The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1899-11-03
A BIG YEARS WORK.


Rural Mail Carrier, John 'Sprague, Handle,
Nearly 1000 Pieces of Mail Matter
Rural Free Delivery, Success from TIT
Start, has Been Becoming a Create
Success Every Month.
MIR. John Sprague completed exactly
one year of service as rural mail carrier
Tuesday evening when he returned
from the delivering of the days mail OF
eight hundred two pieces, weighing
eighty nine pounds, put out his horse
and made out his. reports for the day,
the month, and the year. The growth
of the service may be seen at glance
when it is stated that instead of the
eight hundred two pieces delivered on
the last day of the year, the first day,
November l, 1898, saw but one hundred
fifty 1.-TWO pieces delivered over the same
routes. All the remarks as to the sue
cessful operation of the route during
the first six months of its existence APP
ply with added force to the last six
months and to the whole year. while if
Mr.. F. M. Dice, of Charlottesville, Ind,
who laid out this route, intended it to be
a record breaker, he certainly must feel
congratulated at the showing it has
made.
The report of the rural free delivery
service for the fiscal year ending June
30, 1899, is not out yet, attic the de-
partment is working on it and will
doubtless have it out soon, but a COM
parison of the reports of all the routes
in operation on June 30. 1898, fails to
show any route which approached the
number of pieces delivered on these
routes covered daily bysMr. Sprague.
Many of those routes had two and three
carriers on them and this makes COM
PARSONS somewhat unsatisfactory, while
many others had been in operation but
short time previous to the making out
of the report so that no fair estimate of
their years work, to say nothing of
their first years work, can be obtained
from it. Of all those, however, which
had been in operation long enough to
have full years report made of their
business there was not one on which d
record was made at all comparable
with this one of Mr.. Sprague. In fact,
there were only four routes in the
United States on which the total num-
Der of pieces handled during the fiscal
year, 1897-98, was greater than that
handled on Mr.. Sprague's route in the
twelve months just ended To Offset
this, however, it should be stated that
on tive of these routes there were two
carriers each employed while on the 9TH
or two there were three employed on
each. The total number Of pieces
handled on those four routes which ex-
coed Mr.. Sprague's in number of pieces
handled was 18.179, an average of 5I,-
61S pieces per carrier per year while as
shown in the summary below the num-
Der of pieces carried by Mr.. Sprague
came snear touching the one hundred
thousand mark or nearly twice as much
as the above average for the ten car
riers on the only districts which exceed.
ed this in the number of pieces carried.
Since the establishment of the first
experim entail routes many mistakes
have been corrected and the average
number of pieces handled by the car
riers and average number of families
served have been both considerably in
creased. Thus it is more than proba-
BILE that the forthcoming report will
not show such discrepancy between
the work done on the Owosso route and
that done on such big majority of the
rest. At the same time enough has al
ready been seen to show that this route
is one of whose showing the department
may well be pleased. and as the better
the showing made by the routes already
established, the greater will be the likeli-
hood of rapid extension of the service,
Owosso and Shiawassee county may
well feel local pride in this route. A
summary of the years work is added
for any who may wish to preserve the
figures for reference or who may wish
to note the growth of the service.
The total number of pieces handled
during the year was 99,5s9 divided up
among the various classes of mail mat.
ter as follows: Delivered, registered
letters IA, letters 1926, postal cards
3. 1Os, newspapers and circulars 74,624,