Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1891-02-11
THE PosT-oFFIcE.
Facts Concerning the Postal Service of the
limited Sfafea

Facts Concerning the Postal Service of the
United States.
No adjunct of modern civilization has
had more rapid development than the
carrying and distribution of the mails.
The United States surpasses all other
nations in the amount of its mail mat
ter carried, in the number of its post
offices, and in the proportion of post
Offices to the population While the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland has some eighteen thousand
post-ofices, or one post-office to about
every two thousand of population, and
France seven thousand offices, or one
for each five and half thousand peo-
pie, we have in the United States more
than sixty-two thousand post-offices,
which means that the average number
of people to every post-ofIice is about
one thousand.
The United States post-office handles
many more letters than any other
country. While somewhat more than a
million and half letters were dehv-
cred in the United Kingdom in the last
reported year, in our own country near
ly one million nine hundred thousand
were transmitted.
There is one important difference be-
tween the administration of our Post
Office Department and that of most
European countries. There is no at
tempt on the part of our Government
to make profit from the carrying of
the mails. While the British Govern
ment derives a net revenue of several
millions of dollars each year from its
III
operated during the last fiscal year at a
loss of somewhat less than six million
dollars.
The reason for this is plain. No gov
eminent of civilized State really de-
sires to make money out of the business
of carrying the mail of the people, and
all such governments have gradually
reduced the cost of postage But the
great majority of the European nations
have expenses which exceed their reve-
nues, and their governments are pressed
to obtain revenue wherever it is practic-
able.
In the United States, on the contrary,
our National revenues have for several
years been in excess of the needs of the
Government. This surplus revenue has
been an excellent occasion, therefore,
for the extension, improvement and
cheapening of the postal service.
The deficit in the Post-office Depart
ment is not due, indeed, to any loss of
money in the actual carrying of letters.
AS a matter of fact, there is a yearly
profit of nearly thirty millions of dollars
from letter-postage. But it takes all
this profit, and more too, to transport
the other and cheaper classes of mail,
to carry the immense mail of the Gov
eminent itself, and to extend mail facil-
tiles over newly settled regions
The development, extension and i'm
provement of the postal service has by
no means reached its limit. Many pro-
posed new steps in advance ara dis
cussed in the stmaster-General's an
nual report, lately submitted to the
President. The early reduction of let
ter-postage to one cent is one of these
measures; and it is shown that the ex-
listing deficit which now binders a far
Their reduction of letter postage, could
be removed, by legislation which would
prevent certain large losses in the adj
ministration of the department.
Other changes or improvements
looked forward to are postal telegraph
system, under which the Government
would take to itself the business of
telegraph communication in the same
way in which it takes the carrying of
letters; the use of pneumatic tubes for
messages in large cities; the establish
ment of savings banks at post-offices;
the establishment of house letter boxes
\ where lnttprS can mo racoivpd and
mailed; and free delivery in smaller
places than any which now have de-
livery by carriers. Youths Compan-