monday, will be read
by the county with interest. The
fact that Mr.. James had served in
the post Office at New York for years
before he became Postmaster>Gene-
raj, thereby giving him practical
knowledge of the postal affairs of
the country, possessed by few of his
predecessors, led the people to e1"
pect very successful administration
of the Office. In many respects, if
not in all, he has met public expecta
ton. The report sets out with the
usual statement of receipts and ex>
penditures for the fiscal year ending
with June 30th, 1881. The excess Of
expenditures over receipts is S2,48l,-
1895.
In the estimates for the fiscal year
ending June 80, 1888, the excess of
expenditures over receipts is put
down at only S920,077.95, which is q
is very great reduction and long
stride towards making the depart
ment self-sustaing. The amount re-
ceived from the sale of postage
stamps, stamped envelopes, postal
cards, and newspaper wrappers for
the year is 2,539, 093 As, being an in
crease over the preceding year Of
7.9 per cent. The total amount of
postage collected on newspapers
and periodical stamps during the
year was 81, 1899, 049.64, being an in
crease over the preceding year of
little over IA per cent. The weight
of this class of matter was $685.,
432 pounds, and the matter was
mailed at 1921 post-offices, an in-
crease of 1913 over the preceding
year.
The whole number of letters
mailed in the country for the year
was Loaf, 1O7,34S, of which number
S,323,621 reached the dead letter
office, or one in every 315. The re-
port says:
For convenience of treatment they
were classed as follows: Unclaimed
domestic letters, 2,791,059; held for
postage, 27S, pa; misdirected, 242,-
$50 (not including 3D. foreign
letters with imperfect or erroneous
addresses); without any superscrip-
ton whatever, (the majority of them
bearing stamps to pay POSTAGE o.
479; letters addressed to foreign
countries, and containing articles
(coin, lewelry, etc. which are forbid~
den to be sent in the international
mails, 1922; letters of foreign origin,
2S4, 127 (of which 31,183 were sent
to the dead letter office on account
of erroneous or imperfect addresses);
foreign parcels (unopened), 1886 !;
and domestic packages 1851.
OF theletters and packages opened,
1867 were found to contain money
amounting to $40, 587 80; 22,012
contained drafts, money orders,
checks, notes, &c, the aggregate face
value of which was 1889, 81 +;
37,97S contained receipts, paid notes,
and Cancelled oh igations OF all sorts
33,731 contained photographs; 81,
500 contained small remittances OF
postage-stamps; and in 1872 there
were found valuable articles of third
and fourth class matter i'll endless
variety. The amount of money sepa-
rated from dead letters for which no
claimant could be found was &c.
5S4.40, which was deposited in Treas
ury. The amount of postage col
lected upon short-paid matter for
warded to destination, and upon I'M
claimed PACKAGES Of third and fourth
class matter returned to owners, was
50, 109.34. The records of the de
partment show that 8,338,9l9 regis
tered letters End packages were
mailed in this country during the
year. Of this number only 2,6l4
reached the Dead-Letter Office; and
of these 2,131 were finally delivered
to the owners, the balance being
placed on file awaiting Identification
by the parties interested.
The total number Of letters ano
parcels registered during the year
was s,338,919 and 1,2l0,096 letters
and parcels for the government
which are exempted by law from thu