The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-02-20
AROuT THE POST OFFICE.
The Weighing Of the Mails to Begin
To-Day-What Savannah Needs.

The Weighing o. the Mails to Begin
To-Day-What Savannah Needs.
In pleasant interview with Postmaster
George w. Lamar, the MORNING News has
obtained a number Of interesting facts rel
alive TO postal affairs in this section Be
! ginning with this morning the postal clerks on
| all trains will begin weighing the mails
handled by them, and will continue the
weighing until March "a This Is done
| every four years so that the Post Office De
partment can estimate the ANIMAL amount
of mail handled by the railroads, and can
| compute upon this basis the amount which
the department will pay for the CARRYING
of the mails. The government pays S42 10
! per mile per annum, where the mail handed
daily falls below 200 pounds weight. Where
the daily amount carried is in excess Of 200
! pounds for the entire run the compensation
| is proportiOnately greater
OF the seven postal divisions of the United
| States the State of Georgia comprises apor-
| tion of the fourth division, which latter in
| Cludes South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana,
! Mississippi and Alabama Division Super
| intendent b. NJ. Turner has his headquar-
ters at Atlanta and he supervlScs all the
| postal routes in his division
The bulk of The mail brought to this city
and for points further South IS handled by
| the Plant system, which includes the
! Charleston and savannah road. There are
| twelve postal clerks on the line, as follows:
Train No. n, four; No. II, three; No 80,
| two: No. q, two, and No. ~, one. There
are also fonr clerks on the Central Their
salaries range from Stij To s112 per month.
Postmaster Lamar saws that the amount
of mails here has been RAPIDLY increasing
with the steady growth of The city, and to
| such an extent that IN spite of the systema-
| tizpd nonaVemaut Of thenost office lis force
| of employes is almost inadequateto the task
| of handling the nails. and his clerks are
often compelled to work all day Sunday in
| completing their reports.
The CITY has outprown the capacity of the
present force of carriers. and Capt. Lamar
has applied for authority to increase the
| force by three additional carriers The
| mail In the business center is so heavy that
| "A carrier is compelled TO make three trips
| before he can deliver one mail. Thi, is not
only very embarrassing to merchants, who
chafe at the DELAY. but il is also very tire
some and unnecessarily burdensome to the
overworked carrier Capt. Lamar wants
to put Oh one more carrier in the business
center and two more outside of that limit
as the territory outside of the business por-
ton of the city now covers a much wider
area
OF late the South bound trains are hardly
ever on time, and this impinges on
Ulle routine OF the DSJ Ottlce,
making the handling of the mails
much more difficult and delaying in their
tendency. His force is INADEQUATE. and
while he did not refer to it for iAvidious
COMPARISON. he cited the fac5 that better ia
cilities are afforded the Charleston post
office than that of Savannah The Post
master of Charleston is his friend and he
knows that he does not have one man too
many.
A reference to some statistics furnished
by the report of 1887 will show that Savan-
nah can justly ask the department to be as
liberal with the Office here a, it is to
Charleston.
Charleston has about seventeen carriers
Savannah but eleven. The gross receipts
of the Savannah post office fo. 1887 exceed
ed those of Charleston S267 A, and the net
receipts were 81, O62 SO in exc.s, of that of
the Charleston office. The Savannah office
had to pay for rent, light and fuel s.. 3O7 "a
while the Charleston Office is in a govern
ment building and had no rent to paw.
Charleston was allowed 81, 799 II more for