The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-02-18

from him the stamps they require, of- fering to deliver them on the premises. This is frequently done, the postmaster bringing into town every day several | thousands stamps and selling them to the large firms and corporations, Of course the more he sells the larger his salary, and he is usually very indus | trious. The evil does not stop here. | Sometimes the secretary does not prove | so obliging, or the corporation is not | friendly to the postmaster. It then becomes matter of business. which means split in the commissions. The | postmaster offers to divide his salary, or rather pay commission on each letter mailed at his office by the repre- | sentative of the concern. Where a firm is sending out thousand letters day this soon becomes a matter of con siderable profit to both the postmaster and the obliging friend; or else the postmaster offers a small reduction on the stamps. As he is paid for selling them, he can afford to sacrifice part of the profit, and by selling 10000 or 10000 stamps in a lump he can put the price down considerably Even if the 1 firm saves only few dollars, it is 8 reduction it could not obtain at the general postoffice, and many of the large houses in New York buy all their stamps in this way. There are hun- dred concerns in New York, such as wholesale firms, commission houses, in- surance, railroad and steamship com panies. that use more than a thousand stamps a day, and the saving of a few dollars on each 10000 means something in the course of the year
 'This business is well known and there is good reason to believe that some persons in New York are shrewd enough to make fair living by beat ing the department, for this is scheme that can be worked both ways at once. Suppose, for instance, that you are the secretary of large insur- ance company, using thousand stamps day. The postmaster at your town is paid by the amount of his can cellations. You are on friendly terms 1 with him, as you are with the postmas ter at another town near by. who is paid according to the gross receipts. | You agree with the first to bring out | your mail every evening, and are net by him at the train. With the other you arrange to take 60o0 stamps a week, which he delivers at your house in the suburbs or at your office in town. From both you get commission, from the one for the stamps and from the other for the mailing. Now put the two together and you will find that you are getting at least onefourth of your stamps for nothing. The stamp bill of your firm is $6,0O0 year and you are receiving $1, 800 year for your trouble. Quite an agreeable addition | to the ordinary salary and you also have the pleasure of knowing that you are helping two friends As there are many men in New York who are just as wise as you, the department be- lieves that this sort of thing has been going on for years. Of course nothing can be done with the individual, and with the postmaster the department is restricted to dismissal.
 While this is apparently a harmless piece of business enterprise, it works great detriment to the department, to the local offices and to the postmas- ters. The people who are engaged in it are defrauding the government to this extent that they are compelling 1t to pay twice for the service performed and they are obtaining their stams at a discount, thus forming favored class. Any one knows that the government has always prided itself on the fact that no matter how many stamps a person buys, he pays the same price as the purchaser of one stamp.
 "The evil has spread all through the country. There is scarcely an office In the land where some one is not con- ducting business of this kind and making profit out of it. We discov- cred the extent of it when we took in the smaller towns about Chicago, Bos- ton and Baltimore. In every case the receipts of the office increased, and 1t was due to large extent to the fact that the office was getting the business which belonged to it. There is no doubt that the receipts of the New York office are greatly affected by this system, and that after the consolida- tion the recepts will take an upward tendency. The small postmasters will become salaried clerks and they will no longer have the incentive to sell stamps in New York, and they will cease the practice. Both the New York postoffice and the department will be benefited by it.-New York Sun.