The Bourbon news., 1899-11-07
FREE DELIVERY.
Annual Report of the First Assistant
Postmaster General Perry Heath.
The Adoption of Uniform Style of Mail
Box for the Service to Be Put Up
and Kept in Repair BY the
Department Urged.

department. urged.
WASHINGTON, Nov. GA vigorous
plea for rural free delivery is made in
the annual report of First Assistant
Postmaster General Perry S. Heath,
made public Sunday night.
Mr.. Heath says the service so far has
resulted in increased postal receipts;
enhancem ent OF the value of farm
lands reached by rural free delivery of
from 50 to So per acre; a general i'm
provemeEt of the condition of the
roads traversed by the rural carriers;
better prices for farm products, the
producers being brought into daily
touch with the state of the markets,
besides educational benefits conferred
by relieving the monOtony of farm life
through ready access to wholesome lit
erature and knowledged of current
events.
On November rural free delivery
was in successful operation over 3S3
services, radiating over 40 states and
one territory, Idaho, Wyoming, Mis-
sissippi and Montana being the only
states unrepresented.
Between the beginning of the new
fiscal year, July l, 1899, and November
l, an additional expenditure of $3.50, 900
rural free delivery has been extended
to nearly $50, 900 persons, at an annual
cost of about S4 cents per capita against
an average per capita cost of s.. so in
small towns of ), 900 population.
1T is small matter to a resident of
town." says the report, Ito be saved
a walk of a few hundred yards to the
post Office, while on the contrary it is
great accommodation to the farmer
to be spared a drive of five or ten miles
over cordurOys roads to get his mail.
In recent public discussion advocates
of the system who took the value of
the time thus lost in the busy farming
season at only so cents per head found
that their figures run up into many
millions of dollars lost to the agricul-
tural interests through being obliged
to send to the village for the mails
Rural carriers are shortly to be au-
thorized to receive and receipt for let
ters for registration as city carriers do
now.
The report recommends the adoption
of some uniform style of mail box for
the rural free delivery service, with
two compartments, one for delivery
and one for collection, with one mas
ter key for the carrier to open the col
lection compartments of all the boxes
and key for the delivery compart-
ment to be furnished to each patron of
the delivery.
These boxes are to be put up and
kept in repair by the post Office de-
partment, for rental at moderate
prices which would not only pay the
government interest on its investment
but yield revenue. The rural mail
boxes would thus have thrown around
them the undisputed protection of the
United States laws. By illustration
Westchester, Pa, not only paid for it
self but left in the nine months of it's
operation up to September So bal
ance of $593, after delivering 155, sos
pieces of mail matter at the
doors of the farmers. The reports
of hostilities of postmasters and from
star route contractors are dismissed as
having no substantial grounds and as
animated by. no desire for the
public good. A modification of
the postal laws is recommended to
| permit star route messengers under
special appointment and oath to per-
form rural free delivery service. -Four
additional postal wagon routes with
auxiliary carriers in the travelling
rural post Office whose experimental
operation in Carroll county, Mary land,
has attracted general interest, is re-
commended.