Cochise review., 1900-09-18
RURAL FREE MAILS.
Its Establishment and Growth in the
 Post Office Department.
The System So Recently Introduced HaS Proven to Be Successful Has Been . Great Help ts
 Country Roads.

introduction of any system of rural free delivery of letters and papers would be impracticable as involving an expenditure, of $20,O00,O0 year with out any commensurate revenue. In his annual report for 1894 Postmaster Gen eral Bissell declined to spend the ap- propriation of $10,0O0 made by con- gress to test the feasibility of rural free delivery. When congress in- creased the appropriation for test to $20,000 in 1895, Postmaster General Will son adopted the opinion of his prede- cessor and of the house committee on the post office and post roads that the plan of establishing rural free delivery was wholly impracticable. He added that he had assumed control of the de- pertinent too late in the fiscal year 10 take any action under the appropria- tion, but should congress see fit to make it available for the current year he would carry out the experiment or dered by the best methods he could de- wise.
 Congress made 10000 available for the purpose, and in ls96 Postmaster General Wilson put the idea to its first test. The experiment was entirely sue cesstul, and since then the system of rural free delivery has been so general ly extended that it now includes 3s3 distributing points in Al of the 45 states, the exceptions being Idaho, Montana, Mississippi and Wyoming. By degrees the appropriation has been increased from $20,OO0 to $15O, 1000, and 1t is $300,O00 for this year.
 At the head of the states served by rural free delivery is Ohio, the most favored state, with 49 routes, Indiana having A and Iowa 23. The develop ment of the system, however, has for typographical reasons been very irreg- ular. Thus, in Texas there are only two rural free delivery routes, while in South Carolina there are 21. In Wash ington there is one only, while in Cali fornia there are IA, and in Louisiana. Alabama and Florida there are three routes only, while in Maine there are seven.
 In the opinion of the post office au- thorities, however, the present system is only in its incipiency and among the plans in view for it's further extension is one for rural free delivery of mail by electric cars. Some farmers and other residents of the northeastern part of Massachusetts and the adjoining New Hampshire territory have taken steps in this matter, the idea having occurred to them few weeks ago, when they first received an electric car service erly ran between Exeter and Ames- bury.
 The free delivery of letters in cities was inaugurated by the post office de- partment in 1863, when the whole num- Der of letter carriers in the United States, now l5,O0O, was less than TOO. It did not increase materially until 1880, when the number of cities and towns having free delivery of letters had risen to l04. Ten years later, in 1890, there were 5l9, and the number is now 745. There were by the last fed CId1 CCuSuS tlO ClttCS UT tONhS lIlS United States having population in excess of 5000, and practically all these places and a few others besides have now free delivery of letters by carriers.
 One remarkable and salutary effect of the extension of the rural free deliv- cry system has been the great improve ment it has brought about in country roads. The extension of the system be- ing optional with the government, the plan has been adoptedIof favoring those regions in which the roads are best, and as consequence there has been general improvement in the condition of roads traversed by rural carriers. This has been especially the case in in the west, and it accounts for the ap- parent preference accorded to Ohio and Indiana, in which states the con- struction of good roads has been prerequisite to the establishment of rural free delivery service. In one county of Indiana the farmers incurred an expense of $2,60o to grade and inn prove road in order to obtain free de livery.
 The traditional policy of the post of flee department is constantly to ex tend its operation, taking, irrespective of the volume of revenue derived, no steps backward, and it has been found generally that as the expenses increase the revenues increase correspondingly. Thus, where rural free delivery has been established, the number of let ters written and the number of letters received have increased and in some cases to an extent sufficiently large to make up for the additional outlay caused by the delivery Pennsylvania farmer made recently a computation which other farmers have approved, and the post office department has thought worthy of publication, to the effect that, on an average, every farmer not served by rural free delivery goes at least once or twice week to the nearest post office for his mail, and occupies one-third of a working day on the trip. Putting the value of the time thus lost in the busy farming sea son at 50 cents head, the total loss would run up to many million dollars. IT. l.. Aoa,, fonnl ,rooarollx, fb Af xvhila