Evening star., 1901-06-05
'r Of The Evening Star:

To the Editor of The Evening Star:
The process of making post offices" "
given in The Star the 31st ultimo, as de-
scribed by an old post office inspector, is
not only meager in details, emitting sew
eral all-important steps, but the few given
are in inverse order 1t is therein stated
that in the preliminares to be observed
the first thing to do is to decide upon a
name" This is generally about the last
thing in the preliminaries, especially if
there should be much difficulty in selecting
a name for a proposed office. The first
thing is for the department to ascertain
where the office will be located, in what
quarter Section-eVen In what part of the
quarter-township, range, county and state
or territory, distance and direction to ad-
jacent offices, the probable number of in
habitants to be accommodated, and how it
can be supplied with mail service. Coinci-
dent with these preliminary steps, and in
volving them all, is to ascertain if an office
is needed there. Some general rules are to
be observed in these matters, but there are
no very flexible ones, the cases generally
requiring the exercise of common sense
rather than the application of rigid rules.
For instance, while it is not deemed practi-
cable to establish offices too near each
other, the distance generally depending on
the development or that part of the coun-
try, they may be located within hailing dis
tance Of each other when either of them
would be inaccessible to the people accom-
modated by the other. When information
on all these points is satisfactory and the
name is approved an order is made to
esta ablish the office and appointing it's post
master notice Of Whichsis sent to him to-
gether with bond for him to execute and
return When this bond is approved his
commission is sent, together with supplies,
and mail service Is ordered. Then, and not
till then, Is the office considered as really
established the facts announced, and
the case given to the topographer to To-
cate the new office on the official maps.
1t is difficult when attention is called to
this subject to refrain from some adverse
comment respecting the rules which, 1t is
correctly said, must be- observed in the Sc
lection~of names for post Offices The atti-
tude Of the railway mail service bureau, to
which these names are referred for ap-
proval or disapproval, lis in this respect
sometimes altogether too arbitrary A gen
eral rule that names should be of one
word, subject to " reasonable exceptions,
would be unobjectionable. But selections
are not restricted alone to single instead
of compound names as applicants for new
offices are instructed to select short names
of a single word. If this rule were liter
ally observed how far among seventy to
eighty thousand post Offices would the DOS
sibie combination Of letters into very short
names extend? The shorter the names the
sooner the possible combination of letters
would be exhausted. showing one advan-
tage in longer names. For the spesae rea-
son compound names may yet be found not
only an advantage, but perhaps even a ne
cessity In this way similarity in names
could be frequently obviated by the addi-
! ton of prefix or a suffix. 1t is sought to
avoid confusion. Whatever renders names
more distinctive lessons confusion There
| is no more reason why New Ulm should be
| confused with New Amsterdam because
| they have the same prefix than that Up
| ton should be confused with Updegraff be