The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1885-07-08
WHOLE NO. l773.
Carving the Mails.

O1 the resignation OF Samuel Us
good in 1871, the office ofPostmaster
General was bestowed on Timo-
thy. Pickering. So Insignificant was
the place and so light the duties that
officer was TO perform that Washing
did not think him worthy OF Cab
met seat. Yet there is now %
other department of the government
in which the people take so lively
an interest as in that over which
the Postmaster General presides.
The number T men who care
whether the lndisns get their blan-
kets and their rations on the from
tier, whether one or two are station
ed at Fort Dodge, whether there is
fleet of gunboats in the Mediter-
ranean sea, is extremely small. But
the sun never sets without millions
upon millions of our citizens intrust-
( ing to the mails letters and postal
cards, money-orders and packages,
In the safe and speedy delivery OF
which they are deeply concerned.
The growth OF the postoffice in the
last ninety years is indeed amazing.
In 1892 there were 264 postoffices in
/ the country now, 49, 900. The yearly
revenue which they yielded then was
S25,000. Now it is Jar above S45,-
00o,0o0 More time was then con-
sumed IN carrying letters ninety
miles than now suffiees 70 carry
them 1000 The postage required
to send letter from New York to
Savannah was precisely eighteen
times as great as viii send one now
far beyond the Rocky Mountains,
into regions of which our ancestors
had never heard
With newspapers the Postmaster
General would have nothing to do.
The postmasters in the town and
villages did, indeed, receive them
and send them on with the mails,
but they were under no obligation
to do so. 1t Is therefore, common
thing to read in the papers printed
at towns remote from the sea-board,
complaints that the Pennsylvania
packets of the New York Journal
were kept back and civil requests to
the postmasters to let them 20 on.
When they did come it was
USUALLY IN sADDLE-BAGs.
and as the riders never travelled
by night, they were several days old.
From the official postoffiee notices
IN the newspapers, it appears that
letters which went out from Phila-
Edelphia at $50 in the morning of
Monday were expected to reach
New York a. 2 in the afternoon OF
Tuesday. Precisely the same num-
Der of hours was spent on the road
from Philadelphia to Baltimore.
Under the confederation this space
was thought speedy enough, but
times had changed. A new govern
ment bad beer set up the debt had
been founded ; the bank had been
established. A wild desire to specu-
late bad taken hold upon men, and,
in their anxiety to hear of the do
ings of Congress and the price OF
stocks in the neighboring cities, a
post that made ninety miles in
twenty-four hours and half SEEM
ed insufferably slow, An attempt
was therefore made to hasten the
mails, and Jefferson, at the sugges-
ton Of Washington, had long con-
. ference with Pickering. The wish
of the president was that letters
should travel 100 miles in twenty
four hours. The plan was to have
. the pouches carried by the riders in
| the day and by the coaches during
, night, but the country was too poor
, An attempt had indeed. been made
. in New Jersey 70 run mail coaches
with seats for four passengers, but
that State laid a yearly tax of s40(
. on stages and taverns, declaring the
, Federal Government was no better
! than an individual, and demanded
, payment. In Maryland and Virgin,
ia the right to convey passenger:
: had been granted as a monopoly rc
certain men. When therefore, tn,
motion was made in Congress tha
, all stagewagone of the postoffic,
should have the right to carry pas
sengers too. cry went up that sucl
law would be violation of Stats
rights, and the motion was lost.