The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1886-12-04

give them 10 the lowest Responsible Dlu-
der, and bind the contractor by good
and sufficient bond to build just as
good vessel as he agrees to construct.
Any good business man would do
that.
But we don't see why the Post Office
Department should ask some poor man
to trundle a wheelbarrow load of mail
bags, from the Elkton depot to the Elk
ton post office, for twenty five dollars a
month, when the job is worth fifty dol
lars a month. We know of course that
the Postmaster General hopes to make
his department self sustaining, but if to
make it So those who hew the wood
and draw the water for it, are to be
ground into the dust by the competi-
tive system Of awarding petty jobs to
the lowest bidder, then the needed
economy had better begin at the top
and not at the bottom of that Depart
ment.
Now while economy is desirable not
only in post office matters but generally,
the business system applied to local
post offices and local mails is anything
but liberal, in fact is positively niggardly.
The post master at Elkton for instance
must pay the rent of his office, and al
though required to construct at his own
cost such post office boxes as the bust
ness patronage of his office requires, the
Government takes the rent of them.
A few years ago the local mail mes
senger was paid $50 per month in the
town of Elkton, under the present COM
petitive system, The department puts
the job up to the lowest bidder, and
some poor fellow pressed by his neces-
sites, will accept one half that sum for
the same service to keep the wolf away
from his door. All this Of course, if
the post office should be located over
one quarter of mile from the railroad
point of delivery.
The mail delivery from the Elkton
post office also demonstrates the char
acter of this petty system. For carry
ing a daily mail six times week from
Elkton to Appleton, the contract was
awarded to Oliver Maxwell. He agreed
to do the work for a whole year for one
hundred and seventy-three dollars. He
threw the contract up. William Frazer
afterwards took it and threw it up, until
finally the present carrier John Seth
agreed to take it because he happened
to have a horse on hand and nothing
special to do for the winter. The dis
lance he carries the mail is seven miles,
He makes six round trips a week, or
eighty four miles, driving in year four
thousand three hundred and sixty eight
miles. furnishing himself, his horse and
team, all for the magnificent sum of
one hundred and seventy three dollars,
or three dollars and thirty three cents
a week, or fifty five cents day. Talk
about foreign system of grinding the
daily laborer! We had better look at
home. This service is worth every
cent of SOFA year. Over thirty years
ago Joseph Mahan carried the mail
from Elkton to Frenchtown distance
OF only three miles and received six
hundred dollars annually for the ser
vice. Everything that man or horse
consumes was cheaper then than now,
and yet had Josie Mahan been paid at
the same rate that the Post Office De-
partment is now paying Mr.. Seth, he
would have received less than SIS a
year for the service.
Now We say if economy must be en-
forced, take it off the salaries of pam
pered officials at Washington. Take
it off of Congressmen's salaries not one
of whom out of fifty earns his $1,000
per annum. Take it off where 1t doesn't
pinch and grind the petty earnings OF
some poor devil who is compelled to
accept the niggardly pittance paid him.
While we are freeing our mind on
this subject of grinding salaries to poor
employees, that same Postoffice
Department is as arbitrary as it is mean
in its system. Some time ago, because
some lazy clerk thought Brick Meeting
House Cecil county too long a name
to write, the Department without con-
sulting any considerable number of
property owners there changed the
name TO Calvert. The Brick Meeting
House is a historic spot in Cecil. The
metes and bounds, and courses and dis
tances of all the farms Whereabouts Irvine
about the old Brick Meeting House in
the title deeds thereto. That makes
no difference. What if revered memo
ries cluster round the Old Bricko What's
that to saving the muscle of well-fed
Postal Clerk? So they vandalized the
territorial cognomen of New Leeds, .
and whack went the proprietary pre-
fix. Now it's Leeds" It's residents
there know no such place. They will
cling to the "New". And while the
Post Office Department is ringing out
both the old and the "New," it had
better look to it, that it gets less of the
false, and more of the true-economy-
which is to employ the best men it can
find to perform it's service, and to pay
them honest living wages for the work
they do. That is the kind of economy
tha. lakes honest and faithful public
sqyants. Any other kind makes rogues.
THE INE-EDMUNDS EPI-
SODE.