Sacramento daily record-union., 1888-08-09
QUICK DISTRIBUTION.
|, Plan by Which Prompt Delivery Is
Secured.

A Plan by Which Prompt Deliv1fy Is
Secured.
For the past two days Postmaster
Stephens has been trying an experiment,
which so far has proved successful, by
which the mails will be delivered in this
city from one to two hours quicker than
heretofore. A messenger leaves the city
every night on the overland train and
meets the west-bound overland at Blue
Canyon. He enters the mail car, takes all
of the Sacramento letter mali, stamps it
and puts it up in packages the same as
would be done in the Office here after the
arrival of the mail. Before the train
reaches Sacramento he has everything
ready, and he is met at the train by three
carriers. One carrier takes the mail for J
street from Front to Seventh, and another
for K street from Front TO Seventh, the
routes of each extending along Front
street and the intersecting streets as far ss
the alleys north of J and south of X. The
third carrier goes Immediately to Seventh
and and delivers the mail up J street to
Twelfth and down K to Seventh, covering
the intersecting streets as far es the alleys
above mentioned.
Under this plan the mail of the lower
portion of the city will be delivered before
the time that the mail has, heretofore,
reached the postoffice. The men yesterday
had finished delivering below Fourth street
and had passed the postoffice before the
arrival of the mail-wagon from the depot.
The reason for the present delay is that
the mail has to be unloaded for the west
bound train before the Eastern mail is
taken out.
The rest OF the city mail has already
been done up in packages and is placed in
the wagon and taken to the postoffice,
where il is at once taken by the carriers on
the outside routes. The registered letters
and money order packages are ready to hand
to the CLERKS of those departments, and can
be delivered within half an hour. All the
mail for the general delivery is also ready
in packages and the moment it arrives the
whole force is put to work on its distribu-
ton. The boxes are served in the office.
and the distribution is an hour or an hour
and half earlier than under the old sys-
TEN.
When the train heretofore has arrived
at O'Clock it was 9:30 before the mail
would resch the postoffice, and on an av-
e-age 1t took an hour and half to dis
tribute the mail. Under the present sys-
tenn bust ness men cau have their Eastern
communications considered and their re-
plies written by the time they previously
got their letters, and can send them on the
noon fast train eastward again, being eight
hours III advance of the evening mail which
they previously had to use. and which was
a slow mail train.
1t is part Of the plan to have a man
meet the up train from San Francisco at
Elmira so that by the time it arrives here
at quarter past eleven everything will be
in readiness so that the mail can be dis
tributed by half past eleven over the same
section and business men will get their
mail before they go to lunch. Under this
arrangement business men can answer
their correspondence so that it can go down
on the 3 o'clock train in the afternoon. Ii
is expected to make this permanent if the
Government will grant the necessary aid
to do so.