El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1899-09-13

possible handle public funds, regard
less of the question of convenience to
the people. 1t is to be presumed thai
they knew with whom they were deal
Ing, and 1t is not for me to criticize.
Those who are not familiar with the
working machinery of the modern
American postOfice would not be able
to fully appreciate the difference be-
tween it and the Manila Office as
found it on the 18th of August. al
though they could not fail to notice
that the whole postoffice outfit was
very crude. There was not such q thing
as letter case for distribution; that
is to cay, cases with pigeonholes simi-
lar to postoffice delivery boxes. Let
shelves, and taken out when dispatch
was to be made and sorted on 9 table.
There were four of these cupboards,
each with folding doors, with shelves
labeled to show what mail they con-
tanned. A bill was made out for evsry
package dispatched, showing so many
official letters and 80 many private let
tiers, to be tied up in the package.
There were no paper racks. Paper
mail was not distributed directly into
sacks, but was placed in boxes la beled
to town, province or country arranged
in rows on the sides of the mailing
room. When q dispatch was to be
made the papers were taken from the
| boxes, counted and placed in sack
with the letters. Sacks were sealed;
no locks were used on any mail. For
| the Spanish mails aud foreign ex-
changes q very good quality of canvas
sack was used, but for inter-insular
| communication the sacks used were
not of better quality than the wheat or
potato sacks in use in the states.
There we're no lock boxes, or boxes
accessible to the public. In fact, l
have not been able to find such thing
as a modern lock of Yale pattern 10
Manila: nor was l, until recently, able
to secure an ordinary spring lock for
the postoffice door so that the door may
be kept locked without boiling or lock-
ing it from the inside.
The boxes for city delivery were ar
ranged around three sides of . quad
rangular space of which the fourth side
faced the lobby and had two delivery
windows. Mail was called for at these
windows. Every box holder had issu-
ed to him pastebOard receipt and this
was presented by the party calling for
mail. Some of the boxes had numbers
showing that at one time in bygone
years the boxes had been numbered,
but the few numbers that are left are
80 irregularly thrown around that it is
not possible to ascertain what system
was used without the key, and that I
have not found. The genersl-delivery
ration of mail alphabetically, to expe-
dite delivery, is an unknown quantity
here. On arrival of q mail all the let
ters for the generali delivery were
numbered and list made of them and
posted on the bulletin board. The
lists were numbered consecutively and
the package of letters was given the
number of the list corresponding.
When any one called for letter the
him the caller would go to The
| window. and ask, for instance,
for No. POS, on list No: 3, and No. 160,
on list No. l. An attempt was made
to keep letters of foreigners on
separate lists. but when took posses
sion found such letters badly mixed
with the Spanish mails. have found
| it advisable to run two general delive-
ry windows; one for Spanish letters ex-
| clusively, in charge of Spanish en-
ployes, and the other for other classes,
in charge of soldier detailed to post
office duty. AT first there was q little
difficulty in keeping the Spaniards
from causing letters of other nstionali-
ties to become mixed with their own,
but they soon caught on" after be-
any more such letters were found in
the Spanish case. When instructed to
to case their letter alphabetically,
instead of using the surname they
used the given or Ciristian'name Juan
Soler, for instance, would find his name
in the 50" box, instead of the "S'
box.
The mails received were handled in
very awkward fashion. For letters
they used both small baskets and a
semi-circular case with seven apart
tiers were dropped into these apart
ments and when they were full the
opening of trap door in the bottom let
the letters out into basket. After
this operation they were badly mixed
and bad to be faced up again for a Sec
Ond and little finer separation. They
were thus handled being finally laid to
rest in their respective boxes for deli
very. When the small baskets were
used the process was the same as far
as the mixing and rehandling was con-
cerned.
For the paper mail they used large
table about 1Ox6 feet, with four holes
in the middle. These holes were label
ed Foreigners official, '"S pa nish,"
and provinces, and under each hole
was placed large basket. Mail was
dumped out on the table and the Office
force stood around and distributed it
according to the above separations.
After this first separation each basket
had to be reworked in order to separate
matter for carriers, boxes and general
delivery. They had carrier service;
that is, carrier service of ye olden
time. The carriers were paid no sal
aries by the government, but depended
for living upon the fees they collect
ed from the recipients of letters. The
usual charge was 2 cents for letters and
cent for paper. AS this service cost
no nnthincr ia