The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-06-12
THE POSTAL SERVICE.
Its Vast Improvement Since the
Days Of Charles Lamb.
POSTAL SAVINGS BANKS NEEDED.
Small Omces Should Be Consolidated
Control Of the Telegraph and TEL
ephOne by the Government.

No branch of the government service
has improved so surely and steadily as the
postoffice department. Charles Lamb, in
the beginning of this century, while cor
responding with friend of his who had
been sent to the Orient, looked upon writ
ing letters to him at such great distance
as huge joke. He informed the absent
one that a certain friend was dead, an
other divorced, a third in Jail and a fourth
bankrupt. These were simply untruths,
but Lamb in defending his position
gravely argued that they might be true by
the time the letter reached his friend the
following year.
AT the present time the most distant
point on the civilized globe can be reached
by mail in three months time. Within
the last ten years the average time of
postal service between New York and
London has been reduced more than
twenty-four hours; several ships now run
between New York and the British
Isles in six days: the mails are now
carried to Venezuela by regular steamers
instead of by sailing vessels; the
mails from Sydney, New South Wales.
which formerly reached New York via
London in forty-two days now get here in
S"Shey -AAhS udyS, tuC tIIlc DcLW cen no
Janeiro and New York has been reduced
from thirty to twenty-five days. The mail
from Yokohama via Vancouver and the
Canadian Pacific railway. reaches Boston
in fifteen and half days. Letters reach
the most remote points in Africa and
Asia all the way from thirty to forty-five
days.
The seaport offices recently introduced
into the foreign mail service have been
very successful: the incoming mail is now
expedited from two hours to week.
The advantages of this new system are
illustrated by this example: On Thurs
day morning at 7:30 a European mail
reached the New York postoffice On the
way across the ocean it had been thor
oughly assorted, SO that the city carriers at
once took their portion of it for delivery at
8 :45 a. m. The portion bound for Chicago
and other Western points left the Grand
central station at ga. m, and was ready
for delivery in that city before noon on
Friday. Business men could answer their
letters in time to reach the European
steamer which sailed for Europe at $3.50 on
Saturday afternoon. Before the introduce
ton of the sea postoffices the mail would
not have left for Chicago until Thursday
night, and replies could not have been
sent by steamer until the following Tues
day.
The proposition to establish postal
savings banks is not new. Postmaster
General Creswell in 1871 recommended
their establishment on the ground that
immense wealth would. by their means,
be gathered, and being cared for by the
government. would have the effect of up
holding confidence in the country in times
of threatened financial disaster. In 1880
Postmaster-General Maynard expressed
the opinion that the system would be
even more advantageous to the United
States than if has proved to have been in
foreign countries.
In 1882 Postmaster-General Howe fav.
ored the scheme, remarking that the post
office "need not be substitute for the
savings bank nor its rival, but it's feeder
place where small deposits, with slow
accretions, may securely grow into large
ones, then to be transferred to savings
banks on larger terms and with larger
earnings"
The postal savings bank system is sue.