The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1889-04-06

hires 500 persons in mailing repairing and
shipping guns and cannon and in the care Of
his arsensls.
He is not too big man 10 take an interest
in the weather, and 600 men are employed in
his signal, observation and prediction corps.
1t is not as yet great navy that Uncle
Sam keeps, for a navy is not a navy without
ships; but he has 300 brilliant officers, hires
5000 men in his navy yards and has n naval
academy in which 200 professors and others
are employed.
Uncle Sam is "a farmer on large scale He
is progressive farmer and believes in new
tangled ideas He employs botanists, pa
biologists, pomologists, microscopists, ento-
mologists, ornlthologists. Seventy-tive men
and women he keeps constantly employed
here in Washington compiling statistics about
crops. He has six men at work making ex-
periments in the manufacture of sugar.
Uncle Sam has sweet tooth. He hates in
sects, too, and so hires "A score of men to in
vestigate their history and habits he is not
so plain that he is Indifferent TO the beauty
Of silk gowns, and employs dozen persons
to experiment in silk culture.
1t would require many columns 10 tell OF
all the various enterprises Uncle Sam is en-
gagged in. He keeps a civil service commits
sion, n bureau Of education, bureau OF
ethnology, fish commission employing I'D
persons, a botanic garden, a great national
museum. He has the largest printing Office
in the world, employing 1000 persons He is
represented abroad by 400 ministers and con-
suls, His department of justice-judges, at
torneys, marshals and commissioners-em-
braces $500 persons. He employs nearly p
600 policemen firemen school teachers, etc,
in his federal city, where one-half the public
expense he kindly bears. He keeps great
homes for soldiers, with $500 inmates and
employees on his pay rolls
But it is in his postoflicc enterprises that
Uncle Sam shows up To best advantage The
second volume of his big blue book is entirely
given up to the postofce. One hundred and
fifty pages are consumed by an index of the
names Of his postal employees, printed four
long columns to the page in fine type. Judge
of the magnitude of the postal service from
the fact that in it are employed !, 200 Smiths.
There are 10 A. Smiths, the same number of
L. Smiths score of +. s. Smiths, and 20 j.
Smiths presumably Johns.
Uncle SANS postmasters cost him a great
deal OF money III salaries he employs dDOut
GO,0OO of them, their compensation ranging
from 81 to $1,000 year. There are post
offices which get tons and tons of mail every
day and postoflices in which the arrival of a
half dozen letters in single week causes a
ripple of excitement. There are postotiices
which require the attention of the postmaster
but ten minutes day and there are postol,ices
| in which a thousand clerks and 800 carriers
find constant employment.
Nine thousand clerks are employed in I'm
| Gle Sans postoflices, and 600G carriers to do
| liver mails at the doors of dwellings and bus
| mess houses.
Six thousand persons work in the post
Offices ON cars, called the railway mail SER
vice, and 1000 are employed as special car
riers and mail messengers. Besides these
there are several thousand mail contractors.
All told there are more than 90, 600 men in
| Uncle Sans postal service.
When Uncle Sam sits down to make up his
pay rolls of civil employees, this is what he
| finds.