The Warner sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1885-1???, 1886-07-30


passes through the postoffices at the
house and senate is something enor-
nous, writes correspondent Of The
Cincinnati Times Star. ANY day, and
almost any hour of the day, you are
liable to see heavily loaded bags pulled
away from the door of the house and
senate, carrying tons of public docu-
ments, speeches which have been made
in the house and senate, and are sent
out as campaign literature by the thou
sand, reports of the various depart
ments, documents of all sorts and sizes
and kinds and characters. Even the
letter mail of the members of con-
gress is something remarkable. The
big mailbags which go from the city
postoffice TO the house of representa-
tives postoffice every day carry probas
bly, on an average of ten thousand let
ters daily. Ten thousand letters a
day seem good many, but pretty
careful estimate of the number re-
ceived there shows that this figure is
not too great. They cone from all
directions and are upon all conceivable
subjects. Your average congressman
gets more letters, of course, from his
own district than elsewhere, but he is
not confined to his own people and the
section which he Immediately repre-
sents in his correspondence. Many of
them get letters from all parts of the
country, and from all parts of the
world, indeed Foreign stamps and
foreign postal-cards are by no means a
novelty in the house and senate post
offices.
All mail intended for members of
congress is sent direct from the Wash
ington postoffice to the house and SEN
ate postoffice. Letters and newspa-
pers for members of the house and SEN
ate are not sent by carriers to the resi-
dences of members, except by special
directions, They all 60 in huge mail
bags as soon. as they reach the post
office, and are hurried to the offices at
the house and senate. These post
offices, as they are termed by courtesy,
are not postoffices in the full sense of
the word; that is to say they are not
part of the postoiiice department, nor
branch postoffices in any seuse Of the
word. True, you can mail any letter
there, buy postage stamps and postal
cards, and if congressman wants a
money-order or a postal-note he can
get it by leaving an order at these of
fees, but they are not part OF the
postoffice system. They are simply
established for the convenience of men,
bers of congress.
They look very much like an ordin-
airy country postoffice. There is a big
screen filled with letter bags, and in.
the middle a window, behind which
stands an official who passes out the
mail just about as the postmaster at a
country postoffice hands out the rail
to waiting populace. Each mem6er
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 postotfice and
yells at the top of his voice: Give
me Mr.. So and So s letters and papers. /"
If he does not get them at once he yells
again, and keeps it up with pertinacity
until Mr.. rs mail is deposited into
his hands when he leisurely wends his
way back to the house. The register
ed letters, however, he does not get,
for they are too precious to be intrust-
ed to these Arabs of the house-fioor.
There is a staid and careful messenger
of the house and senate postofiices,
whose business it is to take these
precious packages, laying them before
them and receiving receipt for them,
and deliver packages in person. The
number of these registered packages
which reaches the members of congress
is very great.
Many of them contain documents
which the offic-seekers or others will
send, and consider 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 members of the house and
senate to-day is nearly or quite twenty
thousand. AS to the number of pack
ages that leave the house and senate
postoffices for all parts of the world
and the country, it would be almost
impossible to make an estimate. You
can get the figures by the number of
tons, but as to the packages and letters,
it would be practically impossible. The
postal-card mail arriving at the post
Office is quite large also, though not so
great proportion Of the congressman s
correspondence is now upon the postal
cards as was the case when the postage
was cents intscad of q Most of the
postal-cards come from the south and
west, very few from the north and east.
The south seems specially devoted to
the postal card, particularly the eastern
sections of the south. North Carolina,
for instance, seems to have particular
affection for postal-cards, and the num-
Der of these little missiyes reaching
members of that state is astonishing.
When the house and senate postofiices
receive their mail. and see among it a
huge package Of postal-cards, some
body generally makes the remark,
'srhat is the mail for the North Caro-
lima members The southern members