Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1894-06-08
NAIL BAGS.
MILLIONS NEEDED
FOR THE POSTAL SERVICE.
Some of Them Have to Stand Hard
Usage-How the Damaged
Bags Are Patched and
NIcnded.
THE cost of one -bushel bag

becomes mountainous. Such noun
tain was required to represent the
number of mail bags, pouches and
sacks used last year by the United
States Postoffice Department to handle
the business of the GO, 403 postofiices
in this country. Sixty per cent. OF
/ these 5000, 900 receptacles were used
by 6S, 402 postoflices, while the single
remaining Office on the list required
forty per cent, or 100000 of the
pouches and sacks. This single Office
is ut New York City.
All Bugs used by the postoffice de-
partment are not two-bushel bags.
There are variety of sizes and they
are designated rs leather pouches Tive
sizes), through register pouches three
sizes), catcher pouches lone size), horse
mail bags three Sizes, iute canvas
sacks three siZcs), United States for
eign register sacks -four Sizes, United
States foreign canvas sacks -four sizes),
domestic inner register sacks -four
sizes), one size of cotton canvas sacks,
and one size of coin sacks. Each size
of each kind of sack does certain kind
of service, and wherever any sack may
be doing duty mt any time, the mail
equipment division of tho postoffice
department at Washington can locate
it.
AS these sacks are made of leather,
or fabrics of cotton or iute, they will rip
and tear under certain conditions, and
rs they are dragged over floors of stone,
iron or wood Mt times, to be pitched
into wagons or cars, or to DO tossed
upon rocks or hard frozen ground &C.
casionally, these injurious conditions
are frequently present. This is pnr-
ticularly the case with the catcher
pouches, which, thrown off from and
taken aboard of trains, travelling fifty
or sixty miles an hour, get unusually
hard knocks. Thus, it is no trifing
matter to look after the welfare of the
mail bags of the country, and for this
reason the Government has established
and conducts the mailbag and lock-
repair shop in Washington.
Postmasters throughout tho country
are instructed to prevent, daily, any
surplus mail bag or lock, in good con-
dition, from lying idle, by shipping
such excess of supplies to the ware
house and shop at Washington. They
are also notified that it is not lawful
to use any such bag MS convenience
for the storing of records or the re-
ception of waste paper or for any pur-
pose not leeitimately under the head
of the transportation of nails, and,
finally, when any bag shows the slightest
rip or tear, or when any lock is bent
out of shape, or, for any reason fails
to work easily and securely, those arti-
cles must bo at once shipped to the
shop.
For this reason the shop IN question
is very busy and interesting place.
1t is in five story building, Mt Nos.
479 and 491 G street, N. w, and it is
50x140 feet in size. From $4,000 to
$4,000 mail bags are received each day
at the repair shop, and rs you enter
the lower floor where the receiving
clerk and his assistants perform their
duties, you see one single apartment
fifty feet wide by 140 feet deep, which
is occupied by tiers of empty bags,
sacks and pouches, neatly piled ten
and twelve feet high, and looking quite
like storeroom for the exhibition of
bolts of iute and cotton fabrics and
various qualities of leather.
The inspectors pack the damaged
bags in lots of ten, taking five badly
damaged and five slightly damaged for
each lot, the leather bags, the jute
bags and the canvas bags being kept
separate. From the inspectors these
lots are distributed to the repairing
department, the leather bags going to
the leather workers and the other ones
going to those who work on lutte or
canvas. By the operation of this
system, it will be seen, there can be
no favoritism in the distribution OF
workbench workman gets five badly
damaged and five slightly damaged
bags to work upon. All repairing is
done by piece work. There are IO4
women employed in the repairing of
lute and canvas bags, and they receive
three and one-half cents per bap.
They work eight hours n day, and earn
from 81 to 81 % a day. An interest.
ing fact connected with the duties of
these workers is, that they are sup
piled daily between noon and half-past
IL o'clock, free of charge, with all the
coffee, milk and sugar they may desire,
as an accompaniment to the lunches
they bring. These supplies and they
are OF the very best quality-are OBJ.
tanned by money received from the
sale of junk accumulations at the shop.
The hopelessly damaged sacks arc
only hopeless in n certain sense. Thew
cannot be repaired, and retain their
identity, but they are of service. AT
ter being sorted according to the ma.
terial of which they are made, they
are sent to the foreman of the ieathe,
shop, and the shop where lutte and
canvas bags are repaired. There thew
are inspected for salvage. The top OF
one bag is found to exc out perfect
bag by the aid of bottom from \
second bag, one side from another and
a second side from fourth bag. So
expert are these foremen in fittino
salvage bits together in almost in.