The age-herald., 1897-08-15
RURAL FREE DELIVERY
Reports of Inspectors on the Re
 SuItS and Trials.
A REMARKABLE INCREASE
The Present Cost and the Possibility of De mands For Large Increase of
 Carriers Pay

"A peculiarity about this rual delivery is the low price for which the carriers are willing to work. In the experimental at- tempt, the government inspectors have been authorized to engage the man who would do it the cheapest, provided, of course, that he gave evidence of respon- sibility, such as being able to provide $500 bond. In North Carolina one suc1 cessful bidder took his job at $175 a year, and furnished his own conveyance, There arr several $250 men, but $500 seems to be the regulation price, and it is said by the department to be amply sufficient to hire all the men wanted to do this work in the rural districts. The prin- cipal applicants ar= farmers boys, who have barn filled with horses, and to whom $500 in clean money looks large.
 In case the government should es- tablish a rural delivery on an extensive scale, however, 1t is not likely that this price would long stand. The carriers in offices in cities having a population of 75,000 now receive $500, $500 and $1 ,000,i according to the length of their service. In the cities of under 1000 inhabitants they receive $e00 and $S50. While it. would doubtless be possible for the gov W done in the rural districts at the price now paid government operations never come out that way. Once make the system universal throughout the coun- try, and th:se rural carriers would or ganize into associations, which in the sparsely settled districts would develop considerable political power Then some warm-hearted friend of the poor toiling ric in, r,1o in the house, and ask to have twice as much money from the government treas nry applied for this purpose. Every congressman who had a large rural car rier element in his district would be afraid to vote against such a project, and so it would be carried, and whereas the government from it's experimental tests now estimates that free delivery night be made general for $60,000,000 a year more, it would soon find itself in prac- tice paying twic- IS much for that ser- vice. It should be borne in mind that rural delivery might thus cost double what is now reckoned, and on the basis of that probability the system should be judged.
 But the enormous advantage to the public of rural delivery cannot be over estimated When the amount of time that 1t requires for each farmer to get to the postoffice is taken into account, it would doubtless be very great sav- ing to society as a whol4 to have one man regularly undertake this task, even if he was paid $500 year instead of $500 for doing so. It is estimated by the de- partment that this free delivery would cut off at lsast 25 per cent. of the expen- ses of fourth-class postoffices. Many of them would be discontinued, and the expenses would be reduced all round.
 From the N. r.. Evening Post.
 Washington, D. C., August 7.-Congress appropriated $50,000 last winter to enable the postoffice department to make experi- ments in rural free delivery" There had been other attempts at extending the free delivery system beyond the limits allowed by existing law, notably, MT. Wanamaker's experiments in the villages and smaller towns, which came to an end on July l, 1896, through failure of con gress to appropriate for their further continuance. It was thought best by the department, however, to undertake a system of free delivery in the strictly rural districts, outside of the limits of the incorporated villages, and certain typical townships in different parts of 5 the country were selected. The inspect ors sent out to observe the results of : these trials have now returned to Wash fngton, and the department is making up formal report for submission to con- gress in December.
 The plan of the rural free delivery is this: The government pays the carriers on an average about $500 a year. and each man must furnish kis own horse and cart, or bicycle, if he prefers. The department does not object to his com bining other work with that of the pos tai business, so long as it does not iil- terfere with the reasonably prompt de- livery of the mail. The carrier may, for instance, receive and deliver telegrams and express packages, and he may sell writing paper and supplies of that kind, and also have an agency for the sale of stamps. He must make one trip a day, and the distance covered ranges from sixteen to twenty-four miles, and the area taken care of averages, in the ex- perimental cases, about twenty three square miles per man. In the south. where the town is built up on one main road, and the people live in back from the highway on either side in somewhat irregular locations. the department has aimed to establish routes along the turn pike and then the householders in the districts "back from the road are aI- lowed to put up mail boxes on the high1 way at the most convenient point for each family, and into these the carrier on his daily trip deposits the mail and takes up whatever letters are left there No attempt is made to cover every house in township. The department simply ; maps out route which will give the carrier reasonable days work, and of course in so doing tries to provide for the largest possible number of people. But those who are not taken care of must either go to the distant postof1ice as be- fore or arrange for boxes somewhere along the line. Besides taking up the mail at each house, the department es- tablishes collection boxes at convenient road crossings. Sometimes in this way