St. Paul daily globe., 1892-12-06
Wanamaker Makes Mention
OF the Years Chief De-
velopm ents.
Successful Free Delivery and
House Door Collec-
tions.
One-Cent Letter Postage Re-
>. garded as a New Pos
sibility.
His Ideal Of a Postal Service
Modelled on the District
Plan.


master general mentions at the begin-
nlng of his annual report to the presi-
dent the chief developments of the year,
as follows: Five million dollars added
to the gross revenue; the deficit re-
duced nearly million; money order
offices increased two-thirdS, or from
lO,O7O to 1869: 50 cities supplied with
free delivery; 1880 new offices estab-
lished; 263 offices advanced to the pres
ldentlal grade; sixteen and three
fourths millions OF miles of additional
service; 1880 new mail routes estab-
llshed. embracing $500 miles of new
service; ocean mail service extended
and pneumatic tube service introduced.
Ii appears that in the last four years
5,50l new mail routes have been estab-
llshed. traversing $3.50 miles, that
The Number of POstofiices
has grown by over 5000, the number of
money order offices over $500 and the
number of free delivery offices has al
most doubled. The postmaster general
adds:
II give you undoubted evidence, in
the midst OF all this Wonderful growth,
OF the steady Improvement of the Serv-
ice, and every postal worker may right
fully feel it to be personal compliment
TO himself"
Mr. Wanamaker then mentions the 60
per cent Increase in money order offices,
the use of stamp cancelling machines.
the establishment of a postal museum,
the 50 per cent increase in free delivery
offices. The new Washington poStoffice,
compilation Of postal laws and regu-
latOns, saving of a million dollars on
mail contracts and of $150.000 on
stamped paper, so per cent more officially
distributions on trains, the sorting of
mails III transit on street cars, the SIM
plification of bookkeeping methods for
all the postoffices, three new kinds of
postal cards and new series of stamps,
safe registry OF mails and Surer collec-
tion of periodical postage.
Foreign Mail Service.
The new foreign mail service con-
tracted for under the advertisement of
July Is, 1891, and also under the a..ver-
tiSement of May %. 1892, went into
operation. The contracts and terms
have been published heretofore. The
new ocean mail service applies to eleven
lines, comprising, when completed,
fOrty-one ships of $500 tonnage. The
total outlay up to July l, 1892, for the
foreign mail service performed and eX-
pedited under the new policy, was
$120.579, and the cost of the service for
the present fiscal year will be greater.
On free delivery the postmaster general
says:
The experiments have related to
villages, but it has been a daily service
and it has cleared profit. 1t is easy
enough, therefore, to say that the free
delivery can be extended further and
further; and it ought to be done,
| whether it pays profit to the depart
ment or not. | believe fully that the
| great aG9anceS could be made in the di-
rection of country free delivery by an
evolution of the star route service, and
we would set
Free Delivery
to persons living along the highways
traversed by the star route contractors.
with little if any increased cost to the
| department in very few years"
In the matter of the collection of mail
| from letter boxes at house doors, MIR.
Wanamaker said:
"ln Washington city, where the test
| of one of these boxes was made for one
month, an hour or more per day was
saved to the carrier, and in st. Louis.
| where the test of another one of these
boxes was purpOsely made as hard as
possible, it was found that there was
| actually no loss of time; and the post
masters of st. Louis and Washington
! promptly and unqualifiedly declared
| that the collection of mail from houses
could be undertaken by the present car
rier forces. The work of introducing
the house letter box is now vigorously
under way"
OF his proposition to divide the coun-
try into postal districts, Mr.. Wana-
maker says:
"This, like the other great postal re-
forms, can he only question of time.
The proposed system would accomplish
in practical way the purpose of the
bill to select fourtli-class postmasters
without political Intervention. We
shall soon grow to 100000 postoffices
and to $50, 600 or 100000