New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-02-19
NOTES ON NEW-YORKERS.

HAS PERFECTED-WHAT HE WOULD ~ ir F""i
MAsTER-G gNERAL EARLIER DAYS VI ihS MAIL
SERVICE
official airs. conveying the impression OF an ola
friend TO anybody with a respectable request yet
,uatbodizing his time aud work that all parts OF
bis machinery must work, too. Behind him IS an
eisctric desk with buttons, calling upon every hean
of DIVISION which lac touches on OCCASION anu IL
brings the person. who at onee accountants '"e
visitor or takes the necessary memorandum. iuuS
a Latter mere mote as it is in the intnude oil MS
siyes hears life apart 20 the Postal Cagoetro' anu
bss its haiits designations and uncertainties partly
borrowed from its writer partly from Its iorwarders
close study of the carelessness o. mank'hu' eh''
very careesSncss systematic, so 70 SPEAK WIN n"'
md entertainments, makes mankind TO the fost-
mas,er a myrlad-headed child yet with some common
snsncts always alb suit fall down. or be run over or
IN he lost but with preservatve Providence attend
ipoit and never-absent clew. How beautifully TINS
WORK has descended TO us from Franklin. the nTSt
postmaster and what traces OF his homeS w'Suoni'
as dropped in Bon Homme Rchdrd are every uss
aupiied in asserting or completing the inaii SCI VIZ
The magnitude of the newspaper press ana OIL INC
nrutipg art indissolubly connected win tne ih"ds
al.o seems part of Franklin's guardianship, and
coroary to hts journalistic work, aud we may take
acme comfort. amidst the animadversons so COM
tellect vet furnished by America. and the most
benefcent of our public systems, came from news
paper ofice-Fmuklin and the Post
The Postmaster of Newly Ork, who has been
exempt from criticism 10 remarkable degroe
among officials. also printer from the CASE Auu
bred in the country. Looking back over the
hst of New York pOstm2sters, WITH no oesle
TO be severe, we have to look iar OacK W
ace suoh post Office Thomas L. James Directs
al fluAo IT,
gems Postmasters-Genera as Alexander Randall
Cidson Granger. Nathan X. Hall aud Francis
Granger Joseph Habsrshanl. of Georgia, enjoyed
thu exceptional honor of being POstmaster-Generai
in the three Administrations of Washington. Adams
and Jeiferson-a period, however, OF only seven
vears in all New-York had the Post Office only
six months under Francis Granger, and nearly Two
wears under Hail. getting the advantage OF little of
Harrisons and Fillmore's Administration and that
Is her story in the Post Office general.
As entered the room of Postmaster James, IN tue
pavilion of the downtown portico. ana ioo%Sa
around on Mr.. Potters Communications frieze oi
heads of Mercury the genius of news, transmits
sion. and below that q Moorish garden
in the upholstery of the period. the wood
mahogany-tInted. thought that for light ana
quiet sense of magstracy. 1t is the most httlng pup
lie office had seen, though most American Federal
Offices are IN superior quality. In the ante-room
was a small engraving OF Rowland Hill. the author
of cheap postage for England and incidentally OF
the world who introduced it, like all reforms IN
perod of depression the panic year of 1887 Turned
out of Office by the incoming Torres he was made
the object of subscription of $4,000 As looked
at this picture thought it might be poetcal ii not
pstriotic Justice to place in such room the por-
trait of the first actual Postmaster General.
William Franklin, the liegitimate son u
Benjamin, who was long resioen'
of New-York and hereaDout conducted in person
his fathers postal system. At Amboy, or Perth AM
boy little town of once high arstocratc standing,
which dozes on the edge of the Jersey HIS ana
overlooks the oyster groves of Princes Bay, began
the Post Office of North America under John Hamil-
ton In 1894 1t was private patent and he sold IL
to the Government. Many years afterward William
Franklin settled at the same place-where once his
father passed in Hamilton's day footSorc warrant
pressing from Boston to Philadelphia to get bread
There the younger Franklin reared palace" and
lived IN it as Governor of New-Jersey till his adler
enoe TO the Crown, that had done better for him
than his father, made him an exile and
captive He was sent under guard 10
East Windsor, Conn.,, and his jail was made
in the house of Captain Ebenezer Grant
there of the family of President Grants ancestors,
and he was prohibited the of pen ink and paper,
"a needless punishment to man who had delivered
go manv letters to others. He met his suffering wife
no more in life. His father, who had forced him
nnhalIowed into the world repud atcd aud ds'nher-
tied him, and after his release he lived among the
British in New-York four years. writing for Rivlng
TOMS paper rs his legitimate nephew. Bache. worked
ON the Wing press in Philadelphia. The EnglSh
Qaye him q pension. and he lived until 1913. The
Franklins in our post Office suggest an analogy 10
the two Matthew de Questers OF England century
earlier The relations OF little old AmDOy to the
lad to tho inv n
yens of Amboy brother-in-aw of Chancellor Liv-
ineston who built the first stt am ferrybOats in the
world and nearly as We them to-day crossing to
his Hoboken.
TALK WITH MIR. JAMES.
The Postmaster is a brOwn-eycd man OF some
youthfulness of address. as If he had been the
teacher of young ladies' seminary, where sensibil-
ity had always 10 be expected. He makes one feel
that kipdre.s is the natural law of life, aud force
and talent only small accessories which would pro-
duce good kind of life if it was general.
mir James, was said incidentally, do yOu have
any expectations of becoming POstmaster-Generalf
mot more than one chance TO nInety-nine." said
MFR. James. MIR. Conklings friends are wOrkingfor
the Treasury Department, not for the Post Office and
dropping his voiee-"Mr COnkling put Inc here. l
have to think of the wishes Of our friends first"
Would YOU like the Post Office Department."
al would like to try to give New-YOrk and some
other of our largest cities free daily delivery every
hour, like London. We give SIX deliveries and have
800 carriers. They give twelve deliveries in Lon
don and have 1900 carriers. New-York ought TO be
equal in postal facilities to any city 90 the globe.
1t has been by minsterinG to the postal complete
ness Of London that the British Post Office Depart
ment pays revenue; for understand that. emitting
London. there would not be surplus"
HAS New-York @ revenue value to the General
Post Office Department.
. "Yes, we pay a surplus Of 50 900 year. The
general deficit at Washington is about So. 900.