Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1892-08-31
ABOUT POSTAGE STAMPS.
Billions of Them Used AnnuaIfy-The Spe
cial DeliYarY Ee.

Billions of Them Used AnnuaIEy-The Spe-
cial Delivery Feature.
1t is barely fifty years since this con-
venience was introduced into the United
States. The stamp is a little older in
England. When first introduced post
age stamps were sold in solid sheets.
VI course great many were wasted in
the effort to tear them apart when
there were no perforations. Indeed,
the loss and inconvenience was so great
that the government offered liberal
reward for patent which would over
come the difficulty. The first machine
submitted was one which cut the
stamps nearly but not entirely apart.
While the postoffiee department was
considering; this machine the idea of
perforating the sheets in rows each
way was offered and promptly accepted.
Nothing better has ever been sought.
There was time when better paper
and muF:ilage was used, and when the
printing was an improvement upon the
present, stamps, but since we have
Learned that damp spongue is fully as
good as the tongue in preparing the
stamps for adhesion the quality of the
mGte rails used becomes of less impor-
tance.
The number of postage stamps used in
year is something enormous. For
instance, the ordinary postal revenue
Tor the year ending June 80, 1891, eX-
elusive of the money order business,
was S65, 065, 293. 81. Of this S41, 432, 129.-
so came from letter postage The bulk
of this is, of course, in 2-cent stamps,
and it is safe to put the whole number
/ of this denominati ton used at more than
! two billions per annum The issuing
of postage stamps, stamped en-
| velopes and newspaper wrappers
| all belong to one of the divisions under
the care of the third assistant postmas-
! ter general. There is another division
of the same bureau which looks after
! the registered letters, and still another
which attends to the system for the
special delivery of letters. The CLASH
fcation of mail matter belongs to this
bureau, and it is with the third assist
ant postmaster general or his clerks
that newspapers and periodicals have
to quarrel over their rights to official
entry as second-class matter.
A ten-cent special delivery stamp on
a letter is supposed to keep it in con-
slant motion from the time the letter is
deposited in the main or branch post
office until it is delivered to the adj
dressee. There is likely to be lit
tie delay in the starting of a
letter when it is deposited in a
letter box instead of a post Office, but
everything must make way for special
delivery letters after they once get into
the vicinity of mailbag The clerk
hustles them out with the first mail
leaving the Office, and puts them on the
outside of packages or in bundle by
themselves, so that the next official can
see them at once. If the Specialize
livery stamp is put on a package of sec
ond, third or fourth-class matter, it has
to be treated in a frst-class manner
that is, it goes into a pouch instead of
sack, and is pushed through just as
rapidly as letter bearing the same
stamp. Last year there were over two
and half millions of pieces sent by
special delivery, and it is interesting to
note that the average time consumed
in the delivery of each parcel after it
reached the post Office of the addressee
was only twenty minutes. skate Field S
Washington.