New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1886-12-13
FACTS ABOUT THE POSTAL SYSTEM.
GEN. HAzEN GIVES SOME ODD FIGURES

| NUMBER or STAMPS USED AND THEIR COST
SPECIAL DELIVERY AND REGISTRY.
Postmaster General Villas and Third Assistant Post
General Hazen have been quartered ct the Ffti
| Avenue Hotel for several days. General Hazen ha
charge Of the business Of supplying the Government with
stamped postal paper Of all kinds the system Of regsra
tion and the Dead Letter Office. in addition to other i'm
portant departments He has been In the Post Otice
Department twentyone years, beginning at the bot
tom as low-saaried clerk Though still . young man
he has the detail Of the department literally ct hit
tongues end When asked II his visit to the city with
the PostmasterGenera had important bearing upon
Post Office matters in ew-York, he smingly replied:
"Oi, no; the Postmaster General Is here looking into
matt connected with the postagesamp contract and
incidentally he, of visited the NevYork Post
ONCE But no changes are contemplated there"
"Is anything interesting about the postagestamp
centractr
"Wel, can give you some figures that may be Of In
terest The American Bank Note Company Of this city
has a foury years contract for making all the postage
stamps used IN the United States This and s
predecessors done nearly all this work since the
OF stamps became general We began using stamps IN
ls47 you know. They first made IN denominations
OF and 10 cents. The system was adopted from Eng
land and since then the Of stamps In this country has
increased such that 1t will be for
us to have about two billion of them this year"
"How much does a postage stamp cost the Govern
mentf"
will your question In this way and you can
figure it out yourself We pay 500 cents thousand
for them This everything including delivery
to u.s."
"Are they made for less money than formerly"
"Oh, yes this Government has paid as high as 9Th
cents thousand for the same work But material Is
much ch eaper and then. you know they printed
by steam to-day while formerly they done by hand.
On the present contract begun last year. 1913
per cent spending about 100000
1.-THE consumption Of stamps Is being somewhat less
ened by the great reduction in the cost OF stamped
envelopes. and their consequent adoption by many
business firms which have not used them before.
The reduction went into effect In last October and since
then the sales Of stamped have rapidly
10 the public OF 40 cents while one class the
cia size costs 81 thousand saving OF 80 cents The re-
The Morgan Envelope Company and the Plympton Man
ufacturng Company OF Hartford received the contract
pers for period Of four years from October last They
get about 245 900 FOR the work saving OF about ~
cent thousand on the fuIIietter size envelope"
How about postal cartsi 49,, - .,,
About $50 will be used this suppose The
for the contract term offour years will be about
600 saving OF IL per cent over the old The
former contract much lower than when the eerds
first made Postal cards were first issued In 1874
Nearly 100000 900 used in 1888 but the depres-
sion business and the reduction OF letter postage cut
down the demand for them The present condition OF the
business OF the country uses the
OF an unusually large demand for postal cards during the
coming year The cards about As cents thousand
"Will the letter sheets prove a SUGGEST"
"They introduced last August and sufhcent time
has elapsed determine the demand likely 10 arise
for Them They supplied to fifty offices at present
Nearly 5000 900 have already been used and there are
urgent calls from offices which have not yet been
supplied with them. They are manufactured by the
American Bank Note Company and they cost the GOV.
eminent 81 So thousand. cannot yet give an idea OF
the probable demand fer them hut will be unsafe 10 al
low for a sale OF less than $4,000 900 this year Good
results are expected from them Experience has shown
that every additional convenience for correspondence
has resulted in increasing the patronage OF the mails
" DO you think the special delivery system VIII De
successful I"
No serious obstacles have been met in carrying 1t out
and while there is data which TO base financial cal
culaOns it believed that the beneficial results ar
foried by system will be appreciated to such an
extent that profit will be derived from it,
table shown by General Hazen Indicated
that a grand total Of 1,1ls,s20 letters were
handled under that system for the twelve months
ending September 30. last New York patronized the
innovation much larger extent than any other city IN
Union For the year 10 september 30 the New YORK
Office handled l73 702 special delivery letters Phiadc-
phia 1912; Boston, $500; Brooklyn. 32409 Bat
more % 961 Chicago 80 s2l PittsOurg. 3l367 San
Francisco. 81 .932 and Washington 3l,12l The bus
In the other large cities was much smaller.
General Hazen said that 1917 letters had been re-
the dead letter Office during the current year
OF these found 10 only 1000, ana
OF this number about 160O were finally delivered VI
the registry system he said that there bad been one loss
of every 10000 letters and packages regis
tered He thinks that favorable turn In the tide OF
rent year will realize still greater improvement In the
aafalr