Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1886-09-17
MAKING Up THE MAILS.
SCENES IN THE POST Nl'tiCN
MAILING DEPARTMENT..

How the Clerks Sling Letters aud Z tck-
ages Into the Proper Bs@s-Th" hief
Clerks Memory His G utde- The Nam . =
and Location Of All the Post omces in
Four States 1T His TO"gue's End -
Some Addresses That Are Hard to
Decipher.
Thousands OF people passing along
Drayton street by the post office have
stopped to watch how rapidly the old col
pred stamp canceller puts the office mark
on the peachblow tinted stamps. But
that work. dexterous as it is, is uninter-
esting compared with the mailing clerks
task.
When he is making up the pouches,
"canvases' and "leathers' the air is full
of papers and packages flying right and
left and in front Of him. Grabbing up an
armlul of packages with his lett hand he
catches single package in his right
hand and fires 1t at bags mouth htteen
feet away. Zip! it strikes the canvas
mouth and drops inside, right nearly
every time. He seems to read the direc-
ti0ns intutively, and the work looks as
il it WAS fun, but 1t is harder than pitch
ing base ball.
MEN WHO DO THE WORK.
Mr.. Charles Green, the chief mall
ing clerk, has been in the
office in different capacities for six
wears. There are forty pouches
haugi ne on a semi-circular rack in the
mailing department. Some 90 South,
some West and some North. A package
for Atlanta is tossed in one pouch on the
right. and a paper for Jacksonville goes
wlIzzing across on the left side and drops
in the mouth. 1t is surprising how sell
dom a package misses the hole Ii il
thrownat.
Filling the pouches requires more deX-
ferrous work, but not so much memorizing
as the separating" does. just think of
a man going around with the names of
1850 post Offices the counties they are in
and the railroad each one is on or nearest
N in his head. There is not one citizen i'm
fifty who can repeat the names Of the 1871
counties Of Georgia. But Mr.. Green
knows everV office in every one of the
counties, besides a gooG sprinkling of
offices in Florida. Alabama and South
Carolina. Nineteen straight packages
are made up Just for points between Sa-
yannah and Macon.
REMEMBERING THE POST OFFICES.
There are no offices with duplicate
names in the State. but there are some
offices that have different name from the
village. Thus, there is Whitesville, Har-
ris county. and WhitPsville, Eflingham
county. The former place is "A post office,
but the latter gets its mail from GuytOn
post Office. Letters frequently are re-
ceived addressed 10 Whitesvile. If there
is no county on the envelope the letter is
forwarded by the Macon and OpeliSa
route to Harris county. II Etingham
county is written under the name of the
place the letter is stamped" no such ofce'
and IL is returned TO the writer II he is
known. There is Barlow, Fla, and a
Barlow, Ga. There is also Macon in
both States. The State is frequently
omitted, and then II rs the writer's fault
ii the letter goes wrong. A bad writer
can easily make Barlow look like Boston,
and there is a Boston in Georgia. Then
there is Bobo in Gordon county and a
DodO in Washington county, and Den
ion in Coffee and Danton In Tattnall, a
Harlem in Columbia and a Haslam in
Wayne.
SOME ILLEGIBLE ADDRESSES.
'What do you think that tsp Mr..
Green asked NEWS reporter Yesterday
afternoon.
"Newfalla" was what some one bad
tri d TO write but it looked about as much
] X perspective view OF corkscrew as
combination or letters. II the inscrip-
u n had hean lett to the reporter to deci-
pher. the missive would have gone
straight TO the deceased letter office. The
mailing clerk said that it was intended
for Eutaula. Ala, and 1t went into the
Eutauia box.
''CoVer tom was an easy one TO guess.
although the writing was worse than the
spelling. Another addressed to party
Scare city post Office. ky.," was too vague
even for Mr.. Green. The name of the CITY
and county had both been omitted.
"DaVissborro" was broken in two in the
middle and each halt started off with
CAPT al letter.
VERY tew letter writers put the names
of roth the county and State on their let
ters,' said Mr.. Green. That and mis-
sprllng and bad writing causes the most
of the mistakes. Fifty letters are tied up
in package and slip with the mailing
clerk's name on il and tie name of the
post office where the package is to go is
put IN with the letters.
ERRORS IN MAKING Up MAILS,
II a letter for Boston, Mass, goes in the
package for Boston, Ga, an error is
marked against the mailing clerk who
makes 1t. Six hundred slips are used
day in the Savannah post Office. aud the
errors run from seventy to 100 mouth
In 10000 pieces OF mail matter put up
in a day three mistakes is a small item.
The average seems to be about one in
10000 piecee, while in the Philadelphia
Office the errors are said To be one in less
than 1900. Schedules OF railroads have
10 he carefully watched and the routes
are constantly changing. For some
places the mail has TO be sent by one
route in the morning aud another in the
afternoon, and sometimes the longest way
around is the quickest. For example, it
would be supposed that the Chattanooga
mail from savannah would 90 out by the
Central, but it will get there quicker if
sent by the Savannah, Florida aud w est
ern and the East Tennessee, Virginia and
Georgia.
Patent medicine men hunt up every
post office in the county, and they flood
the mails with their circulars, and a mail
ing clerk has TO keep all the small Offices
In his head as well as the big ones.
At the TheAtre Tonight.
Wilson and Rankin's Mnstrels will be