Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-07-05
How Missiyes Of Love and Messages
Of Trade Find Their Way to the
Parkway Countries.
~ DAYS is THE LONGEST TRIP,
While the Shortest in Point of Time Is That
to Liverpool, Which Is Made in
Less Than Seven.
ROUTES OF THE SEALED PACKAGES.
lcv the Letters Are Handled at the New York Post.
office and En- Rcute

and YOU will be told that the New York
Postof6ce is a model for the whole country
that no corporation can excel its economy
and efficiency; that no mail distributing
center on the face of the earth does so COM
plicated business with so little friction
that its system is very nearly perfect. 1t is
this agency through which some so per cent
Of our foreign mail matter passes
In the nature of things, the handling of these
letters addressed to and received from foreign
ports has many features of interest with
which the general public is unfamiliar The
cosmopolitan character of the population OF
all great American cities is brought out in
strong relief The insignifcance of the
National Merchant Marine forces itself on
the observer. But, if ne is a thoughtful
man, perhaps the most pregnant suggestion
of all is the real propinquity into which
modern commerce, assisted by the steam
giant, has brought the More diverse races
and the seaports most distant from one
another.
Mails Do What Gables Don't.
II is curious to note the work of the
electric cable, and to speculate on what the
iong distant telephone can do. But up to
the present time experiment holds this field,
and economic considerations make the use
of cable and long distance telephone a
costly diversion for the rich and an impossi-
bility to those who are in moderate circum-
stances. Therefore it cannot be assumed
that either of these agencies unites regions
geographically far apart, or brings unlike
people together. The mail does. Homely,
badly-written letters, full Of affection and
devoid of art, fly by ocean racers from the
son who is seeking his fortune here to the
old farm in Germany, or Scotland, or Eng
land. From France and ireland aud Italy
come questioning missives or appeals for
aid to the relative who has found footing
on the shores of the New World. Above
all things the mail service is popular in its
character.
In the New York Postoffice is a depart
ment given up entirely to the sending out of
foreign mails. The heaviest go to England
and Germany. But there are few centers of
savage or civilized population that are not
communicated with at one time or another
in the course of year. Let the observer
trace the journeys upon which some of these
mail bags destined for out-of-the-way places
are to start.
Southern Point of the Hemisphere.
SANDY Point, Patagonia" This bag will
be carefully slowed away ona United States
and Brazil steamship. 1t will be taken first
10 Rio Janeiro and thence to Buenos Ayres,
the metropolis of the Argentine Republic.
So far its trip will be commonplace enough. 1
At Buenos Ayres it will wait for some
British coasting vessel-all the South Amer
ican coasting vessels are British-and will
be slowly forwarded to its destination. If
the tramp" steamer has occasion to land
anything at Sandy Point this Yankee mail
bag will 60 TOO. If not, it may lie about
the coaster till the next trip. Our Govern
ment is so occupied with more important
things that It cannot afford time TO look after
these stray mails.
Rio and Beunos Ayres mails will be
shipped on the same lines to those ports.
IN the one case representatives of the new
Brazilian Republic will take out the letters
and hold them for individual owners to
make their claim. In the other a carrier
system is in operation and the letters will
go of more rapidly, though not so quickly
as in a United States city of the same size.
There are more letters from this country for
Beunos Ayres than for any other city in
South America, and of course most of them
are ofa commercial nature. We send
large amount of agricultural machinery to
the thriving Argentine Republic and aeon
siderable quantity of plain cotton goods and
calicoes and boots and shoes 1t is the opin-
ion of the postotfice authorities that Buenos
Ayres has better postal facilities than any
town on this hemisphere outside of the
United States and Canada Its American
colony is strictly mercantile in character,
and so far as can be judged by letters sent
and received is growing Larger every year.
To the Land of the Freedmen.
Monroe, Liberia" Here is a bag for
the little African colony, established long
laFor fha h., Alar l,nll Ill,
this country and regarded the expectation
end colonization of the Ethiopians then in
The United States as the only way of getting
rid of the blot on the National escutcheon
There aren't many letters for that country
row, but few come and go. How will this
Gag reach the west coast of Africa? Via
London, of course. 1t will go by a British
Packet line taking in Lisbon on the way
The packet will be loaded with beads and
:rinkets, and gunpowder and cotton cloth,
and on its return Will carry some gold and
much ivory. Perhaps there are letters in
this bag that will go far up into the interior
TO soHe little settlement where colored peo-
pie, thriving under their native palm trees, |
are still deeply interested in the land they |
left many years ago. 1t will be month be- |
fore these letters will get there. The time |
from New York to Monroe is 2S days, and |
the voyage down the African coast often |
Ndh6S lOhStE llIdn lttf Decn HgureQ on.
Here is a packet for st. Petersburg. 1t |
will be u DAYS before it reaches the Russian |
Capital Its route will be via London, the |
Hague, across Holland through corner of |
France, over the broad territory of the /
German Fatherland and so to Russia. When l
it comes into the hands of the Imperial of |
hcials this bag will be subjected to the |
closest scrutiny. The Cars postoffice dis |
trusts the American mails and applies to |
them a censorship fully as severe as those |
which come from England have to undergo
Woe to the unlucky subject to whom has |
been directed some letter with invidious |
political significance. The executive process |
is ready to railroad him to Siberia But |
the surveillance under which the mails are |
handled is SO well known to intelligent
Nihilists that there are few slips of this
description.
Another Trip to Africa.
''Cape Town How would YOU reach the
southernmost point of the Dark Continent?
Uncle Sam 3 mails take roundabout course
and occupy about so days in making the
"trip, The bag will go FIRST to London, then
20 Lisbon, through the Straits OF Gibraltar
and along the storied Mediterranean, through
the Suez Canal, and then down the east
coast Of Africa. The Yankee Republic does
some business in agricultural machinery
even with the remote Cape Colony, and
sometimes the mail bag is well tilled,
Kafir and Hottentot will watch the white
man of the interior as he opens the mystical
parcel herein contained, and reads the |
thought of a friend recorded under the
chilly sunlight of a spring day in New
York. The packet which has brought this
bag down the coast will have left one also