St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-04-01
THE SLOW East MAIL. !"
The "Giobe" Inspects the Slowing
Up Process in Chicago.
How the Time is Wasted to Give the News
papers Chance.
The Reason Why the east Ma1P Reaches
st. Paul Too Late to Be of
Any Service.

Guided to investigate the practical operations
of the slow ''fast mall which makes hal
of two and half hours in Chicago.
Shortly after midnight on Monday night
last the GLOBE repaired to the Lake Shore de
pot to witness the arrival of the famous 'fast
MALI At thirty-fve minutes after II the
train came laundering in to the depot, just
five minutes behind time. And then began
the process of making the fast mail slow.
From the very start there was manifest in
clination to kill time. The trucks were
wheeled laZily up to the postal cars and the
mail bags were still more lazily thrown upon
them. When a truck was comfortably filled
it was wheeled to huge pair of scales in the
depot and elowly weighed. Then it was
drawn to the platform adjoining the street,
where three wagons were backed up to re-
ceive the contents of an entire train of cars.
One wagon was to take all that belonged on
the Milwaukee d st. Paul road; another re-
ceived the G.. B. & @. mail and the third
wagon took all that went to the Chicago post
office.
Each sack had a wooden tag attached to it
|
been very simple thing to have sorted the
sacks on the cars into the three piles named
above, but If that was done it would not re-
quire so much time in Chicago. To waste a
sufficient amount of time in Chicago to allow
the morning papers of that city to go to press
is the mission of the slow ''fast mail. -
Hence, the men in charge, leisurely picked
| nm ha ont fba
the tag about as they would tackle big, I'M
pronounceable word in the dictionary. When
the problem was thus solved, the bag would
be fired at the tail end of the wagon where it
belonged, and about half the time miss fire
and fall to the platform. That gave a
chance to spend little more time
by walking back, picking up
the sack and depositing itas tenderly as a
basket Of eggs in the van. There were four
men in charge Of this intricate work of identi-
fcation, and their protracted scrutiny of the
tags was worthy of the detective skill dis
played in the search for Charlie Ross. One
of them, a fat, chubby chump, who had
grown ''to be a big boy now" was evidently
the editor-in chief of one of the morning pa
pers, who had put on postal cap and gone
down to handle the slow ''fast MALL to
guard against any such accident as getting
the work done in time. He certainly earned
his newspaper salary. He got in the way of
the others, leaned up lazily against the trucks
with sort of 'We won't go home till morn
ing, till daylight doth appear" air; studied
each tag he got hold of Unfortunately and usu
ally wound up by calling one of the others
to read it for him. Two of the men, with the
editor in chief absent, could have done the
work in less time than it was actually per
formed.
Finally the sacks were all on board and
there was a chance for another little delay in
closing the doors of, the vans. The only am
bilious effort displayed during the entire
night was on the part of the horses attached
to the Milwaukee & st. Paul wagon. When
they heard the doors of the van closing they
prepared to go, but the fat editorial
chump showed great dexterfty in
delaying their departure, proving that when
rapid movement would make the ''fast mal''
As there was no reason for delaying the wagon
bound for the Chicago postoffice, that ratified
off quite lively, in advance of those bound for
the trains. In spite of everything it was only
five minutes after one in the morning when
the two train wagons left the Lake Shore de-
pot. The time had been absurdly spread out,
but even then only half an hour had been oc-
cupicd.
The GLOBE followed on foot to the Milwau-
kce d ST. Paul depot, meeting no one en-
route but weary policeman, who was NOV
ing so slowly that it was evident he was prac-
Using for position on the fast mail. -
When the GLOBE reached the Milwaukee and
st. Paul depot, the wagon was near
| ly unloaded upon The baggage
| trucks, and they in turn were
wheeled to the baggage room and lowered on
the elevator to the level of the tracks below.
| The EAST mail'' train, bound for st. Paul,
was hitchcd up, and consisted of two cars,
one q postal sorting car, ard the other q
common baggage car. The fat editorial
chump had evidently fallen asleep on the
elevator, for the sacks were heaycd into the
postal car with remarkable degree of celer-
ity It was ! % a. III. when the last BAG
was in the car and the door closed. Then a
sort of holy quiet settled down. The men
who had made the EAST mair' as slow as
possible went home, the mail van drove off,
the depot was closed, and the GLOBE was left
in solitary contemplation of the fast mail, y
which must now wait an hour and half to
accommodate the morning papers.
As ''all the ether places were shut up" in
the v1rtuous city of Chicago the GLOBE
roamcd about the streets for an hour and
then returned to the depot to await the
arrival Of the morning paper contingent. Al
. 80 ii. m. all was still silent and the slow
''last mail' stood without engine as
if it never proposed to move. The
minutes licked on, and at a quarter
before O'Clock the conductor put in an ap
pcarance. In response to question by the
GLOBE he said he could hold the slow ''ias
mail' until nine minutes after three and
make up the time before reaching Milwaukee
1t was just three o'clock when the rattle of q
wagon was heard on the street and then
there was lively work. The morn
ing papets had gone to press and
now there was no longer any occasion
for being slow. The elevator ratified down
with the trucks containing the sacks. they
were tumbed on board, and at O1 a. IN. the
engine, which had appeared ten minutes
previous, hitched on, land away the "fast mali
sped in the darkness, bound for ST. Paul
The GLOBE noticed that a number of tht
sacks were "painted red.' This recalled
the fact that when Frank Hatton, the assis
tant postmaster general, came West to inau
gurate this slow " fast mall, /" a wicked news
paper declared that he was painting Chicago
red" Some of the little Hattons in Wash.
ington discovered the paragraph and went tt
their mother to ask what their father