Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1886-08-12
POST OFFICES AT THE CAPITOL.
whore congressman Receive and Mail Let
ters and Campaign Literature.
Cincinnati Times Star,

where congressman Receive and Nail let
tiers and Campaign Literature.
Cincinnati Times Star
after the discussion of great question
.hs amount of Matchmaker that passes
through the post-otfices at the House and
Sanate is something enormous, writes a
correspondent. Any day, and almost
snv hour of the day, you are liable to see
heavily loaded bags pulled away from the
House and Senate, carrying tons OF pub
lie documents, speeches which have been
r,ade in the House and Senate, and are
ssnt out as campaign literature by the
tbousand reports of the various depart
ments, documents of all kinds and char
acters. Even the lettermail of the mem
hers of Congress is something remark
sble. The big mail bags which go from
The CITY post-office to the House of Rep
rasentatives post-office every day carry
probably on an average ten thousand let
iars daily. Ten thousand letters day
seems good many, but pretty careful
estimate of the number received there
shows that this figure is not too great.
They come from all directions and are
mon all conceivable subjects. Your av-
erace Congressman gets more letters, of
course. from his own district than else
where, but he is not confined to his own
neoDle and the section which he immed-
iateiy represents, in his correspondence.
Many of them get letters from all parts
of the country, and from all parts of the
world indeed For, ign stamps aud fore
ion postal cards are by by no means
novelty in the House and Senate post
offices.
All mail intended for members of Con
gress is sent direct from the Washington
post-office to the House and Senate post
Office. Letters and newspapers for mem
hers of the House and Senate are not
sent by carriers to the residences of mem
bers, except by special directions. They
all 90 in huge mail-bags as soon as
they reach the post-o office, and are hurried
10 fine offices of the House and Senate
These post-offices as they are termed by
courtesy, are not post offices in the full
sense of the word; that is to say, they
are not part of the Post office Depart
ment, nor branch post-ofiices in any sense
of the word. True, you can mail any
letter there, buy postage-stamps and
postal cards, and if Congressman wants
money order or postal-note, he can
get it by leaving an order at these offices,
but they are not a part of the Post-office
System. They are simply established for
the convenience of members of Congress.
They look very much like an ordinary
country post office. There is big screen
filed with letter-bags, and in the middle
window, behind which stands an official
who passes out the mail just about as the
postmaster at a country post-office hands
.r,4 tku oil To q tit,rr
member has his own box, and in it are
put his letters and papers. A thousand
times day, on an average, page rushes
breathlessly into the post-office and yells
at the top of his voice: 'Give me Mr.. SO
and Sos letters and papers,. If he does
not get them at once he yells again, and
keeps it up with pertinacity until Mr..
IS mail is deposited into his hands,
when he leisurely wends his way back to
the House. The registered letters, how
ever, he does not get, for they are too
precious to be intrusted to these Arabs of
the House floor. There is a staid and
careful messenger of the House and Sen
ate post-offices, whose business it is to
take these precious packages, laying them
before them, receiving a reception for
them, and delivering packages in person.
The number of these registered packages
which reach the members of Congress is
very great.
Many of them contain documents which
the oifice-seekers or others send, and CON
slider too important to be intrusted TO
the ordinary mail system. 1t is probable
that the average number of letters and
packages and newspapers delivered to
the members of the House and Senate to-
day is nearly or quite 10000. As to the
number of packages that leave The House
and Senate postoffices for all'parts of the
world and country it would be almost inn
possible to make an estimate. You can
get the figures by the number of tons,
but rs to the packages and letters, ii
would be practically impossible. The
postal card mail arriving at the post-ofii-
ces Is quite large also, though not so
great a proportion of the Con
& essman's correspondence is now upon
the postal cards, as was the case when the
postage was three instead of 2. Most of
the postal cards come from the South and
Vest, very few from the North and East
The South seems especially devoted to
postal-cards, particularly the Eastern sec
tions of the South. North Carolina, for
t"at"lloe' seems 10 nave pdrulculdr VI
lection for postal-cards, and the number
OF these little missives reaching Congress
from that State is astonishing. When
the House and Senate postof1ices receive
their mail, and see among it huge pack
OF postal-cards, somebody makes the re-
mark
''"Ihat is the mail for the North Caro-
lima members"
The Southern members patronize the
The Aoney-order System of the Post-office
Department more extensively than those
OF the North. Banks are not so common
IN the South, and the Money rider System
Is IN great favor for transmissions of sums
small or great.
The Bee, Eye.