The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-04-05

ago we were getting an accumulation
of four bags a day in San Francisco
for Honolulu. Six days mail then
meant about twenty-five bags Of mail
for this place, which was really nothing
to speak of. Up to June IA last it had
increased to sixteen bags daily, and
since then 1t las doubl ad-t Nir y-two
sacks a day. You can readily under
stand what it is to receive eight days
later mail, which means about 256
sacks. 1t literally swamps the office.
On the transport Hancock which arriv-
ed last Monday we received 225 sacks
of mail. That was an average of thir-
ty-seven bags a day accommodating in
San Francisco. The vessel following a
day later-the Peking-brought fifty
bags of mail which had accumulated in
Itwenty-fou hours. On the Sonoma we
expect $50 bags. With sixteen men
working the Hancock mail, that was
an average of about fourteen sacks of
mail to each man. The Hancock and
Picking mail was all finished Wednes-
day afternoon at o'clock. The Han
cock first class mail was finished at 4
O'Clock the day of it's arrival.
"In postoffices in the States employees
come on at s a. m. and leave at or g.
and a fresh crowd comes on, they in
turn being relieved the next morning.
When mail comes to US the men have
to work steadily until it is all out. They
are not relieved by fresh crowds, and
considering all this I think we do very
WELL"
In the new addition to the pos office
are arranged the pitching ra ks .
metal racks which are supplied with
hooks to hold sacks up. The name of
a postoffice set in the frame above the
open mouth of the sack shows the clerk
where to pitch a piece of mail. usually
papers. A paper after being de-
posted in the drop box is TAX
en- out, the stamp cancelled and
then thrown on the asserting table.
From this point the clerk throws the
paper to the proper bag. With fifty
gaping mouths he necessarily becomes
expert. He has to judge the distance,
weight of paper, and the paper must
go into the right sack, or he will event
ually hear from headquarters. semi
circular rack holds about a dozen sacks,
above which are the labels, New York
City, IN. Y. Foreign" taking in the
European and South American mail,
which is separated at New York city:
Chicago" washington, D. c." IN.
Y. & Chic. r. P. o." taking in New
England points, the mail being sepa-
rated on the trains: Portland and s.
F. mail for the Pacific Coast states,
separated al San Francisco; ogden &
S. F." mail for Middle and Western
states. IS. F. Dis" is the mail for Ia
hiti and other places, separated at San
Francisco. By this means the mails
are despatched along the routes from
twentyfour to thirty-six hours earlier
than if the mail was separated and dis
tributed at San Francisco, as in former
years. If mails are properly pouched
and labelled here and a vessel arrives
in San Francisco in time to catch an
outgoing transcontinental train, the
sacks are transferred direct without
the formality of going through the San
Francisco postoffice.
Pitching" as the clerks term it, is
one Of the proficient arts Of the post
office service, and after considerable
practice the men rarely fail of their
mark. Failure to hit the right sack
means a tiresome walk around the
racks to extract the paper and place it
The Japanese and Chinese mail is
made up in a separate pigeonhole case,
clerks of these nationalities being en-
poyed The mails are very large. The
send away in the neighborhood
of 10000 and $4,000 letters and papers
by each Oriental steamer. The bulk of
it comes in on the Island boats to Ho-
nolulu. Two clerks handle the entire
mail and are considered quite accur-
ate. Mails for Southern China go direct
to Hongkong; that for Northern China
is redistributed at Yokohama
The Island mails are difficult to han
die. There is a rush of mail on Tues
day, the general sailing day from Ho-
nolulu of the Island steamers, and the
office is taxed to it's utmost to "tie up
and start the bags on their Journeys,
as oftentimes changes in the sacking of
"tie-ups" of mail matter have to be
made. The rules of the postoffice are
that as much of the equipment as pos
sible shall be in the postoffice and not
out upon the road, and the postmaster
is compelled to use as few sacks as pos
sible whenever convenient.