Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1892-08-04
POST OFFICES OF THE WORLD.
They Are All 10 BE Brought Together In One
Publication.

Amey AfS All 70 ne brought IOxetnef In One
Publication.
Carelessness in addressing apd mailing postal
matter is so prevalent that il is now recognized
by the Post Office Department as among the
necessary evils. For number of years past the
department has sought by means Of urgent ap-
peals and a series Of annual sermons and exhor-
tations to reform the American people in this
respect, but somehow the reform has Jagged
and the percentage Of carelessness has continued
undiminished. While not missing an opportunity
to deliver the usual lecture on this topic, the
department has in recent years adopted several
methods by which the things that ought to be
done by the people who mail letters are done by
the department. For example, most Of the
large post Offices now maintain q directory Of
their own Of the inhabitants Of the city where
the Office is located. In this way a good many
letters find their way to their proper owners
which either through some deficiency in
the address or wrong address would
never reach their destination. There isin use
in post Offices book which gives the names Of
all the streets in every city in the United States
In addition the Postal Guide, which is pub
lished quarterly, prints a list of all the post
Offices in the United States. AL these helps
are found to be Of value in securing the cor
rect delivery of mail matter. and in conse-
each year into the dead letter Office is really be-
ginning to show some signs Of diminishing.
WORLDS DIRECTORY.
Perhaps the most important move in this
direction is the one authorized by the recent
universal postal congress held in Vienna. 1t is
nothing more nor less than an effort to bring
together in one publication the names of all
the post Offices in the world, or what is practi-
cally the same thing, the post offices in all the
countries embraced within the postal union.
How large a work this will make, how many
volumes will be required is not definitely known.
In fact this is the first time the attempt has
been made to collect such data. 1t is not known
even how many post Offices there are in the
world. Several of the countries do not even
publish a list of the post Offices within their
own territory. In this country there are
over 65, 900 post offices. Then there are Great
Britain. France, Germany. all the powers of
the world, both great and small. with their
array of post Offices, which have to be taken
into account by the compiler OF this volume.
The great work of preparing this volume has
been begun at Berne, Switzerland. under the
direction OF the international bureau Of the
postal union. A circular has been issued to
each country requesting that list of the post
Offices within the territory of each be furnished.
Capt. Brooks the superintendent of the for
eign mails, Is now having prepared a list of the
post offices in this country, which will be COM
plete up to the LIST of July. He intends to for
ward this data to Berne, where it will appear in
the proposed publication. 1t is not expected
that the volumes of this new directory of the
worlds post Offices will be ready for distribu-
ton before July, 1898. In the case of countries
where the characters Of the language differ
from those used by English-speaking peoples the
list Of Offices will be printed in French. In oil
cases the lists will appear in the language of the
country.