The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-06-14
The Railway Postal clerks.

A bill designed to benefit the railway
postal clerks and to improve the service
passed the Senate Saturday and
will be called up in the House
shortly. It provides for "a re-
classification of the clerks. the creation
of two new classes and a readjustment of
the scale of salaries. The salaries are to
range from mot exceeding $500" year
to mot exceeding 81, 500 The Postmas-
ter General, in fixing the salaries of the
clerks, is to fix them according to the
amount of work done, the number of
hours on duty and the responsibility in
Cured by each clerk; but he ''shall not
in any case allow a higher salary to any
clerk of any class than the maximum
fixed by this act for the class to which
such clerk belongs" The act further pro
vides for the paymentof the necessary ex-
penses of the clerks when they shall be
detailed for special work.
There is little doubt that the railway
mail clerks are among the hardest
worked and poorest paid employees in the
governments service. And besides the
work being hard physically, it requires
the constant exercise of a high order of
mental power. Take, for example. the
run of a railway mail clerk from Charles
ton to Jacksonville; the clerk must be
perfectly familiar with the name and
county of location of every postoffce in
South Carolina, Georgia, Florida and at
least a part of Alabama, the nearest
route by which each office can be reached,
the schedules of connections by which
mails are to be forwarded
he must know, in case an acct
dent or other delay breaks a connec-
tion, the next quickest route by which
mails may be sent, must be thoroughly
posted on the general orders issued
twice week, aud be prepared any time
and all the time to double his time on
duty if anemergency require it. In the
three states of South Carolina,
Georgia and Florida there are
something like 1000 postofices. To
learn these offices and their locations
and routes so that the whole scheme will
be as readily at hand as the multiplied
ton table requires application and intel
Agence. And that much must be done
before a clerk can take a run
uC railway utdil SbINlCt db lLS luCep-
tion covered less than 100000 miles and
was operated by $500 clerks 1t has
grown to embrace nearly 200, 600 miles,
but the number of clerks has not grown
correspondingly, Notwithstanding the
great increase of matter handled OBJ
viously it is poor policy and false economy
to try to conduct the service now on the
same plan and with a relatively smaller
force than when the service was first in
stituted. The people who patronize the
mails, having become used to highly eff
ficient service, will not be satisfied with
any other kind. But efficiency cannot be
expected from overburdened and under
paid clerks, especially when they have
not the stimulus of the prospect of pro-
motion ahead of them
The REIMBURSEMENT proposed by the
pending bill would give the best clerks an
opportunity TO work themselves to the
front and secure better pay it would i'm
prove the service by making the force
more nearly adequate to the work and it
would do but simple justice to the clerks
by paying their extra expenses when they
are ordered on extra duty. The bill should
be passed.